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    The view from a UK organic veg farm Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on October 10, 2020, 12:11 pm, in reply to "Invisible workers: Underpaid, exploited and put at risk on Europe’s farms "

    I'm coming to the end of my seasonal worker stint nr Worcester for this year. 7.30-5 (20 mins tea break, 1hr lunch) mon-fri, £50 per week plus food & accommodation in the farmhouse. A volunteer with less experience than me does slightly fewer hours for no pay (just food & accommodation) and there are 2 other growers on £750 and £500 / month, one in a standalone building, one in a vehicle they did up to get a bit more privacy. It's acknowledged that we're basically working illegally, but contractually they get round it by using the govt's accommodation offset of around £50/week and saying that they work about 1/2 the hours that they actually do. I think it's quite a common set-up in the UK organic scene where there's no money in veg growing but quite a few wealthy landowners with spare living space and idealistic projects they want to get started. And for the most part none of the workers make waves or too many demands because of gratitude for being able to live 'alternatively' and I guess fear of upsetting that situation. People jokingly use the word 'feudalism' but that's basically the core of it.

    Our benevolent landowner was recently asking us to put a financial price on what we thought our rooms were worth, including asking what value the other worker would put on their extra privacy & independence by living in a van at the bottom of the field. His draft proposal included a valuation of living in a caravan at £450/month 'in kind' and even £400 for a 'tent pitch' (generously my situation of having a room in the house was considered as equivalent to 'only' £350). This is presumably going to become the new justification for paying us considerably below minimum wage for the full time work we do, even though the govt offset is a flat figure of around £50/week, regardless of what value might be independently estimated. A new position is being advertised with 'salary subject to experience and living arrangements'.

    Meanwhile a new 'vision' has been 'dreamed in' for the direction the place will be taking from now on, completely reversing previous imperatives of making the farm 'financially viable' to a 'community' focus with more volunteering and educational activities. None of us were consulted - there's a document that has been handed round for comment but it's universally regarded as a sham, based on other similar experiments in the past where our input was ignored. We're supposed to 'highlight in green areas you agree with, in red, anything you struggle with, and in yellow anything you are not clear about' - ie: disagreement is not an option, just an invitation for more patronising explanations because we're too dumb to get with the program. A lot of the driving force behind these changes come from the landowner's new wife who has zero farming experience but has spent time in volunteer-based spiritual communities. She was installed in a management role with no interview, no advertisement of the position and no consultation, just a meeting where it was presented as a fait accompli. Many have already clashed with her over the arrogant way she ignores their on-the-ground experience and insists on doing things her way even though many others have tried and failed at the same schemes. I thought a spiritual practice was supposed to give you humility? Obviously I don’t understand...

    That's what you get in a feudal system, I guess. Hold your breath and hope the one-eyed idealism of the owners doesn't completely wreck what you're trying to accomplish. I'm hoping to work for a CSA scheme next, maybe that'll be better... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture

    cheers,
    I

    PS: the above rant was triggered by this part of the above euronews article:

    ‘Juan, a young Colombian, flew into the country with a working holiday visa. He heard of the Larrère farms on a Facebook page advertising a job as a seasonal farmworker in southwestern France. But he wasn’t hired for the job by Larrère – instead, by a subcontractor that regularly provides seasonal workers to Larrère and other farms in the region.

    Juan was repatriated to Colombia with help from consular authorities at the end of May after his two-month stint as a farmworker in locked-down France proved a bitter disappointment. Starting with the accommodation: a guest house cramming in more than 40 seasonal workers.

    "'Welcome to hell', I remember being told. And I thought it was a joke. But when they opened the door and I saw the house... it was a disaster," Juan, who requested we don’t publish his full name, said in a phone interview.

    Euronews and its partners obtained copies of blueprints of the house, owned by the Larrère family, as well as logs of tenants and the rent they paid – around €200 a month, deducted straight from their payslip. In late June, the tenants gave our reporters a quick tour.

    Up to five adults were packed together in one bedroom. Others slept in bunk beds, in violation of French laws relating to the housing of seasonal workers. No bedsheets or pillows were provided. There was no toilet paper in the restrooms.’

    Yeah, but at least you got paid!

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