- Coronavirus cases have recently appeared on certain farms in the Gard, Vaucluse and Bouches du Rhône.
- Among the persons concerned, many foreign employees whose living conditions on site are of concern.
- And behind this situation, a question: Should we (and can we) rethink the appeal to seasonal workers in French agriculture?
The big day, finally. After three years of various procedures, unexpected dismissals and evasions from the opposing party, Yasmine, like four of her former companions in misfortune, will know if the industrial tribunal of Arles gives her reason this Tuesday morning against the Spanish temporary agency Laboral Terra, missing from speed cameras.
This 37-year-old Moroccan-Spanish woman, brought up from Catalonia to pack pears on farms in south-eastern France after the financial crisis of 2009, tells a tale of twists and turns. Poor housing, harassment, verbal and physical assault, wages not paid, work contract not respected, request for sexual favor or bribe in exchange for work. And finally, a serious illness, multiple sclerosis.
"No one has been put in solitary confinement"
“These companies treat us worse than animals. Yesterday Laboral Terra, today Terra Fecundis. When I think of all these Covid-19 positive seasonal workers who find themselves without sick leave, crowded together, probably deprived of food, without any rights, nothing ... What exactly is it slavery? How many people have to be exploited for a system change? We are also there to give courage to others to file a complaint. ” Others ? Several dozen workers in quarantine under questionable conditions since a cluster appeared in certain agricultural holdings in Gard, Vaucluse and Bouches du Rhône. More than 150 positive cases at the end of last week, according to health authorities, without certainty of being able to contain the fire.
"We live in several rooms, there is no soap in the toilets, and we all share the same kitchen", explains, videos to support, a South American employee of Terra Fecundis, housed in an old man farm building occupied by around fifty people, near Maillane (Bouches-du-Rhône). This young father recounts the uncertainty in the camp.
“We don't know who is positive or not. During the first phase of tests, on site, the manager of the company that manages the camp asked us to refuse the analyzes, claiming that if there were positives, the French state would prevent us all from working. There are reports of five positive cases, but no one has been placed in solitary confinement. Some go to work in the morning, others do not. ” A second series of tests, conducted in a gymnasium in the city of Arles last Thursday, registered 26 contaminated seasonal workers. This time, Red Cross volunteers came to communicate the result. But according to Manuel, "some of the people concerned have not left the place, and some have refused to be tested and are still with us".
Moroccans and Tunisians trapped at home
Where did the contamination start? Maybe the farm where Manuel sleeps after spending the day in the fields. Perhaps from a campsite near Noves, as the latest rumors claim. Perhaps still ruined apartments in the city centers of Châteaurenard, Tarascon, Beaucaire, which look like Quito during the summer months, given the number of Ecuadorians per square meter. Understand here that we are talking about the back of the pack of contract employees. The famous posted workers invented by the EU for economic sectors in tension. Portuguese, Polish, Romanians in vegetable farms in the north of the Loire. Spanish, Senegalese or South American with Spanish papers to collect strawberries, apricots, peaches or asparagus in the South. André Bernard, FNSEA president of the regional chamber of agriculture, gives us the overview.
“In PACA alone, we need 80,000 seasonal contracts to run the store. About half of them live in France all year round. Then there are the European workers, and finally the OFFI [French Office for Immigration and Integration] contracts. Except that because of the Covid, these people, often Tunisians or Moroccans, were not allowed to come ”. You just have to remember the 73 seasonal Bulgarians who came to harvest the melon in Charente, and finally returned to Sofia after two days of waiting in Orly when they were perfectly in order.
A large strawberry producer in Carpentras wishing to remain anonymous: “I was waiting for 90 Tunisians to pick up my plots in the spring. I'm talking to you about people who have been coming for twenty years, sometimes over several generations. I don't even know if they will be able to come this year. So I had to do otherwise ”. An arborist in the same corner: “I have 75 hectares of peach and 15 hectares of apricots. In March, I need 50 people, and in June, I need double that. I was waiting for 20 Moroccans who remained stranded at home. It is a problem for me and above all it is an economic drama for them. There, a seasonal worker who comes to work in France supports a whole family. And I have to replace them ”.
Mixed success operation "Arms for your plate"
This was the meaning of Minister Didier Guillaume's vibrant appeal to the shadow army, these French partially-unemployed workers ready to invade the fields to rescue their farmers who lack arms. Not the total flop we wanted to make fun of, but not a real success either. Barely 20,000 profiles selected for 300,000 applications. A contrast between goodwill and reality hardly surprising for André Bernard: "We are talking about jobs that we can not provide in normal times, even by unemployed people who are local, because they do not are not used to working under these conditions. Spending hours folded in half to pick fruit with the vagaries of the climate is hard. ”
Patrice Vulpian, vice-president of the National Federation of Producers, joined him in part: “I managed to hire 16 people on my farm in Saint-Martin de Cau between Facebook, Pôle emploi, and Des bras pour ton assiette. It was for the thinning of the fruits, an operation which requires above all to be rigorous. You have to stay up for 7 hours but physically, it's not too complicated ”.
"Arms for your plate" platform: "It's a job to work in #agriculture. Believing that we were going, on a magic wand, to tell waiters" you become agricultural workers ", it was a mistake, "said @_richardramos .CCR pic.twitter.com/dY86YPmK2y
- LCP (@LCP) May 14, 2020Regarding the harvest itself, which is more technical, our operator recognizes that he usually uses a dozen employees via Terra Fecundis, a little more this year due to the circumstances. "We can blame a lot of this temporary agency, but they meet a need that is difficult to deny," blows an agricultural union. Even if it means looking away from unsightly practices. According to our information, most of the seasonal workers transported by bus by Terra Fecundis disembarked in full confinement, dodging the rare border checks at night.
"These temporary work companies and user companies have tried to ignore the rules of crossing borders and have undoubtedly contributed to the spread of the virus by circulating seasonal workers from one farm to another", denounces Jean- Yves Constantin, vice-president of the Mutuelle sociale agricole (MSA), particularly attentive to the status of posted workers and deviations from regulations in the agricultural sector.
Terra Fecundis manages the accommodation and pays the salaries
The CFDT delegate points out the housing conditions for posted workers, when the OFFI contracts are much better off, often a 40m2 apartment / kitchen for two provided by the operator on his site. In 2017, the prefect of Gard had also ordered the closure of accommodation sublet by Terra Fecundis after noting "the disgusting state of the rooms, toilets, toilets and kitchens". Many farmers admit that they do not really know where the “Terra Fecundis” they sleep sleep. They also do not manage their assignment or their pay slip, which is entirely subcontracted to the temporary employment agency which brings them from Spain. The latter even provides the "responsible" supposed to monitor this workforce 5 euros cheaper per hour than a French temporary worker, going so far as to do the shopping for him to avoid any contact with the operator or with population. According to various testimonies, the abuses can be numerous, between the hellish rates (70 hours per week), the unpaid overtime and the absence of paid vacation.
Manuel claims that he sweated 10 hours a day six days a week until the end of May, when he asked to change operations because the company was deducting 40 minutes of actual work from him each day. Then what? "Then I was put away, I have no more work," he says. An ostracism that has not improved since the young man published several videos on social networks to alert him to his situation.
“I did it so that all those who do not know what awaits them in France stay in Spain. Terra Fecundis has already warned me that I will never work for them again, but that doesn't interest me either. I'm just waiting for them to pay me what they owe me and I'm going home. ” Very discreet, the temporary employment agency only spoke through the voice of its lawyer at our colleagues in La Provence . "We are only applying the rules of European law", maintains Guy André, who defends a company "honorably known and which respects the principles of humanity". Terra Fecundis, however, has little taste for this bad publicity, especially since she is preparing for an extraordinary trial.
Long-awaited trial
After a false start in early May because of the Covid-19, French justice plans to claim no less than 112 million euros in social security contributions that Terra Fecundis is accused of having concealed from URSAFF by declaring its employees in Spain rather than in France. “This is the case that presents the most significant financial issues in judicial history in the area of fraud. It is therefore particularly awaited and monitored, ”confided Me Jean-Victor Borel, the lawyer for Urssaf Paca, in the columns of Le Monde in early April. Can the judicial outcome of this long-awaited trial help to rethink the appeal to seasonal workers in French agriculture?
Back in pictures: Pierre Dartout @ Prefet13 visited the country of #Arles again last week to meet farmers and #workers #seasonals.
Last weekend, the mobilization of state services made it possible to isolate 63 people # covid19 pic.twitter.com/6jo9Njpa7x
“There was an awareness during the confinement that we must restore nobility to French food, wants to believe André Bernard. In PACA, there is enough to do vegetables all year round. We must make our young people understand that there is work, but not from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, not Monday to Friday, and not much more than the SMIC because we have to face competition that breaks production costs. "
The famous Spanish strawberries sold three times cheaper in supermarkets are however a cliche less and less widespread, according to Patrice Fluvien. “By working on the environment and praising the quality of our products, we manage to convince central purchasing offices. We have everything we need in Provence to feed the whole of Europe ”. The climate, the terrain, the water… What about the workers? “We have been raising the question of the attractiveness of agricultural professions for twenty years, sighs Jean-Yves Constantin. The option has been taken to call on massive numbers of foreign workers ”. And the union representative to spin off a ready-made metaphor: “It's like masks, after all. Except that instead of relocating the resource, we have delocalized human know-how ”.
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