Campaign for workers rights at Thanet Earth

If you think that buying local is buying ethical, think again....


Welcome to the new Stop Sweatshop Greenwash at Thanet Earth campaign made up of Unite the Union activists and members and local supportive groups.

Thanet Earth is the UK's biggest Greenhouse complex and part of the Fresca Group Ltd. Other companies growing at Thanet Earth are Dutch firms Rainbow Growers Group, Kaaij Greenhouses and A&A.

Serious allegations raised by the workforce have been submitted to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the government body responsible for regulating agency practices.

The alleged offences include: agency employees in positions of authority taking cash and gifts for work; systematic denial of paid holidays and holiday pay; discrimination against workers taking holidays who are then denied work; and years of employment on a casualised basis, without fixed contracts.

Further, requests for union recognition have been denied by Thanet Earth which claims to be an ethical employer and claims to be one of the greenest employers in the sector.

In peak season some 300 people work at the futuristic facility in Thanet where cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes are grown, picked and packed, supplying the UK's supermarket with salad crops.
Current buyers are Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Asda.

Workers at Thanet Earth claim they are treated like sweatshop labour. Some union activists have found themselves out of work after having identified themselves as union members, other have seen their hours cut to just two days or week, meaning that they cannot continue to work at the site and have left of their own accord in search of more permanent work.

In the run up to Thanet Earth harvesting operation in 2009, the company promised 500 jobs for local people in one of the most depressed regions of the UK. Almost two years on, the vast majority of the workforce still have no permanent contract, no job security and work through four different agencies in a system of permanent casualisation.

In 2010 Thanet Earth introduced a second agency – HRGO – into the pack house, creating more competition and insecurity for workers and resulting in the scrapping of the weekly rota system and forcing workers to telephone their agency on a daily basis for work.

Thanet Earth's use of agencies has created a policy of precarity with work and the denial of its availability used as a weapon against the workforce. Keep your head down - you'll get work, raise it up and you'll be down the road is the message many workers have received. Thanet Earth is controlling more than Just-in-Time Production with Just in Time Labour, it is locking out unions and creating a McJob culture of exploitation which is driving down conditions for all workers and setting a new, lower bar of casualisation that will exploit all workers no matter where they come from.

Unions, Supermarkets and the general public are the key to winning this campaign - Asda, Tescos, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencers can stop this race to the bottom and secure rights for workers at Thanet Earth and other suppliers by enforcing the ethical conditions in their supply chains that they have committed themselves to under the Ethical Trading Initiative.