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Crop workers are too low in the country, too poorly organized to work for higher wages, says labor law expert Martin Risak.
Labor law expert Martin Risak does not expect foreign harvest workers in Austria to be able to negotiate more wages due to the crown crisis. Dependence on their work is currently clearly visible, but harvest workers are too short in the country, only poorly organized and spread across many different farms.
Also, working as a harvest worker is “hard physical work” with ten or more hours a day, Risak said from the Institute of Labor and Social Law at the University of Vienna on Sunday in ORF’s Ö1 morning newspaper. It was foreseeable that this group would not organize after work to fight for better working conditions.
Generally, on the part of farmers, they are said to be forced to use this staff, “because the large supermarket chains, which occupy much of their harvest, do not want to pay them the right prices, because consumers do not want to pay for that, “said Risak. to the ORF. Despite Austria’s dependence on foreign workers for the harvest, the expert does not believe anything fundamental will change his situation, according to the report. Last year, about 14,000 harvest helpers came from abroad.
On Thursday, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) spoke to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister responsible for European integration, Wadym Prystajko, about the use of Ukrainian harvest workers in Austria. A spokeswoman for the Austrian Foreign Ministry confirmed to the APA on Saturday in a “friendly and very constructive conversation” that they had discussed exit permits for some 800 harvest workers needed in Austrian agriculture. Charter flights from Ukraine used for this purpose have been possible again since May 1, thanks to a new exception from the Austrian Minister of Health.
