Moroccan Farm Workers Seek Justice for Labor Abuses in French Court

Nine-hour workdays "without a break, where we eat in secret", salads "that we cut without protective gloves", weeks with "seven days of work", harassment, a contract terminated due to a pregnancy. The abuses are legion.

A new hearing was held on Tuesday, three years after the denunciations. The so-called posting system developed in the 1990s is "a triangular relationship between an employee, a temporary employment agency and a user company (the farms)," recalled the tie-breaking judge, Philippe Bruey. A system authorized by the European Union (EU), and of which the five former agricultural workers are victims. The Spanish temporary employment agency, Laboral Terra - now in judicial liquidation - had employed them in agricultural farms and packaging companies in southeastern France.

For Yann Prevost, the lawyer for two of the former employees, Yasmina Tellal and Karima, "this system is a nest of violations of the dignity of workers when it is not controlled". He accuses Laboral Terra of having violated the EU rules on posting, with his clients being subject to Spanish law. "There is no posting. The contracts were signed in France with employees who were in France," for repeated assignments, without returning to Spain and the employees should have benefited from French permanent contracts, he explains.

This is why these former Moroccan employees are demanding tens of thousands of euros in back pay, compensation and damages from Laboral Terra, particularly for "illicit loan of labor," reports AFP. Similarly, they are demanding a conviction in solidarity for a dozen French agricultural companies. "This contract, it promotes social dumping, but it is legal. (...) What happens between Laboral Terra and the employees is not the problem of the user companies," reacted Jean-Pierre Tertian, the lawyer for an agricultural packaging company.