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<h1 class="css-19v093x">'I feel worthless': workers tell
of gruelling life in Dutch meat plants</h1>
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<div class="css-7kp13n">By</div>
<div class="css-7ol5x1"><span class="css-1q5ec3n">Holly
Young</span></div>
<div class="css-8rl9b7">theguardian.com</div>
<div class="css-zskk6u">6 min</div>
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<figure> <img
src="https://pocket-image-cache.com//filters:no_upscale()/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2Fd89bb9d27f7a8668a54ecd7d2b7208d1a4a93ab9%2F0_48_4554_2732%2Fmaster%2F4554.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3D894016ad216d315f4b4d474d7ddd0a3e"
alt="Workers arrive at the meat plant in
Helmond. Photograph: Rob
Engelaar/Hollandse Hoogte"> <figcaption>Workers
arrive at the meat plant in Helmond.
Photograph: Rob Engelaar/Hollandse
Hoogte</figcaption> </figure>
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<p>Trapped in jobs that make them feel
worthless, meat plant workers have
spoken out about working life in an
industry accused of using temporary
agencies to avoid employment
responsibilities.</p>
<p>Speaking on condition of anonymity,
Romanian and Polish workers
described intimidation and gruelling
conditions on the factory floor,
inconsistent coronavirus measures
and feeling afraid to report
sickness, in a joint investigation
by the Guardian and Lighthouse
Reports. All are employed by
agencies and most are currently
working at, or have recently left,
the Dutch company Van Rooi Meat.</p>
<p>“We feel like animals,” said Joe*.
“All the workers are unhappy with
these conditions … but people are
afraid to talk.” Another worker
said: “I feel worthless.”</p>
<p>The Netherlands is a food
powerhouse and the <a
href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0712/top-agricultural-producing-countries.aspx">second
largest exporter</a> of
agricultural products after the US,
despite being less than 0.5% its
size. It is the largest exporter of
meat in the EU, and home to Europe’s
largest meat-processing company.</p>
<p>But the dark underbelly of that
success story has been exposed, say
union representatives, by the
coronavirus pandemic. <a
href="https://effat.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/EFFAT-Report-Covid-19-outbreaks-in-slaughterhouses-and-meat-packing-plants-State-of-affairs-and-proposals-for-policy-action-at-EU-level-30.06.2020.pdf">Roughly
80%</a> of the industry’s workers
are from central and eastern Europe
and employed by temporary agencies
rather than directly by meat
companies. According to John Klijn
from the Netherlands Trade Union
Confederation (FNV), they are
treated as “second-class workers”.</p>
<p>Temporary contracts and a lack of
regulation have left workers hostage
to the contentious conditions
imposed upon them by agencies, while
enabling meat companies to escape
liability.</p>
<h2>Pressure and verbal abuse</h2>
<p>On the factory floor, people
working at Van Rooi’s Helmond and
Someren sites reported feeling
pressured to “work beyond their
physical limits”, verbal abuse and
intimidation.</p>
<p>“One week we had to push like
horses … until we literally dropped
down,” said Anna, adding that the
conditions had taken a heavy mental
and physical toll.</p>
<p>“Even if you work 12 hours a day,
they don’t take you into account:
they don’t think you are worth
anything,” said Max. “When it comes
to the way people are treated, this
is a tragedy.” He described workers
being humiliated and called names by
managers. “I’ve had enough with the
stress.”</p>
<p>One worker claims he was physically
pushed and grabbed by Dutch
supervisors and witnessed one tell a
colleague to kneel while holding
leave request forms in their mouth.
Van Rooi Meat says it is not aware
of such cases or of verbal abuse. It
added: “We hope these workers come
to us so we can get to the bottom
[of] this.”</p>
<p>“They don’t care about the people,”
said Joe, adding that many felt
powerless to challenge the
conditions.</p>
<p>The company said it didn’t agree
that workers were treated like
animals, but agreed that the work
was demanding. “This is work you
have to get used to. The most
difficult positions are occupied by
people who have been working for
eight to 10 years. This proves the
opposite that once people are used
to it, they stay.”</p>
<p>Van Rooi told the Guardian: “We
treat everyone as human and we are
always open for dialogue. We feel
that we treat the workers properly.
At the moment we offer them free
food and drinks in the canteens
because of corona.”</p>
<h2>Coronavirus measures</h2>
<p>Workers at both sites reported
feeling unsafe during the pandemic.
Slaughterhouses have emerged as a
hotspot for coronavirus in many
countries, notably Ireland, <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/22/exploitative-conditions-germany-to-reform-meat-industry-after-spate-of-covid-19-cases">Germany</a>,
<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/15/brazil-meat-plants-linked-to-spread-of-covid-19">Brazil</a>
and the <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/us-coronavirus-meat-packing-plants-food">US</a>.
In the Netherlands outbreaks have
occurred at other plants as well as
at Van Rooi’s Helmond site, which
closed at the end of May after 21
workers tested positive.</p>
<div class="RIL_IMG" id="RIL_IMG_2">
<figure> <img
src="https://pocket-image-cache.com//filters:no_upscale()/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F6e1583484feb2614d13aeb58111ddcd7a28ae281%2F0_0_4730_3153%2Fmaster%2F4730.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3Dd54f5a21d369e1873bbf01897790b0d1"
alt="The Van Rooi Meat
slaughterhouse in Helmond.
Photograph: Rob Engelaar/EPA"> <figcaption>The
Van Rooi Meat slaughterhouse in
Helmond. Photograph: Rob
Engelaar/EPA</figcaption> </figure>
</div>
<p>Workers claim that precautions were
lacking. Max says there was little
information and that even when the
first people became sick no measures
were taken. Workers reported seeing
ill people continue to work with
little social distancing.</p>
<p>Measures have improved since
Helmond reopened, though workers
there and at Someren continue to
claim regulations are inconsistently
enforced outside of official
inspection times – including social
distancing in dressing rooms,
canteens and on transport to the
sites.</p>
<p>One apparently witnessed staff
being told to leave the floor during
an inspection so it looked less
full.</p>
<p>Van Rooi Meat told the Guardian it
had taken all necessary measures,
including hiring marshals to enforce
social distancing and ensuring sick
employees stayed home. It said
hundreds of thousands of euros had
been spent on measures and there had
been no cases since 9 June. “From
our side there is no reason for
being scared. The last things we
want are sick people in our factory
with the risk of infecting others
and endangering continuity of our
factory.”</p>
<p>Health authorities said Van Rooi
now meets all requirements, which
include daily wellbeing assessments.<strong>
</strong>However, workers reported
that most people were too afraid to
fill the forms out truthfully, for
fear of going into quarantine and
not being paid, or being fired. Many<a
href="https://www.sncu.nl/en/faqs/employment-contract-netherlands/">
temporary agency contracts</a> in
the industry include the ability to
fire with little notice, including
if an <a
href="https://www.sncu.nl/en/faqs/sickness-temporary-agency-worker-netherlands-work/">employee
is sick</a>.</p>
<p>Speaking to Dutch media outlet NOS,
some workers <a
href="https://nos.nl/artikel/2342654-slachterij-tegen-hoestende-werknemer-vul-het-zo-in-dat-je-niets-hebt.html">reported</a>
being told to lie on forms.</p>
<p>The role played by temporary
agencies, which have flourished in
the <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/netherlands">Netherlands</a>
since regulations were relaxed in
the 1990s, underpinned many of the
workers’ complaints. Agencies
provide the majority of labour for
Dutch meat companies – recruiting
mostly from Poland, Romania and
Bulgaria. They typically organise
accommodation, transport and health
insurance, deducting costs from pay.</p>
<p>Jan Cremers, labour law researcher
at Tilburg University in the
Netherlands, argues that this puts
workers in “complete 100%
dependency” on agencies.</p>
<p>Joe said that while work was
limited back in Romania, anyone who
arrived in the Netherlands looked on
the meat industry as a last resort:
“I will never work in meat
processing [in the future] – I am
sick of it.”</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/meat-industry">Meat
industry</a> officials say finding
enough staff is a growing challenge
across the sector.</p>
<h2>Lack of liability</h2>
<p>Critics argue that ultimately the
extensive use of temporary agencies
enables meat companies to avoid
liability for employment and work
conditions.</p>
<p>“They have finally found an easy
way to throw all the responsibility
over the fence,” said Cremers.</p>
<p>“They [meat companies] don’t really
care if the migrant workers have a
good life or a bad life – they just
look at the money,” said Klijn.</p>
<p>Despite the union highlighting
problems for years, Klijn said, meat
companies, farmers and “big money”
have offered powerful resistance to
reforming the labour structure.</p>
<p>Van Rooi disputes this. “We work in
accordance with the law and the
collective labour agreement for the
meat sector.”</p>
<h2>Industry reform</h2>
<p>So is industry reform necessary? In
neighbouring Germany, the government
has announced it will phase out the
heavy dependency of the industry on
subcontractors.</p>
<p>Paolo Patruno from Clitravi, a
representative association for the
European meat-processing industry,
argues that the focus is always on
the worst conditions in the
industry, “and these cases, which
are the exceptions … are taken as
the rule”.</p>
<p>But Enrico Somaglia, deputy
secretary general of the European
Federation of Food, Agriculture and
Tourism Trade Unions (Effat), argues
these problems are systemic and that
companies find “tricks” to avoid
responsibilities. The use of
temporary agencies and
subcontractors, he said, “are made
basically to escape employer
liability and cut costs at the
expense of the workers”. An Effat<a
href="https://effat.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/EFFAT-Report-Covid-19-outbreaks-in-slaughterhouses-and-meat-packing-plants-State-of-affairs-and-proposals-for-policy-action-at-EU-level-30.06.2020.pdf">
report</a> last month linked poor
working, employment and housing
conditions to Covid-19 outbreaks in
the industry.</p>
<p>The pandemic has galvanised action
in the Netherlands: notably through
a taskforce led by Dutch mayor Emile
Roemer recommending stricter agency
regulation. The union argues workers
should be directly employed by meat
companies.</p>
<p>But Somaglia says action needs to
go further: “The response needs to
be European because the sector is
sick everywhere.”</p>
<p>Dutch MEP and long-time labour
rights advocate Agnes Jongerius
believes “things are shifting” in
Brussels, pointing to increasingly
vocal eastern European politicians
and encouraging signs from European
commissioner Nicolas Schmit.</p>
<p>“The meat sector is losing more and
more ground,” said Peter Schmidt,
head of international affairs at the
German food workers union, NGG. “So
now we really have an open window to
change the situation.”</p>
<p><em>* Names changed</em></p>
<p><span>•</span> Invisible Workers is
a newsroom investigation led by
Lighthouse Reports, featuring Der
Spiegel, Mediapart, Euronews, the
Guardian, Follow the Money and IRPI</p>
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