The prospect of being pelted with tomatoes was too much. At FPJ’s South East conference last month, Fresca Group opted to withdraw its speakers after learning that trade union Unite was planning a demonstration against its appearance.
In May Fresca, the company behind Thanet Earth, became embroiled in a bitter battle of words with Unite, which accused it of operating like a “sweatshop” because it uses casual labour supplied by agencies. Unite organiser Dave Weeks said Thanet Earth had promised to create hundreds of permanent jobs when it started growing crops in 2008 but instead was relying on agency workers without permanent contracts, who had no job security and whose employment rights were being flouted.
Some workers had taken their statutory holiday leave but then were told by their agency when they got back there was no more work, alleged Weeks. “We understand the business is seasonal so they would need to bring in labour in certain parts of the year and then lay them off at the end of that season, but it would appear that they don’t have very many permanentstaff at all,” said Weeks.
Fresca called Unite’s attacks “grossly unfair” and referred the matter to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) to investigate.
That, as it turned out, was just the tip of the iceberg, with the union now promising a major campaign of concerted action against the entire industry in an attempt to phase out what it calls “casualised” labour. “That’s the long-term plan,” says Mick Duncan, Unite’s senior regional organiser for the South East. “We achieved this in the poultry and red meat industry, where the annual turnover of staff was 80 per cent. We have a degree of permanency now. The plan is to keep rolling this through the supply sector.”
So far, the response from the fresh produce industry to this year’s campaign has been barely disguised fury. Thanet Earth’s managing director, Ian Craig, believes the whole campaign is rooted in ignorance about how the industry works. “The fresh produce industry cannot survive without temporary labour,” he says. “To take Thanet Earth as an example, demand for salad is seasonal.When the sun shines or there is a big event, more help is needed to pack the produce to ensure we can fulfil the needs of the retailers and keep the shelves full. If we retained more staff on our permanent payroll then we’d have vastly increased costs - not just in the basic wage commitment but in the supporting HR function required, and our business would be unsustainable. It’s the flexibility that’s key.”
Craig believes Unite’s campaign could be damaging to the whole industry. “Prolonged attack can be very demoralising for a business and the workers at Thanet Earth are despairing at the misunderstanding that exists of how we have to operate.”
Sharon Graham, Unite’s director of organising is understood to be heading up the campaign, but has not responded to messages asking for further information. However, Duncan confirmed the union is now targeting the rest of the industry, and will be protesting both in and outside supermarkets and looking to get stories in local and national newspapers.
Unite’s meat industry campaign last year did indeed have an effect, mainly because Asda got on board and insisted its suppliers change their labour practices. Unite claimed there was a two-tier labour market operating within meat processing firms, where agency workers, often migrants, were on poorer terms of employment, and were often employed indefinitely without a contract. Asda responded by committing to ensure all 29 of its meat suppliers paid permanent and temporary workers the same.
Jack Dromey, Unite’s deputy director general, said at the time: “For years, supermarkets have driven down costs along their supply chain with tens of thousands of workers paying the price with discriminatory and unfair practices. It is wrong to exploit migrant agency workers on poorer conditions of employment and it is wrong to undercut directly employed workers on better conditions of employment. That divides workforces and damages social cohesion in local communities.”
However, bemusement has been a more common response to the suggestion of such a campaign in fresh produce. Working conditions in the fresh produce industry are highly regulated, says John Smith, chairman of mushroom growers Greyfriars UK. “Unite is either willingly or mischievously not understanding the regulations, or they are just incompetent,” he says. “The reality is both Agricultural Wages Board staff and gangmaster staff are all properly protected by the regulations. One of the beauties of the supermarket operations in the UK is not only do they show an interest in the due diligence of the crops, but they also take an interest in the ethical aspects of their suppliers. Unite have got no place in my view in getting involved in this and I think they just all want to get proper jobs.”
Dave Moore, chief operating officer of Langmead Farms, also believes the Unite campaign fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the industry. “We only need people six months of the year to harvest lettuce,” he says. “We are by nature a seasonal business and therefore we need a seasonal, flexible workforce.”
But does the use of casual labour mean there is a higher risk of abuse of staff rights? Craig believes the fresh produce industry offers workers more protection than many other industries. “What is notably frustrating is that temporary workers in the fresh produce sector actually benefit from very strong regulation and rights protection, thanks to the GLA and thanks to the standards that farm assurance schemes and retailers demand and audit for compliance.”
He adds that in addition to these rights, Thanet Earth also has a consultative committee to “provide effective dialogue between workers and management” and the business also has a stated aim of making each site a place where people want to work. “We want people to enjoy working for us, whatever their role in the business and returning workers with experience in produce provide a stable, reliable base for business,” adds Craig.
Moore says he employs all his casual workers directly, rather than through agencies, to eliminate any risk. He also says 40 per cent of his seasonal staff are so happy with the job, they return each year. “We employ direct, house them ourselves and transport them ourselves,” he says. “I think my business is very well regulated. It is one of the reasons we moved to employing directly, housing directly, paying directly, transporting directly, because I can say I know they worked X amount of hours, their housing conditions are appropriate, they are being transported safely, and I can take any payslip and trace it back to the person. I need to be able to look my customers in the eye and say this is an ethical business.”
Following the initial dispute between Unite and Fresca Group, the GLA launched its investigation into the labour suppliers who provide workers to Thanet Earth. The GLA has not made its findings public, and has said it will only do so if any agency’s licence is revoked. So far, this has not happened.
The NFU has moved to stress the vital importance of seasonal labour to the industry. Chief horticultural adviser Hayley Campbell-Gibbons says that despite companies’ best efforts to employ a local labour force, UK locals tend not to respond to job adverts or do not stay long in the job if they do join.
“The horticultural sector has nothing to hide, and is a legitimate user of seasonal labour,” she says. “The assertion by Unite that the use of seasonal labour is somehow wrong is ludicrous, and demonstrates a lack of understanding about how and why seasonal labour is so important.”
Growers take their responsibilities extremely seriously and are heavily audited by both the GLA and individual retailers, she adds.
More detailed information has not yet been made available by Unite, but the animosity towards the union is clear. Unless a major retailer insists on change, as Asda did last year with its meat suppliers, it seems unlikely this campaign will do anything other than push the industry and Unite apart.
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