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Migrant Harvesters Strike in Germany

Migrant Harvesters Strike in Germany

german with engl. subs.

|

2 min

| 2020 |

hits: 507

On 15 May, 2020, field workers at the asparagus and strawberries farm in Bornheim, near Bonn, Germany, went on strike. In the morning half of the 240 workers, most of them from Romania, refused to take the busses from their container camp to the fields. They protested against low wages, inhuman accomodation and bad food, and reached out to the local press.

In the following hours members of the anarchosyndicalist FAU Union in Bonn came in support of the strike and organized a big demonstration to make the strike more visible in the public. Many supporters came and marched from the container camp to the offices to the farm of the Ritter company.

The next day a demonstration in the city of Bonn was held that ended at the office of the lawer who manages the farm as a liquidator. Afterwards the demo went on to the romanian ambassy. The next day the romanian ministrer of work Violeta Alexandru, present in  Germany because of the Corona risk romanian meat workers face, visited the harvesters in Bornheim.

Over 180 workers have filed complaints about their outstanding wages. Their lawers think of also about pressing charges for racist discrination since the workers from Romania and Poland only got the legal minimum wage of 9,35 € brutto offered, around one hundered german harvesters who worked with them on the very same fields, got 10,00 € net.

(Christian Frings)

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