Union Exposes Barbarous Conditions for Argentina's Migrant Olive Workers

Posted to the IUF website 19-Feb-2007

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UATRE, the IUF-affiliated rural workers' union in Argentina, has exposed the degrading squalor in which hundreds of seasonal migrants labor in Aimogasta, La Rioja province, for the country's flagship olive processor, Nucete. Union inspections carried out at three companies belonging to Nucete, one of Argentina's leading exporters of oils and processed foods to the Americas and Europe, turned up 886 illegally employed migrants living in tents under unsafe and unsanitary conditions, without adequate water or sanitary facilities, working on the olive harvest.

UATRE is demanding regularization of the workers' employment according to the national legislation on agricultural workers which it has campaigned for won. Under the law, all agricultural workers are officially registered in a national rural employment registry, guaranteeing participation in the country's social security system, the application of minimum standards and full legal protection.