It's strawberry harvest time in Huelva and thousands of african migrants find themselves marginated and living in dreadful conditions due to the negative of the agricultural employers in Huelva to take them on. This is the same situation they are forced to go through since 2002.
From mid 90s on, the number of african workers taking part in the strawberry harvest (“la campaña –the campaign, militar name- de la fresaâ€), tradicionally carried out just for andalusian workers (“temporeros†–time workers-), has been inceasingly increasing. There was, there's still, a growing labor demand in the nearby irrigated lands. For quite a long time it was highly profitable for its owners to contract workers without papers (“sin papelesâ€) and to pay them a pay's day (“el jornalâ€) much lower than it was fixed in the workers' agreement. However, it all changed when these migrant workers began to organize themselves with the help of the unions already operating there: They began to reclaim their labor rights.
From the 2002 “campaña†onwards, and after several labor fights, the employers, in colusion with the PP Government, decide to get rid of these african workers and to replace them with migrant women from Eastern Europe. This situation culminated with the dramatic “sit-in†(“encierroâ€) in the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville in june 2002, at the same time that the European Union summit was being held in this city. Two years later, the situation hasn't changed.
In this context we had an interview with a worker in CGT-Andalusia Immigration Secretary:
How is the general situation of african workers in the strawberry harvest in Huelva this year?
African workers are living in several “shanty towns†in subhuman conditions. You can find these settlements all along the strawberry region: Mazagon, Palos, Lepe,... with 800, 900 or even 1000 people living there. They live under plastics, without water, “recycling†food form the dustbins… There's an increasing number of subsaharian migrants, though most of them still are from Morocco, with more and more presence of minors, and also there are important groups from Mauritania and Algeria. The settlements are structured according to ethnic groups. Among them, you can find many migrants with papers that didn't find a job either –due to the racist, and not only legal, discrimination against them-, though most of them are “sin papelesâ€.
And what about Eastern Europe workers?
They are about 19.000, mostly romanian or polish women, that come here for 3 months with 3 months-term contracts already signed in their countries (“contratos en origenâ€). They usually don't know thier labor rights and the employers consider that they are meeker than african workers. African workers find themselves fully marginated: 3 years ago they were day laborers (“jornalerosâ€) and now they are on the edge of begging. However, the situation of these Eastren women isn't good either.
Which part are the institutions playing?
Their part is essentially a welfare, and still insufficient one. The Red Cross dealt with a food distribution program, only for 800 people, and it has recently been cut off due to the lack of budget. The Red Cross has even denounced the institutions neglect and criticized that they only want to put a patch on it, and yet very poorly.
What about the unions?
The unions that are implicated in this problem are Sindicato Unitario (“Unitary Unionâ€), Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (S.O.C., “Land workers unionâ€) and CGT (“General Work Confederationâ€), that are gathering efforts in the strawberry fight. The first one, a union from Huelva, with communist roots; the second one, SOC, with a long experience in the zone, created its own “Oficina del Temporero†(day laborer's office); finally, CGT-A intervenes through the aforementioned Immigration Secretary.
What are they doing in the zone?
We carry out a work shared between “shanty towns†and the country estates (the infamous “cortijosâ€). We visit every day the first ones in order to offer them assistance and union information and to distribute medicines, clothes and food, and at the same time try to catch the mass media eye on the conflict to made it more and more broadly visible. In the country estates, we are organizing assemblies with the working women. There we tell them about labor rights and gather their complaints and denounces. Many of them have their passports retained, lack a copy of their contracts and get usually paid less below the agreement. They suffer also from psychologic pressure, by means of dismissal threats or even physical agressions. We try to make this situation visible, either through press conferences, or reporting it directly to the Administration.