The Global Mail reports on a shocking case of alleged abuses of migrant workers in the Spanish horticulture industry, concentrated in the southern Spanish region of Almería along a 200km strip of hothouses known as el mar de plásticos. This is where much of Europe’s salad vegetable crop is grown.
Allegations range from payment below the minimum wage, employment of illegal migrants, intimidation and, in the most recent case, murder. The UK’s Guardian newspaper’s special correspondent Felicity Lawrence wrote a startling report into labour abuses in €2 billion a year hothouse industry. She found:
… Read the restMigrant workers from Africa living in shacks made of old boxes and plastic sheeting, without sanitation or access to drinking water.
Wages that are routinely less than half the legal minimum wage.
Workers without papers being told they will be reported to the police if they complain.
Allegations of segregation enforced by police harassment when African workers stray outside the hothouse areas into tourist areas.