No strawberries and cream for fruit pickers

  When Val Salisbury walked down her lane in Herefordshire, in southern England, and into a giant plastic polytunnel where dozens of Ukrainians, Lithuanians and other east Europeans were picking strawberries, the workers were surprised. She was, after all, a 69-year-old Englishwoman using a walking frame. But when she started pulling up the plants and throwing them to the ground, they realised why she was there.

  Mrs Salisbury herself was surprised by what the east Europeans did next. According to some of the people who witnessed her act of defiance against S&A Davies, Europe’s largest strawberry grower, the workers started clapping, and then cheered her on. By the time the farm manager had arrived, Mrs Salisbury was a hero. A hero, not just for those people in the county of Herefordshire who object to thousands of acres of plastic-covered farmland, but also to an army of workers from all over eastern Europe who pick fruit for British supermarkets.

 “I felt so much better after my protest,” said Mrs Salisbury last weekend. “We don’t need these bloody strawberries and these polytunnels in Herefordshire”.

Welcome to the English strawberry fields, where the beginning of summer sees at least 5,000 people from eastern Europe descend on Herefordshire and Worcestershire to pick fruit. This year two villages, each of more than 1,700 people, have sprung up without planning permission, each with 400 or more caravans, football pitches, internet cafes and even saunas. The pickers are welcomed by the majority of local people, but there is concern that the migrant labour force is being exploited. Last weekend an informal survey of 50 people working in the tunnels suggested that many pickers are as angry as Mrs Salisbury. Those who spoke English said they were being paid less than they expected, that they had to wait for payment, that the accommodation was expensive, that they had paid too much to get there, and that the management were profiting excessively from their stay.

 “In Lithuania I earn two hundred pounds a month,” said Mindaugas, a Vilnius policeman. “I thought I could earn more here. It looks like I am not going to. It cost more than I thought to get here; it costs more to live.”

 “None of us like strawberry picking,” said Svetlana, a Ukrainian student. “Today I have earned £23. But I must pay £35 a week to live in a box with three other people. Perhaps I earn £150 in a week, but when I have paid for food, accommodation, tax, everything, maybe I have £70 for a six days. It’s not good”.

 “The money is bad,” said Artur, a waiter from the Czech Republic. “We waited days to have work. Last year we heard there was a strike here; perhaps there will be one this year, too. It is like a prison. I have been given a yellow card already. One more and I am sent home.”

Documents drawn up by S&A Davies and seen by the Guardian set out the terms and conditions for workers, who live four or five to a room. They must pay £26.25 a week for accommodation, £3 a week for sewage and waste collection, £2.25 for electricity and £2.75 for leisure facilities, including a TV set, football pitch and disco. For £30, they have access to medical and translation advice.

The documents state that pickers can be sacked for eating a single strawberry, for stopping work, going to the toilet in a hedge, or for smoking indoors. If rooms are not “clean and tidy”, the workers can be asked to leave. If they want to invite a visitor to the camp, they must ask permission two days in advance. “I have never been anywhere like this,” said Irynya, a Ukrainian housewife. The company said they guaranteed pickers £5.05 an hour when there was work, and a bonus if they met targets. But they said that at the start of the season or in bad weather they could not guarantee hours. “When 3,500 people turn up, it’s hard to get everyone going at the same time. We reduced the accommodation charge to £10 when it was raining, two weeks ago,” said Graham Neal, a manager with S&A Davies.

Mr Neal blamed agents in east European countries for sending them unsuitable workers. “The old student agriculture workers quota scheme meant we could go to an east European university and know people’s history and character. We had superb people. Now the government says that we must recruit EU people. Some countries … have sent over their unemployed drunks,” he said.

As a final irony, the east Europeans cannot afford to buy the fruit they pick. “Yes, we like strawberries but we cannot pay for them,” said Linas Petraitis, a Ukrainian buying cheap white bread and margarine in the local supermarket. “When you eat one, just think of us in the tunnels.”