He spent 3 weeks at AS Green and Co farm in Herefordshire before leaving
Karen spent three weeks packing broccoli at AS Green and Co before leaving last month, disgusted by operating conditions. “I was very angry that other people could be treated this way,” he told the Guardian, recounting it at Herefordshire Farm, where at least 73 staff members tested positive for coronavirus.
“I knew agriculture was really hard, but it was much worse than I expected,” she says. “I picked apples and planted trees and did a lot of hard work, but it was the hardest thing.”
She spent the first week in quarantine, but after that, the social distance was not observed, she said. “I walked away at first, however, after that we were treated as a great family and all of you paintings in combination. Everyone lives and paints so heavily in combination that it’s not unexpected that if someone has Covid, they spread very quickly, and now only on part of them have it.”
Leaving the site was practically impossible, Karen said. “You cook for yourself in your motorhome, and once a week they take you to the supermarket. You will need to have permission to have a car on site, and the maximum of other people have not been legal to do so. Nothing stopped you from leaving, but it was very difficult.
Most of the staff came here from Bulgaria and Romania. Karen (not her genuine name), one of the 3 English packers, who shared one of 33 cell homes on the site with a charge of 50 euros each week.
She earned 8.85 euros consistent with the hour during the first 48 hours of the week and 11.06 euros thereafter, running shifts of 12 hours or more.
“Anyone who chooses to put the broccoli in their baskets has no idea what it’s like to pack it,” she says. “You have a box of broccoli and you have to trim it or not cut it according to who needs it, then place it in the right weight pile, and you head to a treadmill that takes you to a device that packs it. plastic. “
She said there were monetary consequences for staff: “People were being punished for making mistakes or being too slow. If you were slow, you had to take a day off. This didn’t happen to me, but our total line sent home early one day. “
She added: “They are audited and credited through a total variety of other labels that other people put on food, so I guess there are farms that are worse.”
Bev Clarkson, a national official of the Unite union, said: “At the beginning of this pandemic, we said this is something that is likely to happen, especially on farms because staff are placed in caravans or dormitories where they have to share. Employers say they are doing everything they can, but they say they adhere to social estrangement guidelines.”
She added: “If a user contracts a coronavirus, it spreads very temporarily as it did here, so this bubble concept doesn’t paint. Supermarkets will have to be responsible for what happens in the source chain. If supermarkets did not rate prices so low, they can live and paint in better condition. It was just a crisis waiting.”
AS Green and Co asked to comment, but did not respond at the time of publication.