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During the summer of 2018, Ana Pinto spoke out against the abusive rules imposed on the farm where she worked as a day labourer; rules that prohibited female workers from wearing short pants and blouses, from using headphones to listen to music or bringing a bottle of water during working hours in the fields of Huelva, one of the largest agricultural regions in Spain. Consequently, Ana was sent to work with the group of Moroccan women. There was Najat Bassit among them, a woman from Casablanca who started working in the fields when she arrived in Spain.
“This is how we got to know each other,” recalled Najat. “I told Ana what the Moroccan colleagues were experiencing and she told me things I did not know could happen to local colleagues. That was when we realized that we had to do something together, that we could no longer allow, that year after year, companies take advantage of people’s need to work and abuse it,” continues Najat, referring to the endless list of abuses and negligence committed by landowners and bosses against workers.
“The idea of organizing and fighting for our rights and those of other co-workers emerged from there,” she says. “And we are here, because of the punishment,” adds Ana.
Truth has it that what was supposed to be a sanction has become the starting point for resistance and a feminist struggle to defend the rights of daily workers; a journey that these two friends undertook together but which started to bring together many other women who wear out their hands harvesting berries in the farms of this region of Andalusia and fight for their rights by demanding better living conditions and dignified working condition. This is how the Association of Day Workers in Struggle of Huelva was born.
Determined to put an end to decades of precariousness and oppression, the members of the association have identified cases of abuse and mistreatment and are now fighting to put an end to the irregularities that take place in agricultural work. This ranges from non-respect of the convention that governs the status of agricultural workers, through unworthy housing conditions suffered by many day laborers or the non-payment of overtime, to more serious transgressions, which also occur, such as sexual abuse.
“It looks like a concentration camp. In fact, many workplaces have been renamed with prison names, like Guantanamo, for instance. We choose to laugh about it, because we don’t have any another choice,” explains one of the activists with that kind of humor that serves as an antidote to injustice.
As Ana points out, although “exploitation is the same for everyone”, migrant women are the most exposed to these abuses. On the one hand, there are those who are recruited in their country of origin and come to Spain with a special permit to work during the harvest period. For the season that has just started this year alone, 12,300 workers are expected to be recruited from Morocco for the harvest of strawberries and red fruits in Huelva in the framework of the collective management of recruitment at source regulated by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
“It looks like a concentration camp. In fact, many workplaces have been renamed with prison names, like Guantanamo, for instance. We choose to laugh about it, because we don’t have any another choice”
On the other hand, there are female migrant workers with no official documentation who live in slums or crowded housing. Although there are no official figures on the number of women living in these makeshift settlements in the surroundings of Huelva’s agricultural lands, experts agree that their presence is much lower than that of men, but that they are exposed to situations of specific vulnerability and lack of protection.
“You have to remember that they come from abroad to work because of extreme necessity and that they are sought in the most disadvantaged regions as it is easier to exploit them here. Once they arrive, they find themselves staying on the very premises of the farm where they work, with no means of daily transport that can take them to a nearby village or elsewhere. They are isolated, between pinewoods and rural roads. That is why they are more exposed to all kinds of abuse and why when they are victims of it, it is very difficult for them to denounce it and provide proof,” explains Ana.
Watching over the rights of those who lack the most basic protection is precisely the reason for action of this association. To this end, the group deploys union mediation and legal support in matters of Labor Law. It informs workers about their rights, collects their complaints and denounces violations of labor rights with the Labor Inspection and the Courts.
This activity works very actively through social networks, insofar as the health crisis caused by Covid 19 prevents, for the time being, a more direct engagement with workers.
“Most of the people who call us are Moroccan,” states Najat, whose role is fundamental because she acts not only as a translator but also as an intercultural mediator.
The reasons behind her actions are not new. She told us how she arrived from Casablanca with her husband and they settled in Huelva where she worked in the fields for the first time.
“I didn’t know how it was. Gradually, I began to see injustices and I couldn’t remain silent. So much so that the bosses laughed at me and ridiculed me saying I was the spokesperson for women but that it was useless. However, I did not pay attention to it, and I was always there to give my support. I was involved in trade unionism without even knowing what it consisted of,” she continues, proudly recalling the origins of a struggle that is increasingly taking shape and gaining strength.
Even today we wonder how we got here and the only explanation we have found is feminism, because what we are talking about is the feminization of poverty in the rural world
Awareness-raising campaigns and public denunciations through social networks and the media are another important aspect that characterizes this collective.
“We have put these abuses in the limelight. Now the bosses no longer act with impunity as before. Often, a single phone call to the company is enough and thanks to that or to a public denunciation, we have obtained a lot, including for instance the retroactive payment of sick leave for a colleague,” says Ana Pinto proudly. At the same time, like Najat, she is aware that activism has a cost: that of being denied access to farm work, one of the main means of subsistence in the region.
If it is true that the social impact of their actions is recognized, our two friends regret that the reaction of the institutions still does not live up to their expectations. They point out that, so far, the Labor and Safety Inspectorate has been inactive in Huelva. However, they harbor some hopes with regard to the commitment made by Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor in Spain, to strengthen a labor inspectorate controlling the harvesting red fruits in Huelva.
Nevertheless, they do not make do with promises but rather on concrete actions in favor of the Labor Law and Human Rights.
“Even today we wonder how we got here and the only explanation we have found is feminism, because what we are talking about is the feminization of poverty in the rural world,” says Ana, adding that their struggle is also based on environmentalism and the fight against racism.
With her friend Najat, Ana congratulates herself: “In the end, this battle comes from there: as a punishment, I was sent to work with a group of Moroccan women and it turns out to be the best time of my sixteen years of working experience in the fields.”
Click here to read the original Spanish version of the article.
