Image: Archive. Agricultural workers picking watermelons in the full summer sun.
Cases like this spotlight the abuses within the agricultural sector which constant inspections and vigilance attempt to minimise or prevent.
On Friday afternoon the region was immersed in a heatwave, with temperatures topping 40 degrees in some areas, and warnings in place to protect both the public and those obliged to continue working during these episodes of extreme heat.
Although workers in many sectors can retreat into air conditioned offices and shops, those working in the agricultural sector have little protection from the elements, undertaking one of the least desirable jobs available in the region; backbreaking, repetitive, physically demanding and one of the lowest-paid jobs available.
Most of the field-working jobs are undertaken by immigrant labourers, teams of south-American workers, Moroccans or Sub-Saharan day workers being the most common, although there are also eastern European teams and during peak harvest season in some sectors, such as the grape harvest, teams from other areas of Spain will be brought in for specific tasks.
The “jornaleros” or day workers, are organised into work teams and are contracted when work is available, some working on an almost permanent basis and moving around to handle different crops and others on a very casual basis at a local level.
Although the larger work groups are run by agencies, there are many smaller businesses dedicated to providing work gangs as required, picking up workers in minibuses to transport them to where the labour is needed and although these companies are subjected to frequent checks and constant vigilance, it is a sector in which there is abuse of workers (they often claim that they are expected to work longer hours than they are being paid for) and in which irregular migrants find work, exposing themselves to abuse.
It is very difficult to monitor thousands of day workers working across hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural farms on an ever-changing basis, which is why irregular migrants and those prepared to work on an illegal basis for less money can be found in these groups of “jornaleros” spread across every agricultural region of Spain.
Particularly irregular migrants arriving in small boats from countries such as Algeria or Morocco are not allowed to work legally as they have entered the country illegally, but some will find work in the agricultural sector and are often paid lower wages than their legal co-workers and given the most unpleasant tasks. This is a well-documented occurrence, particularly in areas such as neighbouring Almería, where illegal workers can easily be “lost” amidst a warren of plastic coated greenhouses.
In this particular case, the deceased was a 42 year old Nicaraguan man. No details were given of his legal status in the country,(he may have been legally entitled to be in Spain) but he was working illegally when he suffered severe sunstroke on Friday.
His work colleagues appear to have panicked, unceremoniously dumping him in the doorway of the health consultorio of Sutullena in Lorca, and driving off in a van without speaking to anyone in the centre at 15:30 in the afternoon in an effort to distance themselves from his illegal status.
From his dress staff could see that the man was obviously a day labourer and was very ill, requiring urgent medical attention.
Staff at the consultorio immediately called for help and a mobile emergencies unit was sent to the centre to provide assistance. By now the man was unconscious and died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.
The Policía Nacional and Health and Safety Executive were called in and investigations began to identify the driver of the vehicle which had left him outside the consultorio.
As a result of these investigations, police were able to locate the leader of the work group, a 50 year old Ecuadorian, who organises work groups for the agricultural sector.
It transpired that the team had been working in the El Esparragal area in Puerto Lumbreras, which borders with Lorca when he collapsed, obviously suffering from the effects of heatstroke, and that the man concerned was not registered with the social security system.
The CCOO Comisiones Obreras Union denounced what they called a lack of inspections in the sector, “the Administration favours the bad practices of companies due to the lack of application of the precepts of the current regulations regarding the prevention of occupational risks.
Exposure to extreme environmental temperatures represents a well-known danger to human health,” they said.
The head of the company will now be investigated for health and safety malpractice as well as for alleged transgressions relating to the employment of workers and their social security obligations.
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