On Thursday, HS told about a berry farm in Paimiola, where low wages have been paid to Thai pickers. The owner of the farm says that he will reimburse any missing wages.
From Paimio owner of a berry farm Kari Kajanoja says that it will refund the missing wages to its Thai seasonal workers if there has been an error in the payment of wages.
HS said on Thursday from a berry farm whose seasonal workers were paid too little. The Thai workers said they had been staying in squalid cabins for two and a half months.
The employees told HS that they were assured of earning at least one thousand euros a month after expenses. In the end, two and a half months of work left me with a debt.
According to the pickers, the employer had promised that they would receive a minimum hourly wage of 9 euros if the picking targets were not met. However, in the employment contracts seen by HS, the hourly wage was 5.70–7.45 euros, or 60–80 percent of the minimum wage.
In reality, the hourly wage of 9 euros would also have been too low, as the minimum hourly wage for pickers increased in the agreement between the Rural Employers’ Association and the Finnish Industry Association that entered into force in February in the collective agreement to 9.35 euros.
Kayanoja did not respond to HS’s interview requests before the news was published. In the press release he sent after the publication of the news, he justifies the ambiguities of the salary payment with the change in the collective agreements.
According to Kajanoja, the living spaces presented in HS’s article are not accommodation spaces assigned by the employer.
In the article, one of the Thais said that he lived with another picker in a dilapidated and moldy booth measuring a few square meters. There was no toilet or bath in the booth.
There were other similar cottages and a bigger house in the same courtyard. According to the pickers, there was a toilet in the house, but it didn’t work.
According to Kajanoja, some of the accommodation facilities are modest, but they provide basic hygiene and cooking facilities.
According to Kajanoja, 37 Thai pickers worked on the farm last summer, of which 20 have announced that they want to return to the farm next summer as well.
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