Strawberries for sale at the Market Square in Helsinki. Photo: Elsa Paakkinen / Lehtikuva
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Ukrainian seasonal workers hired to pick strawberries on a farm in western Finland say they were overworked, underpaid and poorly treated, according to testimonies collected by Finnish broadcaster Yle.
Four workers, Nadija Bolehovska, Ljubov Zavadetska, Vasyl Konevych and Boryslava Konevych, said the reality of their experience fell far short of expectations. They are returning to Ukraine earlier than planned.
“I didn’t believe that in a developed country there could be this kind of slave labour,” said Konevych.
Yle’s investigative unit MOT reviewed employment contracts, payslips, and message exchanges provided by the workers. The farm has not been publicly named and its owner is not a public figure.
According to the workers, they regularly laboured for 13 to 15 hours a day, far exceeding the 37-hour workweek stated in their contracts. They received no compensation for overtime and were not given formal shift schedules. Instead, work assignments were sometimes issued via WhatsApp the night before.
Workers reported going more than two weeks without a day off. “We took painkillers morning and night just to keep going,” said Bolehovska.
They also raised concerns over how their output was tracked and wages calculated. On piece-rate pay, strawberry pickers typically receive around one euro per litre. But at the farm, workers said they were not allowed to observe the weighing process, and suspected discrepancies in pay. Even those who picked more were often paid the same as others, they claimed.
Accommodation conditions were cramped. Workers were housed four to a room and transported to the fields in the back of a pickup truck. According to the interviewees, the farm maintained rigid rules, including requiring permission to use the toilet.
Bolehovska said she was threatened with dismissal after raising concerns about working conditions. She also said both the farm owner and a Ukrainian supervisor used abusive language toward the group.
While Yle was not able to verify every detail of the workers’ claims, their accounts were consistent. A Bulgarian worker who also left the farm provided a similar description of the conditions.
The number of foreign seasonal workers in Finland’s berry farms has increased steadily in recent years. At the same time, concerns about poor treatment and legal grey areas in agricultural labour contracts have grown.
In Finland, it is legal to pay berry pickers based on output, but labour laws still require that contracts be respected and safe working conditions provided. Workers said they were given no reliable way to verify their pay or hours worked.
The Finnish summer berry harvest has become increasingly dependent on migrant workers, particularly from Ukraine and Southeast Europe. In markets, fresh strawberries often sell for €10 per litre, ten times the picker’s piece-rate pay.
Labour watchdogs and union groups have called for closer oversight and enforcement, especially in smaller farms where regulation is limited and workers may hesitate to report abuse.
HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
