The tomato industry has been accused of pushing migrants into ‘conditions of absolute exploitation’ (see also the July/August Newsletter). The agricultural sector is heavily reliant on migrant workers. According to official estimates, 161,000 foreign workers (16% of the total) are regularly employed in the agricultural sector in Southern Italy and at least as many are working without having been declared. Migrant worker, many of them irregularly employed, hand-pick tomatoes for high-tech processing plants, some of them in extremely exploitative conditions, for as little as 20 euro for 12 hours per day.
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For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers or Sanne van der Gaag, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org © ETUI