Folha Branca: A Moral Pressures of Raspberry Pickers in the Estufas in Portugal

 In general, we can imagine workers on a hot summer day doing physical work for more than 8 hours, despite supervisors' warnings and threats; this is the crazy daily routine of workers in the estufas.

                                           photo: kuragraphy

It was the beginning of the summer of 2022, and I was preparing the entrance of the fieldwork in Alentejo. The Alentejo region is one of Portugal's oldest agricultural areas, but I want to talk about the commercial multinational agriculture production companies and the immigrant workers who work for them.

Have some ideas about commercial agriculture and immigrant workers in the Algarve area, where I did the first part of my fieldwork last year with participant observations after joining the commercial agriculture industry as an immigrant worker: work schedule, work places, living conditions, earning, health, and safety, as well as the social and political life of an immigrant in Portugal.

I was searching for a job in agriculture, especially in the Alentejo area. I keep in touch with my colleagues by following worker supplier agencies' social media posts and online job portals.

I get a phone call from a representative of an agency, and I talk to him about a job opening in agriculture. He was positive in his response and asked me for my immediate availability. At that time, I had to sort out something about family matters because my wife and child were travelling to Nepal for a family visit.

One day in mid-March, I take the bus to Odemira as per the instructions provided by the agency men. I arrived at 6.45 PM at Odemira, and agency men sent a vehicle to pick me up. It was a 10-15 minute drive to reach a one-story house with 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. In the agency's hostel, there were 7/8 workers already occupied. I didn't have food because I was in a new place and arrived late at night; other people shared their food with me that night.

The next morning, workers had already left for duty; three others, including two females and one guy, and I remained in the hostel. They had come from Croatia to Portugal and crossed into Portugal illegally a week before. I spent a day there, then the next day the agency men shifted me to Zambujeira. Going through Sao Teotonio, the van went through the office, and they took a copy of my documents. There was a two-story house; on the ground floor were the kitchen, dining room, living room, and toilets and bathrooms; and on the first floor were three bedrooms, with beds crammed into as many rooms as possible, such as two or three bunk beds in a room or even a bunk bed in the space of a closet.

When I found the kitchen really dirty and the kitchen utensils very poor in hygiene, I told them, "The house and the bed space are another matter; we have to talk to the agency men, but the kitchen utensils and the kinds of stuff we can manage ourselves." "These are the things we have to use for our daily meals, and for that, we don't have to spend such a big amount; even if it is expensive, we have to manage it because we are going to do physical labor, so we need to maintain the hygiene of our food for bodily health."

I was appointed to an upper bed, sharing a room with four people. There was a small space on the floor, so I placed the mattress there; it was quite better for me than going on the top of the bed. I spent two nights there. One evening, the agency man called me and told me, "You have work tomorrow, and you have to be ready at 7.30 am." When I told him, "I have something to tell you about accommodations," he reacted angrily, saying, "Oh, I got you; I was prepared for your job contract; I am going to cancel it; this is not a big deal for me..." and then hung up the phone.

That surprised me because I was expecting something like he would try to convince me by explaining the situation where it is hard to manage accommodations because of the central location for the agriculture workers. The flow of immigrants' workers would be very high during the peak season of harvesting produce (mostly raspberries). That is how we must sometimes compromise, and so forth. But he told me, "I got you; I had prepared a work contract that I am going to cancel; it doesn't matter to me."

Then I tried to arrange accommodation around Zambujeira and Sao Teotonio using my friends' networks and asking for information about vacant room spaces. I know that the peak season of harvesting is going to start soon, and the companies will hire people from those places. When I tried to find accommodations, it was very difficult to find a room or bed-sharing for two people. Some of the rooms were worse than the ones provided by the agency, such as sharing a bed with five or six other people.I was frustrated, so I called one friend at Boavista. He suggested that I use the temporary bed space of one of the friends who went to Nepal in their house. Then I came to Boavista and talked to the landlord; in the beginning, the landlord was ignoring my offer to rent me that space when I offered to pay nightly rent until I found a place to settle, and I also requested that he please help me find a room or bed space around there. He took 35 euros in advance for the week, with the understanding that if I couldn't find a room within a week, I would add money each day, counting 5 euros per night.

At first, the landlord told me that it was impossible to find a room, but the next day he took me in his car and took me to a house. There was a vacancy in a bed-sharing arrangement, and I told them that if one was available, I would prefer a single room. Then he shows me a room in a container house. It was a small room for a single person. I paid him 150 euros for one month, including utility bills.

I moved there after one week; the problem of the accommodation is solved, and now I have to find a job. I keep collecting information about companies that they are hiring from and manpower supplier agencies. A friend and I visited the house of a supervisor and requested that if his company is hiring, I be available on that date. The supervisor told me, "I'll talk to the boss tomorrow; if they are hiring new people, I will let you know."

I worked there for one and a half months, and in June I have to go to Lisbon because I have to get information about a UK visa to participate in the EASA seminar in Belfast. I travelled to Lisbon on May 13 to ask for 4 days' leave from the company. I was supposed to be back to work on May 17, but the application procedure took longer than I had expected. I got a date of May 24 for the biometric submission for the application. At the time I was going to Lisbon, I left the room because a friend was travelling to Nepal and I was supposed to use his living space. Unfortunately, things couldn't happen according to our plan. I took more time for my visa application, as well as having a problem with the approval of the social security stipend application for the friend, and because of the long absence from work, the company ignored my request to take back the work, and so on. There was no way to wait any longer in Lisbon before returning to Odemira. When my friend resolves his issue and travels to Lisbon, I return to Boavista in his place.

For agricultural workers, the next work day begins before sleep, so we must prepare food for breakfast and lunch the following day, as well as sleep on time because we must get up early the following morning.If we don't have duty or have a day off tomorrow, we feel relaxed in the evening, drinking beer or whisky, cooking late, watching movies on YouTube, playing cards or other online games, and the like, until late at night.

There were multinational workers in the field: Thai (they are directly hired from Thailand with a working visa by the company), Portuguese, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Brazilian, Nepali, Indian, and Bangladeshi workers were there, and most of the field supervisor for the Asian workers was Nepali.

One of the companies where I am now working provided an orientation about the company and its goals, as well as safety and security measures and quality of production measures that workers in the workplace must maintain, as well as the company's work schedule and pay system. which is most important to new workers before proceeding to work in the new workplace.I discovered that other companies practised less.

The work must go on because the berry production has to be harvested every day. Today's production would be overripe for tomorrow. Workers have to maintain safety, quality of production, and averages, whether it was a hot day and hotter than the outside temperature in the tunnels or there was rain outside. Workers have to protect the berry product and packing materials from direct sunlight and rain.

Temporary toilets were placed in between the sectors, but they look poor in terms of cleaning and toiletries like paper and water. Working hours depend on the company. The previous company had a 7-day work schedule during the week with 4 hours of work on Sunday. and the company where I am working now has a 5-day working schedule with one fixed day off and one day off on a rotating basis.

In the previous company, there were 4 breaks a day (9.30 to 9.45 for breakfast, 12.00 to 13.00 for lunch, 15.30 to 15.45 for a tea break, and 17.00 to 17.05 for a short break), but there wasn't a social zone, so workers had to have their food in the line of the raspberry in the estufas. The company where I work now has a social zone in between sectors, with dining tables and drinking water jars on the tables.

Generally, picking raspberries has a bonus system, but it depends on the company and their payment system. Currently, I am working with the bonus system, which means that if the worker picks 4.25 kg per hour, he will be eligible for the 0.25 euro per kilogramme, 5 kg = 0.50 cents, 5.5 kg = 0.55 cents, and 6 kg = 0.60 cents bonus per kilogramme. For example, if the working hours are 8 and the worker picks up 34 kg, he will receive a bonus of 34 * 0.25 = 8.5 euro, or 40 kg will receive a bonus of 40 * 0.50 = 20 euro, or something along those lines.

 

If the company has more work, the trainer says it can work longer than 8 hours. Furthermore, under Portuguese labour law, two hours per day can be considered a bank hour. For example, if the work lasts 10 hours, the basic working hours are 8 hours. If the job lasted 12 hours, 2 hours would be bank hours. 2 hours would be bank hours, and 2 hours would be paid as overtime in the monthly salary. The bank hours can adjust with the low working season or the amount paid to the workers at the time of the termination of the contract.

Being a supervisor is an art of mobilising people, especially workers doing hard physical work, and full-time duty itself is very tough. Workers have to maintain high morale and be psychologically prepared for hard physical work. Experiencing physical labour on the Portuguese farms, I found a lack of moral encouragement of the workers, and in most cases, supervisors and the companies behaved toward workers like slaves. Most of the supervisors are reacting like they are the masters and the workers are the slaves. The supervisors' behaviour in the workplace revealed that they always threatened workers, for example, "If you don't do this and that, I will cut off your bonus; if you do this or that, it should not happen; I will give you a warning letter." and the like.

The company treats its employees as a source of revenue; for example, they consider those employees to be labour for hire. Well, that is universal; if there is more work, there will be more money. But as a social science researcher, I wonder if money is the only meaning for the immigrant workers who are working hard physical labour on the Portuguese agriculture farm. If money is so important for the immigrants' workers, why are they looking for a second option when they regularise their migration status?

Source :

kishor subba limbu

kuragraphy.com