Workers paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets

theguardian.com:

Farm workers in Portugal appear to have been working illegally long hours picking berries destined for Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose for less than the minimum wage, according to a Guardian investigation.

Speaking anonymously, for fear of retribution from their employers, workers claimed the hours listed on their payslips were often fewer than the hours they had actually worked.

The workers, mostly from south Asia, are the backbone of Portugal’s £200m berry industry, which employs upwards of 10,000 migrants. They have been drawn to the country by immigration laws that allow foreigners of all nationalities to gain legal status (and eventually citizenship) through full-time employment and the payment of taxes.

While they dream of what some jokingly call the “raspberry passport”, many migrant workers fear changing jobs would nullify their residency application, despite what they describe as exploitative conditions. The lack of Portuguese workers in the berry fields is unsurprising, said Alberto Matos, who heads the regional office for migrant rights organisation Solidariedade Imigrante. “Nobody wants to be a slave in their own country.”

In two visits between September and November 2021, the Guardian spoke with more than 40 men and women from India and Nepal, employed either directly or through intermediary agencies, on farms across Odemira, a region to the south of Portugal that bustles with south Asian restaurants and international money transfer services.

Evidence seen by the Guardian suggests that workers who were either underpaid or worked more than the maximum overtime limit were employed by at least three farms which supply their berries to European supermarkets through the California-based berry seller Driscoll’s.