seasonal workers Archives - Forum Nepantla

I have written an earlier entry on hunger and the simplicity of morality inspired by Adorno and a song by SantaFe Klan. I have argued there that hunger is not a mere insufficiency of material goods that have to be replenished by increasing production. On the contrary – hunger is a voice, a voice of the neglected, a voice that often goes unheard. With Adorno I then said, that society needs to hear the voice of hunger and make room for innactivity, for non-profitable, that is. Furthemore, hunger is not a mere, general concept. It is like I said a voice, an actual voice. It has an actual face and an actual person bearing it – this is what SantaFe Klan delivers in his song.

Here I want to talk about such actual, real voices of hunger. Since my first entry on hunger I stumbled upon two such voices/cases from Romania.

Constanta is a harbour-city in Romania – the place where Ovid was exiled and found his eternal resting place. It’s port lies on the Black See and sees a lot of activity in oiling. Associated with this activity is also the oil platform Uranus, operated by Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP). In the past months GSP has drilled oil for OMV-Petrom (Petrom is a Romanian oil company owned by OMV). The workers employed by GSP have not received their wages in the last 5 months (as the local newspaper tomisnews reports). 20 of them have gone on hunger strike on 30th of March that still continues, in a desperate attempt to get their voices heard.

the 20 workers on hunger strike on the oil platform Uranus

Their voices were indeed heard, but not their demands. In an attempt to get them of the oil platform and continue drilling, a complaint was filed at the Constanta Court acusing one of the employees of being infected by the Sars-Co-2. According to the Romanian legislature concerning the COVID-19 pandemic anyone suspected of being infected by the novel coronavirus and anybody that has been in contact with them must be placed immediately under quarantine. This would get the workers of the platform and put them under quaranting, ending their strike.

The employees of GSP have given statements to the local media that the person accused of being infected was indeed examined by a doctor and tested. The result was negative. They also claim to have talked about the whole situation with representatives of OMV. The latter claim they are aware of the difficult situation but cannot help the workers, given that they are contracted by an intermediary – GSP.

This is a common story. Intermediaries allow big corporations to externalize any responsibility. They cannot make private partners enforce any sort of policy. Many companies flock to marginal countries of the EU for this exact reason, for outsourcing – to ease their social responsibility and purge themselves from any accusations.

OMV’s claim that the situation is out of their hands is however only locally valid. They can indeed not force anybody to pay their employees. They can however choose not to work with intermediaries that neglegt their employees. They can terminate the contract with GSP or at least put pressure on said intermediaries.

Keep in mind that the workers have been working without pay for the last 5 months. This brings us back to Adorno. The employees of GSP have continued working, increasing production, in the hope that their work will be reimbursed. Their hunger strike breaks this logic. The lack of production and the extreme measure of ongoing hunger strike makes their voice visible. The problem is that this voice is heard only to be silenced. Either through juridical tricks or via a mere economical transaction: “here is your money, now go back to work”.

Their hunger strike should not be seen as a mere cry for help that gets silenced once the immediate needs of individuals are met. Their voice of hunger is moreover a voice of the marginalized, of those exposed to the distant end of a centralized economy – centralized in Western and Central Europe and in the upper classes determining the policies of said economy. Let’s look at another, more recent example, from Eastern Europe.

A week ago the Romanian government gave in to the pressures of the German government and allowed thousands of Romanian seasonal workers to head for Germany in the middle of a pandemic. Romania has been for over a month now in a strict lockdown – with closed borders, fines for those that wonder out of their houses, militarized hospitals, and strict curfews. Overall the Romanian authorities have managed quite well the COVID-19 outbreak considering their limited resources. With few exceptions Romania has not yet seen any overcrowded hospitals nor shortages of essential products.

Unfortunately, Romania is one of the few countries – perhaps the only one – that has seen overcrowded airports during the current pandemic.

All the people seen in the photo are waiting to depart to Germany to harvest asparagus – a really non-essential root that has enjoyed a long culinary history in Western Europe. They are heading to Germany as a result of a special agreement between the German and Romanian governments that have open an air bridge especially for the precious asparagus.

As the picture clearly shows no social-distancing measures are enforced here. Things get worse on the low cost flights that the Romanian season workers will board and will probably continue to go downwards on the farms on which they work. They normally live in close quarters, with not enough room to respect hygiene measures essential during a pandemic. Even if the employers and the German government can implement special working conditions, the fact is that these workers will work close together in the open field, 12 hours a day, in conditions that German nationals would never accept.

A further important point in this story is that many of the seasonal workers come from one of Romania’s most affected region by the Sars-CoV-2, Suceava, where clusters of thousands of infected people have been reported. In these conditions the risk of reigniting new infection hotspots seems too high. Why would the German government insist on opening its borders to seasonal workers – from Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria especially?

Let’s start with the obvious, namely economic gain. Germany has exported in 2019 a total of 4.826,5 tons of asparagus worth 21,8 milion Euros. Add to that the 142.000 (2018/19) ton inland consumption of asparagus – of which only 24.000 tons were imported – and you get a pretty figure for the asparagues market. Beyond the material production of asparagus, using seasonal workers – that are usually contracted through intermmediaries from the country of origin and demand lower wages as the German residents – saves the German state a nice figure. Adding to this, the current use of seasonal workers saves the German state a lot of money in medical care, this being covered by the country of origin. Using German residents would be a lot more cost inefficient – especially during a pandemic – given that the German state would have to care for all the domestically employed harvesters. Economically it seems then that allowing seasonal workers to enter Germany is less risky than employing domestic work force. If the asparagus plantations turn into infection clusters however, this story will drastically change. Let’s hope it won’t.

A further reason to employ foreign seasonal workers would be the lack of domestic work force. As already implied, the working conditions in harvesting are hard and German nationals avoid them. Farmers also prefer workers that are in dire need of income and are thus inclined to accept harsher working conditions and lesser wages.

“Many farm owners seem happier in any case to have rapid access to the “easterners”. In the words of one German farmer interviewed by the tabloid Bild: “Most Germans are not used to working stooped in the fields for hours on end. They complain about backache. Romanians and Poles are stronger and they work weekends and public holidays.”

It turns out that besides a steely back, the Romanians and Bulgarians also need to be so desperate for work they don’t dare ask for a pandemic wage premium even if the employer requires them to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, since switching farms will not be an option. For the duration of the contract they remain at the mercy of the employer, who alone has the power to organise the return journey.”
C. Rogozanu, D. Gabor, The Guardian

It seems then that the precarious financial status of Romanian, Bulgarian, or Polish farmers are a condition for increasing and maintaining production. At the same time the same financial needs (metaphorically called hunger here) are the ways of externalizing responsibility and marginalizing it at the periphery of the EU thus minimizing risk within Western and Central Europe.

This is not a unidirectional story though. Such political and economical practices are bidirectional and interdependent [1]. The German government – in this case, although it seems that the UK and Italy are preparing similar measures – relies on the cooperation of the Romanian government, that in its turn expects a heavy return in profit from the seasonal workers which will eventually return home and spend their money domestically. Additionally the externalisation of responsibility and the import of cheap labour is dependent on the expectation of Romanian, Bulgarian or Polish farmers of earning quick wages as well as their expectations of being neglected by their respective governments.

“The Romanian government agreed, admitting that it had no income support system for this group of workers, who are usually invisible to the media unless as an object of class-driven scorn.”
C. Rogozanu, D. Gabor, The Guardian

The network of hunger is intricate and extensive. It is a locally manifest phenomenon that entertains an entire logic of profit and intensive production that gives companies and governments the required social and juridical flexibility to minimize losses and risks.

Such cynical risk assesments are however short lived – especially during a pandemic. There are already reports of Romanian workers in Germany infected with Sars-CoV-2 and a report of one dead. After social and media outrage as well as counseled by German union leaders, the German government has backtracked on its asparagus-strategy and is restricting entry to seasonal workers again. This restriction may come too late though. As several German press agencies [2] report, there are already thousands of seasonal workers active on asparagus plantations.

[1] see C. Bichieri, Norms in the Wild, 2016; or Nay, O. (2013). Fragile and failed states: Critical perspectives on conceptual hybrids. International Political Science Review, 34(3), 326–341.

[2] see bnn.de or bild.de