Thailand: Thai migrant workers who pick wild berries in Finland & Sweden face inhumane working & living conditions
Summary
Date Reported: 15 Sep 2013
Location: Finland
Companies
Ber-Ex - EmployerOther
Not Reported ( Recruitment agencies ) - RecruiterAffected
Total individuals affected: 50
Migrant & immigrant workers: ( 50 - Thailand , Agriculture/food/beverage/tobacco/fishing: General , Gender not reported )Issues
Debt Bondage , Wage Theft , Recruitment FeesResponse
Response sought: No
Action taken: 50 Thai workers revolted by refusing to work and demanded a one-month payout before returning to Thailand. A compromise was reached during a negotiation presided by staff from the Thai embassy and a representative from Ber-Ex. In the end, 30 people were each paid €1,300 (US$1,270), which was close to one month’s salary originally promised. The company said the other 20 still owed them money in the form of a loan.
Source type: News outlet
Summary
Date Reported: 6 Nov 2022
Location: Finland
Other
Not Reported ( Agriculture/food/beverage/tobacco/fishing: General ) - Buyer , Not Reported ( Recruitment agencies ) - RecruiterAffected
Total individuals affected: 100
Migrant & immigrant workers: ( 1 - Thailand , Agriculture/food/beverage/tobacco/fishing: General , Men , Unknown migration status )Issues
Recruitment Fees , Precarious/Unsuitable Living Conditions , Wage Theft , Reasonable Working Hours & Leisure Time , Poverty WagesResponse
Response sought: No
Action taken: The worker made a complaint in Finland that resulted in the imprisonment of a CEO of a Finnish company and a Thai recruiter by the name of Kalyakorn.
Source type: News outlet
"Thai migrant workers demand action as berry-picking hardships in Finland go unheard", 6 November 2022
[...] [T]ens of thousands of Thai workers to Finland and Sweden the past decade to pick wild berries. [...]
Thousands of Thai workers arrive in Finland and Sweden every year only to face inhumane working and living conditions. They are then ripped off through a human trafficking process long overlooked by authorities on both sides of the world, advocates say.
[...]
Labour activist Promma Phumipan said there were currently up to 18 Thai job agencies recruiting people to pick berries in Sweden and Finland. While the agencies are legitimate, their process involved deception, he said.
[...]
According to Finland-based Thai human rights activist Junya Yimprasert who helped both Teerasak and Praisanti, over 110,000 workers went to Finland and Sweden for the berry-picking jobs between 2005 and 2022. Over 4,000 travelled to Finland and just under 5,000 went to Sweden this year.
But this number is set to pick up, said a Thai labour ministry official who accepted the petition last month, as Finland and Sweden face a shortage of workers from Ukraine due to Russia’s invasion, but reassured labourers that any owed payment is now being looked upon with the help of the Thai embassy in Finland.
[...]