Illustration. Noteworthy
Maria Chereseva, Marcel Gascón Barberá and Niall Sargent
Bucharest, Dublin, Sofia
BIRN December 17, 2020
Workers hired to pick fruit and mushrooms in Ireland say that they faced long hours, low pay and difficult relations with supervisors, according to a four-month investigation by BIRN and Noteworthy.
Three years in a row, up to 2019, Elena [not her real name] flew from her hometown of Sofia in Bulgaria to Ireland at harvest time to pick strawberries and other soft fruits for Keelings, the almost century-old Irish food giant north of Dublin.
She was paid much more than what she could expect to earn doing the same job in Bulgaria, but the work was sometimes a “nightmare”, she said.
In an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and Noteworthy, Elena, who asked that her real name not be published for fear of hurting her chances of future employment, recalled overcrowded cabins provided for workers to take breaks in the farm fields and long workdays.
Sometimes, they would work 13 or 14 hours a day, meaning some workers would only get back to their accommodation at 9 p.m. since there was only one bus to shuttle them back and forth, she said.
“They would go back, eat and go to bed,” Elena said. “Everybody does it for the money.”
Though the horticulture sector takes up less than one per cent of Irish agricultural land, it packs a significant economic punch, worth 476 million euros last year and directly employing 6,600 people.
But the current government is pushing for it to grow, targeting a 60 per cent increase in primary production and the creation of 23,000 jobs along the supply chain under a 10-year strategy.
In May 2017, then Agriculture Minister Michael Creed said investment in people would be “crucial” to the strategy’s success.
But a four-month investigation by BIRN and Noteworthy, an Irish investigative media platform, shows some people – the migrant workers big producers depend on at harvest time – are being let down. We can reveal:
Three years in a row, up to 2019, Elena [not her real name] flew from her hometown of Sofia in Bulgaria to Ireland at harvest time to pick strawberries and other soft fruits for Keelings, the almost century-old Irish food giant north of Dublin.
She was paid much more than what she could expect to earn doing the same job in Bulgaria, but the work was sometimes a “nightmare”, she said.
In an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and Noteworthy, Elena, who asked that her real name not be published for fear of hurting her chances of future employment, recalled overcrowded cabins provided for workers to take breaks in the farm fields and long workdays.
Sometimes, they would work 13 or 14 hours a day, meaning some workers would only get back to their accommodation at 9 p.m. since there was only one bus to shuttle them back and forth, she said.
“They would go back, eat and go to bed,” Elena said. “Everybody does it for the money.”
Though the horticulture sector takes up less than one per cent of Irish agricultural land, it packs a significant economic punch, worth 476 million euros last year and directly employing 6,600 people.
But the current government is pushing for it to grow, targeting a 60 per cent increase in primary production and the creation of 23,000 jobs along the supply chain under a 10-year strategy.
In May 2017, then Agriculture Minister Michael Creed said investment in people would be “crucial” to the strategy’s success.
But a four-month investigation by BIRN and Noteworthy, an Irish investigative media platform, shows some people – the migrant workers big producers depend on at harvest time – are being let down. We can reveal:
The experience of a number of workers from the Eastern European states in the mushroom and soft fruit industry who spoke to BIRN and Noteworthy.
Concerns about labour practices in the mushroom industry in the border area, according to findings shared with BIRN and Noteworthy by a two-year cross-border project, members of which spoke to BIRN and Noteworthy about their findings.
A 2018 survey by Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, and released to BIRN and Noteworthy through a Freedom of Information, FOI, request indicates the horticulture industry faces difficulty in retaining staff due in part to low wages, poor working conditions, lack of suitable accommodation and poor recruitment skills.
An analysis of Workplace Relations Commission data released through an FOI request shows that it uncovered almost 185,000 euros in unpaid wages since 2017, affecting over 3,300 employees in the soft fruit and mushroom sectors.
Keelings defended the working and living conditions facing seasonal workers picking its fruit. CEO Caroline Keeling told BIRN/Noteworthy that the company had increased the number of cabins for staff breaks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and that workers, before coming to Ireland, were fully informed about “above average weekly hours” to make sure particular crops are picked during peak harvesting seasons.
Following the money
Illustration. Photo: EPA/JAIPAL SINGH
Bulgaria is not just the poorest country in the European Union but also has one of the fastest shrinking populations in the world, projected to contract by just under a quarter between 2019 and 2050.
The decline is not only a result of low fertility rates, typical across the European continent, but also of a high mortality rate and mass emigration.
Data analyst Boyan Yurukov and economist Georgi Angelov of the Sofia-based Institute of Market Economy estimate that around 1.3 million Bulgarians live abroad, mostly in Europe. Bulgaria has a population of seven million.
Roughly 30 per cent of those working in Europe are seasonal workers in the agricultural sector, according to a 2018 estimate by the Bulgarian Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Agriculture.
And they are a mainstay of the Bulgarian economy, with remittances – some 920 million euros in the first nine months of 2019 – exceeding foreign direct investment in recent years.
Likewise, at 3.3 per cent of economic output, neighbouring Romania ranked third alongside Latvia among EU states in 2019 in terms of reliance on remittances, behind Croatia [6.6 per cent of GDP] in first place and Bulgaria [3.4 per cent] in second
Bulgaria is not just the poorest country in the European Union but also has one of the fastest shrinking populations in the world, projected to contract by just under a quarter between 2019 and 2050.
The decline is not only a result of low fertility rates, typical across the European continent, but also of a high mortality rate and mass emigration.
Data analyst Boyan Yurukov and economist Georgi Angelov of the Sofia-based Institute of Market Economy estimate that around 1.3 million Bulgarians live abroad, mostly in Europe. Bulgaria has a population of seven million.
Roughly 30 per cent of those working in Europe are seasonal workers in the agricultural sector, according to a 2018 estimate by the Bulgarian Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Agriculture.
And they are a mainstay of the Bulgarian economy, with remittances – some 920 million euros in the first nine months of 2019 – exceeding foreign direct investment in recent years.
Likewise, at 3.3 per cent of economic output, neighbouring Romania ranked third alongside Latvia among EU states in 2019 in terms of reliance on remittances, behind Croatia [6.6 per cent of GDP] in first place and Bulgaria [3.4 per cent] in second
. It’s no surprise that so many seek work in the farming fields of Western Europe, with Bulgarian workers saying they earn on average 1,200 euros per month before tax in the Irish horticulture sector compared to an estimated average in the Bulgarian agricultural sector of roughly 900 leva, or 450 euros.
It’s a similar story in Romania, resulting in severe labour shortages in the domestic agricultural sector.
“I can tell you that right now in the [Romanian] countryside it is harder to find a day labourer in agriculture than a CEO for a multinational company,” said Florin Constantin, founder of AGXecutive, which specialises in recruitment and training in agribusiness.
Madlen Nikolova, a doctoral student at the University of Sheffield in the UK, said the UK and Ireland are the preferred destinations of Bulgarian workers, rather than the likes of Greece, Spain and Italy where conditions can be much worse.
“Many of these people actually are employed in Bulgaria but the wages are so humiliatingly low that, for example, in the tailoring factories people would take unpaid leave to work additionally on the fields of Greece, Spain or the UK in order to be able to afford heating for one season,” said Nikolova, who has examined labour exploitation in the garment, security and call centre sectors in Bulgaria.
It’s a similar story in Romania, resulting in severe labour shortages in the domestic agricultural sector.
“I can tell you that right now in the [Romanian] countryside it is harder to find a day labourer in agriculture than a CEO for a multinational company,” said Florin Constantin, founder of AGXecutive, which specialises in recruitment and training in agribusiness.
Madlen Nikolova, a doctoral student at the University of Sheffield in the UK, said the UK and Ireland are the preferred destinations of Bulgarian workers, rather than the likes of Greece, Spain and Italy where conditions can be much worse.
“Many of these people actually are employed in Bulgaria but the wages are so humiliatingly low that, for example, in the tailoring factories people would take unpaid leave to work additionally on the fields of Greece, Spain or the UK in order to be able to afford heating for one season,” said Nikolova, who has examined labour exploitation in the garment, security and call centre sectors in Bulgaria.
Money Transferred Home in the EU
Highest Inbound Personal Remittances (% of GDP)
‘Busted’ by work and living conditions
But exploitation occurs abroad too.
A pan-European Europol investigation in 2020 identified 44 people suspected of involvement in human trafficking for labour exploitation and over 300 victims, many from Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania.
In October 2016, Romanian national Ioan Lacatus was sentenced to 30 months in prison for trafficking people for unlicensed labour on fruit farms in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, forcing his victims to work 70 hours a week and accommodating 15 in a single house with one toilet, one shower and limited cold food.
While no such cases have been recorded in the Republic of Ireland, migrant workers particularly in mushroom picking – the biggest horticulture industry in Ireland – face significant labour rights issues, according to migrant rights experts and academics.
“Some workers in the cross-border mushroom industry continue to experience poor working conditions, low pay rates, inadequate terms and conditions of employment, and less than optimum employment practices,” said Dr Stephen Bloomer of Ulster University, referring to the results of research conducted between mid-2018 and late 2020 involving 51 mushroom pickers from Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Ukraine and Lithuania.
Concerns over labour in the sector first surfaced in Ireland in the mid-2000s, when the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, SIPTU, and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, MRCI, raised concerns over conditions facing workers in the industry, particularly with regards to long working hours and low pay.
MRCI set up a support group in 2006 for almost 450 mushroom workers, carrying out mediation on their behalf that led to the recovery of an estimated 250,000 euros in back wages from around 20 farms.
This was followed up by academic research in 2014 from universities in the North into the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland, including interviews with workers, that highlighted similar concerns.
Conditions described by mushroom pickers today are “consistent with our research over the years,” said Edel McGinley, director of the MRCI, which is involved in the project called Crossing Borders, Breaking Boundaries examining labour conditions for migrant workers.
Bloomer said that while some workers do earn “decent wages”, many are left physically “busted” from the long hours and working conditions, including kidney problems from the low temperatures in mushroom houses and eye problems from poor lighting.
Neck and back pain, as well as skin allergies and respiratory issues, are also common among the workers, according to research last year by Ulster University.
Polina Malcheva, a Bulgarian liaison officer at the Community Intercultural Programme in Northern Ireland, said that workplace injuries, particularly back and wrist pain, are “very typical of the Bulgarian community”.
In 99 per cent of cases, Malcheva said, the workers wait to return to Bulgaria to get treatment. “Medical care is expensive [in Ireland] and, on top of everything, you have to translate all your documents. It’s just too much and that is why [cases of workplace injuries are] often undiscovered.”
One female migrant worker, who spoke to BIRN/Noteworthy on condition of anonymity, described coming down with a “really bad flu” in Ireland a few years ago and being unable to find a local doctor who would take her on as a new patient. She eventually found an Eastern European doctor in another Irish county but, with only three weeks permitted sick leave, she had to return to work even though she was not feeling well.
But exploitation occurs abroad too.
A pan-European Europol investigation in 2020 identified 44 people suspected of involvement in human trafficking for labour exploitation and over 300 victims, many from Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania.
In October 2016, Romanian national Ioan Lacatus was sentenced to 30 months in prison for trafficking people for unlicensed labour on fruit farms in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, forcing his victims to work 70 hours a week and accommodating 15 in a single house with one toilet, one shower and limited cold food.
While no such cases have been recorded in the Republic of Ireland, migrant workers particularly in mushroom picking – the biggest horticulture industry in Ireland – face significant labour rights issues, according to migrant rights experts and academics.
“Some workers in the cross-border mushroom industry continue to experience poor working conditions, low pay rates, inadequate terms and conditions of employment, and less than optimum employment practices,” said Dr Stephen Bloomer of Ulster University, referring to the results of research conducted between mid-2018 and late 2020 involving 51 mushroom pickers from Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Ukraine and Lithuania.
Concerns over labour in the sector first surfaced in Ireland in the mid-2000s, when the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, SIPTU, and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, MRCI, raised concerns over conditions facing workers in the industry, particularly with regards to long working hours and low pay.
MRCI set up a support group in 2006 for almost 450 mushroom workers, carrying out mediation on their behalf that led to the recovery of an estimated 250,000 euros in back wages from around 20 farms.
This was followed up by academic research in 2014 from universities in the North into the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland, including interviews with workers, that highlighted similar concerns.
Conditions described by mushroom pickers today are “consistent with our research over the years,” said Edel McGinley, director of the MRCI, which is involved in the project called Crossing Borders, Breaking Boundaries examining labour conditions for migrant workers.
Bloomer said that while some workers do earn “decent wages”, many are left physically “busted” from the long hours and working conditions, including kidney problems from the low temperatures in mushroom houses and eye problems from poor lighting.
Neck and back pain, as well as skin allergies and respiratory issues, are also common among the workers, according to research last year by Ulster University.
Polina Malcheva, a Bulgarian liaison officer at the Community Intercultural Programme in Northern Ireland, said that workplace injuries, particularly back and wrist pain, are “very typical of the Bulgarian community”.
In 99 per cent of cases, Malcheva said, the workers wait to return to Bulgaria to get treatment. “Medical care is expensive [in Ireland] and, on top of everything, you have to translate all your documents. It’s just too much and that is why [cases of workplace injuries are] often undiscovered.”
One female migrant worker, who spoke to BIRN/Noteworthy on condition of anonymity, described coming down with a “really bad flu” in Ireland a few years ago and being unable to find a local doctor who would take her on as a new patient. She eventually found an Eastern European doctor in another Irish county but, with only three weeks permitted sick leave, she had to return to work even though she was not feeling well.
Support to New Employees Offered by Companies
Teagasc Horticulture Labour Survey 2018
Fear of speaking out
Despite the hardship, the concerns of workers often go unreported, experts say, due to fear of the repercussions meted out by supervisors who often come from the same country as the dominant nationality in a workforce or at least speak a common language such as Russian.
When asked by BIRN/Noteworthy if any issues have been raised by members in relation to issues between supervisors and workers, Commercial Mushrooms Producers, CMP, an industry body representing 90 per cent of Irish mushroom production and growers, did not provide a specific response. CMP said that its members “operate to the highest standards” and are independently audited by Bord Bia and Sedex, an ethical trade membership organisation.
“Our Members are compliant with the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit, which is the most widely used social audits in the world,” it said.
But McGinley of the MCRI said that, for many migrant workers, seasonal work in Ireland is “a lifeline for their families back home.”
“If you want to put food in the mouths of your children and family, fear of losing your job means that often people think they have to put up with poor conditions of employment,” McGinley told BIRN/Noteworthy. “People don’t want to rock the boat.”
According to an industry labour survey carried out by the Irish agri-research body Teagasc in 2018 and released to BIRN/Noteworthy, the wider horticulture sector has reported difficulties in recruiting staff due in part to “low wage rates, poor working conditions, [and] a lack of suitable accommodation for staff.”
According to the report – based on responses from 20 companies, including some in the mushroom and soft fruit sectors – many growers said that they were “unable to raise wage rates and improve working conditions that could better enable them to attract and compete for staff”.
Inspections by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, an independent body that monitors compliance with employment rights legislation, also suggest the issues are more widespread than just the mushroom sector.
In some cases, it’s not just low pay that’s the problem but a failure to pay altogether.
Data from inspections carried out in the soft fruit and mushroom sectors since 2017 indicate that the WRC uncovered 184,466 euros in unpaid wages affecting over 3,300 employees.
A report released to BIRN/Noteworthy from a WRC inspection in 2019 at an unnamed mushroom farm in Cavan found that some employees were “permitted to work more than an average of 48 hours in each period of seven days” in contravention of the Organisation of Working Time Act. The contravention was rectified, according to the report.
In October 2019, the Labour Court ruled in favour of a Romanian worker who claimed that she worked 81 hours per week at another mushroom farm in Co Tipperary.
The court said that it was satisfied, on the basis of evidence presented, that a working week of at least 80 hours was the regular reality for the Complainant and she was compensated accordingly.
Fourteen other WRC and Labour Court decisions since 2015 in relation to mushroom farms have been decided fully or partly in favour of workers, according to records in the WRC’s online database, over concerns with pay, redundancy payment and working hours. Four cases were decided in favour of the employer during this period.
In general, from an analysis of 77 cases linked to horticultural companies in the WRC’s online database from 1988 to present, around 30 cases were clearly decided in favour of the employer.
In many cases, workers had claimed that they were unfairly dismissed. Other concerns raised related to claims of discrimination, disputes over payments, rates of pay, break times and unpaid wages.
When asked by BIRN/Noteworthy if any issues have been raised by members in relation to issues between supervisors and workers, Commercial Mushrooms Producers, CMP, an industry body representing 90 per cent of Irish mushroom production and growers, did not provide a specific response. CMP said that its members “operate to the highest standards” and are independently audited by Bord Bia and Sedex, an ethical trade membership organisation.
“Our Members are compliant with the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit, which is the most widely used social audits in the world,” it said.
But McGinley of the MCRI said that, for many migrant workers, seasonal work in Ireland is “a lifeline for their families back home.”
“If you want to put food in the mouths of your children and family, fear of losing your job means that often people think they have to put up with poor conditions of employment,” McGinley told BIRN/Noteworthy. “People don’t want to rock the boat.”
According to an industry labour survey carried out by the Irish agri-research body Teagasc in 2018 and released to BIRN/Noteworthy, the wider horticulture sector has reported difficulties in recruiting staff due in part to “low wage rates, poor working conditions, [and] a lack of suitable accommodation for staff.”
According to the report – based on responses from 20 companies, including some in the mushroom and soft fruit sectors – many growers said that they were “unable to raise wage rates and improve working conditions that could better enable them to attract and compete for staff”.
Inspections by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, an independent body that monitors compliance with employment rights legislation, also suggest the issues are more widespread than just the mushroom sector.
In some cases, it’s not just low pay that’s the problem but a failure to pay altogether.
Data from inspections carried out in the soft fruit and mushroom sectors since 2017 indicate that the WRC uncovered 184,466 euros in unpaid wages affecting over 3,300 employees.
A report released to BIRN/Noteworthy from a WRC inspection in 2019 at an unnamed mushroom farm in Cavan found that some employees were “permitted to work more than an average of 48 hours in each period of seven days” in contravention of the Organisation of Working Time Act. The contravention was rectified, according to the report.
In October 2019, the Labour Court ruled in favour of a Romanian worker who claimed that she worked 81 hours per week at another mushroom farm in Co Tipperary.
The court said that it was satisfied, on the basis of evidence presented, that a working week of at least 80 hours was the regular reality for the Complainant and she was compensated accordingly.
Fourteen other WRC and Labour Court decisions since 2015 in relation to mushroom farms have been decided fully or partly in favour of workers, according to records in the WRC’s online database, over concerns with pay, redundancy payment and working hours. Four cases were decided in favour of the employer during this period.
In general, from an analysis of 77 cases linked to horticultural companies in the WRC’s online database from 1988 to present, around 30 cases were clearly decided in favour of the employer.
In many cases, workers had claimed that they were unfairly dismissed. Other concerns raised related to claims of discrimination, disputes over payments, rates of pay, break times and unpaid wages.
Lack of union access
Milko Pagurov. Photo: Noteworthy/Niall Sargent
Experts agree that the lack of union representation for season workers is a major obstacle.
Mick Brown, organiser for the agriculture, ingredients, food and drink sector of SIPTU said the union had experienced great difficulty in contacting migrant workers, who are “afraid to talk to anybody that’s going to put their income in jeopardy”.
“They’re scared to talk to you, never mind trying to unionise,” said Browne.
Rhona McCord, community coordinator at Unite, the largest trade union in the UK, described meeting Bulgarian workers in the backroom of a pub, well away from their place of accommodation, because they feared their supervisors finding out.
“They’re there for economic reasons, they absolutely need to survive and they’re afraid of losing those jobs,” McCord said. “It is very, very difficult to break into.”
“You’ve no support system, you might not be entitled to any social welfare, you probably have no family here. So if you lose a job, it can be devastating. So people take more pressure.”
Alexander Homits, a workers’ rights activist who speaks Russian, accompanied Unite representatives and Bulgarian activists to speak to workers at accommodation in Dublin and Louth for Keelings this summer where, he told us, they had a hostile reception.
“Supervisors stood at the doors of the accommodation and as workers were coming in, they would specifically instruct them to not engage with us… All we had was a leaflet with a basic outline of your rights,” Homits said.
In a statement, Caroline Keeling, the CEO of Keelings, told BIRN/Noteworthy that it “respects the constitutional right of all employees to join a trade union of their choice”, while staff can take advantage of the services of a Bulgarian seasonal worker liaison officer, a Bulgarian HR manager and a confidential 24/7 whistleblowing hotline.
She added that during the period in question, COVID-19 regulations prohibited “visitors to any accommodation and all seasonal workers would have been very aware of this”.
Elena, the Bulgarian woman who described the conditions at Keelings, and her compatriot Milko Pagurov, from Plovdiv, who also worked for Keelings in 2018, were both generally happy with their experience with the Irish company.
However, they raised concerns about supervisors, saying they favoured some workers.
Pagurov, 37, said that he and his girlfriend were both dismissed at the end of the second month of the three-month contracts but received no support when they went to their supervisors to ask why and what their rights were.
“Instead of helping you, they would stand in your way,” Pagurov said. “And I did not want anything more from them than to do their job. I felt that we were used.”
Both he and Elena also cited other cases of workers being dismissed early.
According to the Polish recruitment agency used by Keelings and which has a branch in Bulgaria, such a situation is rare. Workers are usually offered alternative horticultural work for the same pay with another employer in the UK, it said.
Pagurov confirmed that both he and his girlfriend were offered work at another farm in Scotland but that they refused as they would have to spend more money to move and did not know what conditions would be like there.
Keeling said that “there is a standard eight-week probationary period to protect the rights of both the employer and the employee” and that 95 per cent of all seasonal workers completed their contracts in the three-year period 2017–2019.
‘Agency fee’, paid in cash
Pagurov and Elena both said they had each paid fees of between 250 and 530 lev, roughly 125-270 euros, to the agent who hired them in Bulgaria, despite the fact that by law any costs must be covered by the employer.
Elena said she paid 530 lev in 2017, followed by around 470 lev for each of the following two years of work.
Pagurov said that, while the agency had been up front about the working conditions involved, he considered it odd that he had to pay an agency fee of 250 lev in cash.
According to the Polish recruitment agency, the payment was in fact an optional fee for translation services.
“The fee is getting lower every year for the worker and from 2021 Keelings will be covering most of it, the owner of the agency, Richard Sobiechowski, said in an email. “In 2021 workers will only be paying a total fee of 85 euros covering [translation] services.”
According to Sobiechowski, workers are informed before departure about the conditions awaiting them.
“[Workers] should remember that this is agricultural work with no guarantee of the number of weekly hours and that employment dates may change during their contract because of poor weather conditions or failure of crops,” Sobiechowski wrote.
Keeling said that Keelings hires seasonal workers using “reputable recruitment agencies” who advertise, interview and manage the recruitment process and administration requirements.
Before departure from Bulgaria, she told BIRN/Noteworthy, recruited seasonal workers have the option of certain services involving administration fees related to document translation services as well transportation services for flights from Bulgaria to Dublin.
“At all times, seasonal workers are informed in detail about the services, the purpose of these services, their associated fees and the fact that they are free to organise and pay for these services directly themselves,” Keeling said.
Despite their experiences, Elena and Pagurov both still hankered for Ireland.
Within a month of being let go by Keelings in 2018, Pagurov and his girlfriend were back in Ireland after finding new jobs in tourism through a Facebook group for the Bulgarian community in Dublin.
At the time of publication, Elena was living and working in Bulgaria but dreaming of moving back to Ireland with her two children.
“I really want to go back to Ireland,” she said. “It is calm, so calm.”
The production of this investigation was supported by a grant from the IJ4EU fund. The International Press Institute (IPI), the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and any other partners in the IJ4EU fund are not responsible for the content published and any use made out of it.
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