at some point when i’m less out of it i’m gonna make a longer post about how eastern european farm workers are mysteriously omitted from talks about essential workers during the pandemic despite propping up western europe’s food industry literally at the cost of their lives. like i wanna be super crystal clear here: if you’ve eaten fresh produce or meat products in, or imported from, germany, uk, the netherlands, italy or spain this year (maybe thinking you’re doing your part in supporting the economy by buying locally even) - eastern europeans have gotten sick and died so you could do that. yet somehow, for some reason, they are not essential workers.
‘but this kind of thing doesn’t make it to the news! how could i have known about it?’ fine. ok. here’s what 15 minutes of googling will get you:
- ‘forced to sign contracts in german, dutch, or other languages they don’t read, [workers] often find out upon arrival that their working hours are longer, their salaries much smaller than promised and their living conditions abysmal, with housing and living with little protection against covid-19’
- romanian farm worker nicolae bahan got infected with covid-19 while working on an asparagus farm in germany. according to several fellow workers the farm owners refused to provide healthcare and a space to safely quarantine and instead locked him inside a container out in the field where he died shortly.
- another romanian worker on the same farm talks about how until the end of march they were not provided soap in the bathrooms and risked having their hours cut if they stopped to have a drink of water while out in the field.
- germany
flies in thousands of romanian workers at the height of the pandemic.
farm owners claim they can’t hire domestically because ‘most germans are
not used to working stooped in the fields for hours on end. they
complain about backache. romanians and poles are stronger and they work
weekends and public holidays.’
- despite
a severe workforce shortage many brits refuse to take on farm work,
citing contract length, location and family duties. meanwhile romanians
(who are regularly underpaid and abused by employees) are now lauded as ‘key
skilled workers’ during the shortage (but no mention is made of adjusting their salaries to reflect either their skill or the fact that they are in high demand)
- over 1500 east european workers at german meat processing plant tönnies tested positive for covid-19.
- former romanian employee at tönnies talks about poor working conditions and workplace abuse. employees were forced to work overtime without pay and told not to take sick leave.
- romanian and bulgarian workers infected with covid-19 while working in other german meat processing plants. employers pay by the hour and don’t check working conditions.
- bulgarian workers in italy have rocks thrown at them by angry crowd while protesting the lockdown that will likely cost them their jobs.
if you didn’t know before, you know now. and if you can be outraged at injustices and abuse happening on another continent you can be outraged at injustices and abuse happening the next town over that make it possible for you to get your reasonably priced five-a-day. not just this year, in the middle of a pandemic, but for well over a decade.
