We need up to 60,000 seasonal workers each year to harvest food. Almost all of these workers are from outside the UK. Many are on the seasonal worker visa scheme, which was introduced to address post-Brexit agricultural labor shortages. As explored in the Report, these workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation. Land Workers Union‘new report, Debt, Immigration and Exploitation,and Joint Committee on Immigrant Welfare, New Economics Foundation, concern about labor exploitation, maintain and the Farmers Solidarity Network of former immigrant seasonal workers.
NEF analyzes how the value created in fruit production, processing and distribution is shared across the supply chain. Our research shows that the average experience of UK migrant workers is absolute poverty.The most shocking thing about this statement is that it reflects Average Seasonal worker experience, and not “National Farmers Union calls ‘isolated incident’ claimed.
After deducting accommodation, national insurance, visa and travel costs, migrant workers working in gardening typically earn less than £236 a week (in 2021 prices), below the absolute poverty line of £259 a week.
This is because the workers who pick the soft fruit keep only 8% of the total retail price of the produce. This means that when you buy a £2.30 basket of strawberries in the supermarket, the worker gets 18p after costs, the supermarket gets £1.26, of which 14p is profit, the farm gets 50p, of which 5p is profit, and Packing and distribution companies get 5p, 5p of which is profit. Get 10p.
To make matters worse, many workers also pay more in income taxes that are difficult to recoup from afar, meaning they lose even more.
Even more significant are unlicensed broker fees paid by workers to third parties in their own country. The fees – which are illegal under UK law – can run as high as £5,000. Broker fees of £1,700 reduce effective weekly earnings to £122, while fees of £5,000 mean workers lose money on average.
Our report includes written testimony from researcher and former seasonal worker Clark McAllister. He paints a vivid picture of life in the orchard.clark estimate ‘at least half of the workforce [on the farm] Likely to be heavily indebted in the hiring process”. The Guardian and Bureau of Investigative Journalism also reported Examples of workers with high levels of debt aboundusually around £5,000.
Poverty and economic insecurity enable other forms of exploitation. This includes bullying and intimidation, wage theft, reporting of hours violations, as well as discrimination, housing issues and barriers to accessing healthcare.
the British Home Office respond to this report say they “Always take decisive action when we think abuse is taking place or conditions are not being met”, but that has not historically been the case. A report by the Independent Chief Ombudsman for Borders and Immigration found the Home Office was told about poor treatment, discrimination, accommodation problems and barriers to healthcare access, and “did not investigate any allegations implemented by the Home Office, scheme operators or other government organisations”
These workers spend long days in harsh conditions putting food on our supermarket shelves. They are key workers who keep the UK going and they deserve a fair share of the wealth they generate.
The government should take the following actions:
- The Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should remove restrictive visas in the long term and make major changes to the seasonal worker visa scheme in the short term.
- Debt should not be an unavoidable necessity to participate in the program – we must eliminate fees and assess the debt risk of the program.
- Current labor market enforcement fails. We recommend a well-funded, worker-led system that focuses beyond a narrow focus on the breaches that constitute modern slavery, but adheres to standards and UK law.
- Supermarkets take the lion’s share of the value of production and should pay higher wages. In our case study, they received 54.7% of the final sale price of the soft fruit and made a profit of £3 million. This amount is enough to lift all the workers on the farm out of poverty.
Photo: iStock
