Migrant workers in Greece face abuses
Around 12,000 Bangladeshis working in the strawberry farms in Greece are facing various forms of labour abuses, including low wages, long working hours and sub-standard living conditions with little amenities.
The employers, who earn huge profits out of the cheap migrant labour, also threat them of deportation as they are undocumented in Greece, the country which the workers consider a transit point to other European countries.
“We earn huge profits for farmers who treat us worse than animals. We want people to learn how we live a rough life in Barangas [small shanties built for workers],” a group of 25 Bangladeshi farm workers in Nea Manolada, a village of southwestern Greece, said in a statement.
Reena Kukreja, assistant Professor of Global Development Studies at the Queen’s University in Ontario, wrote an article based on her research on the migrant workers. It was published in The Conversation, an Australia-based news magazine, yesterday.
“Look how they live in comfort -- all due to our hard work. What do we get in return? Discarded plastic sheets as our roof,” a Bangladeshi migrant in his early 20s told the researcher when she visited them in last summer in Nea Manolada.
“Strawberry farmers give the migrants long work hours, high targeted outputs and depressed wages. The conditions of work can be described as forced or unfree labour. Withholding of wages is a common practice here and tie the workers to the farmers,” writes Kukreja.
In 2013, protests by Bangladeshi workers against delayed wages led to Greek farmers shooting at them. Later, the workers won a landmark human rights case, and Greece was forced to pay more than US$648,000 to 42 of them.
According to the article, each growing season of strawberry, from October to May, as many as 12,000 undocumented Bangladeshi migrants work in the farms in Greece, the 10th biggest exporter of strawberries in the world.
The workers are forced to rent unused farmland and build highly inflammable makeshift shacks called barangas -- built out of salvaged plastic sheets, cardboard and reeds. They offer no running water, electricity or sanitation facilities.
“These structures are human tragedies waiting to happen. The danger of the inflammable construction material is heightened with cooking done inside in crude partitioned kitchens, with propane gas cylinders, and lighting provided by candles,” the researcher added.
In June 2018, a massive fire broke out in a migrant settlement in Nea Manolada. More than 340 Bangladeshi workers lose everything they had, including identification papers, passports, work permits, proof of stay and saved wages.
In 2019, seven fires, fueled by strong winds, charred entire sets of Barangas in the same region in a matter of minutes. So far, no one has died, but the migrants worry about what might happen if a fire breaks out at night, when everyone is sleeping. Blazes in similar migrant housing have resulted in fatalities, the article said.
Kukreja wrote there’s no electricity, no fans or heaters in the housing facilities. The workers are also unable to charge their cell phones, a vital link to their families. The only place to charge phones is at ethnic grocery stores or cafes with long queues to do so.
The inadequate sanitation, waste-disposal facilities and drainage create ripe conditions for infectious diseases. Frequent diarrhoea, fever, asthma and respiratory problems appear widespread, the researcher said.
The workers are deterred from demanding better living conditions because they are undocumented. The ever-present threat of potential deportation scares undocumented migrant workers who then discipline themselves as efficient but invisible workers.
Local authorities, aware of their plight, have turned a blind eye to improving migrant housing, leaving the men with little recourse.
“Everyone exploits our desperation to earn wages while profiting from our labour,” said a labourer in his mid-30s who has been working in the farms for the last seven years.