Organizations supporting seasonal workers have welcomed the new government guarantee of at least 32 hours paid work a week to people coming to harvest British crops. Still, workers’ rights organizations cautioned that the government needs to do even more to protect farm workers from debt bondage. Labour rights experts said the new measures should help prevent low earnings in the UK, but that more steps were needed to protect foreign workers from exploitation. Kate Roberts, the head of policy at Focus on Labour Exploitation: “The introduction of 32 guaranteed paid hours of work per week would be a positive step forward to reduce risk of destitution and debt on the scheme. But he said any proposal by workers’ representatives for farms or buyers to cover the cost of workers’ travel was “a step too far”.

Source: The Guardian February 24, 2023 22:47 UTC