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THREAD: COVID hit, Europe locked down, the EU poured money into the farming sector & site inspections halted. What happened during the pandemic to essential workers on Europe's farms?
For more than 2 months we investigated #InvisibleWorkers
For more than 2 months we investigated #InvisibleWorkers
We uncover how migrant farmworkers enticed to harvest Europe's fields during COVID-19 were cheated of wages; forced to work long, undeclared hours; & in some cases fired & turned out empty-handed onto the streets during lockdown
Blending traditional reporting (where safe to do so) & #OSINT we documented modern slavery conditions in some of the EU's largest agri-farm businesses in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy & Greece
The investigation led by @lhreports in partnership w/ @DerSpiegel @Mediapart @Guardian @Euronews @FTM_nl @irpinvestigates shows how #InvisibleWorkers were systematically underpaid, exploited & put at risk on farms that got COVID-related emergency subsidies
#InvisibleWorkers reveals how migrants were made to repay "free" flights; work without social distance, buy their own masks & gloves; housed in slums or tractor barns & gouged for doing so by employers pulling in millions of euros in public money.
COVID-19 saw the EU release advance payments from the €58 billion pool of CAP subsidies & relax state aid rules. But CAP says more about the treatment of rivers and dairy cattle than it does the 10,000s migrants who harvest cheap peaches, strawberries & asparagus for Europeans.
Invisibility in Brussels has meant no voice in shaping CAP, no seat at the table in the current round of negotiations over its future.
In Germany @derspiegel trace the fate of Romanian George Mitache, tempted to Germany to pick strawberries, housed in a tractor barn, before being thrown out unpaid after asking for his contract https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/erntehelfer-in-deutschland-das-brutale-geschaeft-mit-den-unsichtbaren-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000172071836?sara_ecid=soci_upd_KsBF0AFjflf0DZCxpPYDCQgO1dEMph
In the Netherlands, we uncover the loophole agreed between temporary agencies and unions that enables them to evade "equal pay for equal work" in agriculture and the food industry, with mostly migrant workers paying the price https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/uitbuiting-arbeidsmigranten-voedselindustrie-fnv-uitzendbureaus?share=J8DqcCig8uVs6ZG0CM9e1Vf0MdopS2KCCzC7uaZrmKGuIaFtEBY%2F2i4O1xXTXQ%3D%3D
In France @mediapart found Colombian Juan who worked in modern slavery conditions at Europe's leading supplier of organic carrots https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/170720/dans-les-landes-des-saisonniers-revelent-des-abus-chez-le-champion-des-carottes-bio
In Greece, #invisibleworkers from Bangladesh toil in the strawberry fields not even knowing who they work for or appearing on company books -- their costs are written off as fertiliser. Full story in #EfSyn
In Spain we find #invisibleworkers physically, verbally & sexually abused, forced to rent slum-space & work under assumed names to earn social security credits for Spanish citizens https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/17/invisible-workers-underpaid-exploited-and-put-at-risk-on-europe-s-farms
