Fruit picker tangles with Tesco over pay |
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Published
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Sat, 08 Jul 2006 14:00
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LONDON - Gertruida Baartman, a South African fruit picker has pleaded with supermarket Tesco to provide better work and pay conditions for farm workers. The 38-year-old was paid 38 pence an hour for picking up apples and pears from a farm for Tesco for four months a year.
"I know Tesco has been told before about the problems workers experience on farms and they have said it isn't true," Baartman told Tesco bosses at the company's AGM. "But I am standing before you to tell you I don't get paid enough to feed my children and work with my bare hands in fields full of pesticides. I don't get the same wages as the men, even though we do the same work. So nobody can tell me this is fair."
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Tesco Chairman David Reid said that campaigners should list out their problems. "We need an understanding of which farms - where and when - so we can investigate these things properly," he told the AGM at London. Mrs Baartman was flown to UK by charity ActionAid, which is a partner organization of Women on Farms.
The charity wants MPs to use Company Law to make firms accountable for their overseas labour practices. ActionAid campaigner, Dominic Eagleton added, "Gertruida's story underlines the need for MPs to use the Company Law Bill to make directors accountable for their firm's impacts on poor communities overseas."
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