Using sociological imagination, comment on the report provided in the attached document.
Your answer should, at the same time, systematically and rigorously, define C. Wright Mills’ main ideas and use them to build an argument based on the available report.
References:
Being this work strongly focused in assessing the learning of C.Wright Mills ideas the main reference is
Mills, C. W. (2000). The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press.
REPORT
Immigrants in alentejo greenhouses take
fight for more dignified work
NUNO FERREIRA SANTOS
EXCLUSIVEOffer Article 6
Poor working conditions on farms in Odemira
are not a novelty . “The novelty here is that there were 300 workers who lost
their fear and went to ask the administration for explanations at the end of the
workday. They were in groups, in order, in a spontaneous movement,” says
Alberto Matos of Immigrant Solidarity “This creates pressure.”
Ana Dias Cordeiro (text) and Nuno Ferreira Santos (photo) February
19 , 2022, 6:03 am
A
n
star vigilante has become part of nature — and the condition — from Birat Khatri. Five years to work in the greenhouses
of the Sudoberry Company, on the Alentejo coast, showed this 32-year-old Nepalese that there are various ways to
silence the immigrants who arrive willing to work in Portugal bu have no knowledge of the language, labour laws or their
individual rights.
They are diffuse forms of intimidation; and so rooted that, only very recently, Birat began to face them. Months, or
years, go by when you don’t hear a complaint.
In 2021, the poor conditions in which immigrants worked or were housed, were brought to light after a Covid 19
outbreak was noticed in this community driving a lot of media coverage and attention.
This month, it was different. The complaints were heard by the workers themselves. “The glass filled”, as will say the
representative of Immigrant Solidarity in Beja, Alberto Matos, who met Birat this week.
On January 11
, at the end of the working day, Birat Khatri and dozens of workers went to the company’s offices to
talk to management. The movement gained strength by the visibility given by a report of sic (the station that was on the
site refers to 300 protesters).
Speaking to the camerass, both Birat and Pramila Bamjan, 35, made their revolt public and, without fear, made public
their demands and complaints regarding the Sudberry Company making the agendas of concerns of the Immigrant
Solidarity association and in the focus of the priorities of the Authority for Working Conditions (ACT). Assertively, they
denounced the “untransparent” contract, which, in their case, opens the door to abuse.
In this peaceful protection, in compact movement, they wanted to ask why, for the same working hours, they
received a smaller amount in January; between EUR 200 and 400 euros less depending on the case.
An unexplained tax
Birat, Pramila, Robin Thapa and Urmila Bamjan say the company justified with something that would be out of its
reach: the alleged application of a new tax decided by the Portuguese Government, they tell the PUBLIC. “That’s what
was transmitted to us,” Birat insists. “But
we don’t know if that’s true, we don’t know what tax it’s about, we’re
still waiting for an explication,” Pramila adds.
For Alberto Matos, head of the Immigrant Solidarity Association and representative of this association for the defense
of immigrant rights in the delegation in Beja, “this was another problem of a systematic situation” created by “abuses on
the rights of workers that this and other companies consider to be in their dependence”.
“The news here is that there were 300 workers who lost their fear and went to the administration’s office to ask for
explanations at the end of the working day. They were in groups, in order, in a spontaneous movement,” says Alberto
Matos. “This creates pressure.”
The novelty here is that there were 300 workers who lost their
fear and went to the administration’s office, asking for explanations,
in the fim of the workday. They were in groups, orderly, in a
spontaneous movement
Alberto Matos, Immigrant Solidarity
” It’s important that we fight for our rights,” Pramila Bamjan, 35, tells THE PUBLIC. Also for this, his older
sister Urmila Bamjan and friend Robin Thapa joined in this project. “In this struggle, we must be like a family,”
he adds. They are
complaints for “excessive working hours without financial consideration”, “with a break of
only 30 minutes” in each full workday.
Workers feel equally wronged for never being explained to them how the hours are accounted for; and when the
totals are calculated, they do not understand why amounts (presented as subsidies of various types) are withdrawn from
the 6.22 euros that the worker thought was the value l received per hour. As they describe the situation, they prove
what they say by showing the winning receipts.
“We can’t trust anyone,” says another worker who asks not to be identified. “It is they who decide whether we have
work or not, and I need this job. We came to work and we worked to make money. The problem is that we see the total
salary reduced without any explanation, as happened in January. We feel like they don’t care about us.”
Faster, faster
The contract provides for a flexible schedule, in which the worker is summoned the day before. Similarly, it can be
dispensed with if the message intended by the boss is penalty or intimidation. In addition to all this, what most disturbs
some of the protesters of 11 February, in front of the company itself, is “the permanent psychological pressure”.
“Let us move faster and faster, harvesting the berries with movements of our arms non-stop. They’re all over us,
shouting, ‘Faster, faster,'” says Robin Thapa, also from Nepal, who is willing to protest.
“It’s very hard. We are working in a warm environment, inside the greenhouses says Pramila. “If we drink all that we
bring, we ask, but they do not give us, they refuse. If we protest, they even send us home,” Pramila said. “Psychological
pressure is bad for us.”
Those who do not meet the objective of filling a certain number of boxes in an hour, or traveling a certain distance in
that same interval, without leaving a single berry in the tree, are exempted for the rest of the day, and the next,
according to the testimonies of several workers. “Some colleagues are afraid to speak, but I do not accept these
conditions.
Birat identifies a dependency, but both ways. “The company needs us. Portuguese do not accept these work conditions.
According to the most recent data from the Foreigners and Borders Service, known yesterday, residence permits were
granted mainly to Indian, Brazilian, Nepalese, Italian, French and German citizens. In addition, Nepalese and Indians
come in second and third places, right after the Brazilians, in the list of nationalities with the most residence permits
for the professional activity.
In one of the contracts signed by the employee and employer, and which the PUBLIC has read, it is expressed that, in
the case of work above the daily maximum of eight hours, “the worker shall be entitled to compensation”. Overtime is
presented as “any work provided in addition”, and that this compensation can be in the form of a reduction of work or
“by paying cash” of overtime.
Part of the group that “revolted” and lost the fear NUNO FERREIRA SANTOS
Opportunity to raise money
Being in fruit picking ten or 12 hours in a row, in high season between March and July, can be seen by some as
something positive, a way to raise more money in a short time, to send to the family in Nepal or India, or to ensure
means for the winter months in which there is not much — or even any — work. It’s October to December.
“Some don’t complain that it’s too many hours because they’re probably in that logic of making more money. What can’t
happen is that, in these circumstances, the work is not paid better,” says Alberto Matos.
Pramila comes from Sarlahi, Nepal, has worked in the Netherlands, and acknowledges here “unacceptable treatment”.
In addition to overtime and undifferentiated paid holidays, he laments the situation of a colleague who, when he broke
his arm to work, did not trigger insurance by accident at work; rather, he urged him to present the situation as a domestic
accident, forcing him to put a drop.
The objectives set by the company are known to all but sometimes impossible to meet. And they are not included in
the contracts read by the PUBLIC, as provided for in the law. In the high season of
raspberry, who does not
harvest at least five kilos of this fruit in every hour, is dispensed at the moment, gets the work day reduced to an
hour, or a few more, makes the route of several kilometers on foot to house, and is not called to work the next day.
Whoever completes the day has transportation home.
Company unavailable
Contacted by the PUBLIC, Sudoberry did not clarify the doubts.
Human Resources Director
Monica Rosendo did not respond to written questions and said she was not available
because she was in a meeting, both by phone and in a face-to-face contact.
The workers have been paying for years the thousands of euros
charged by those who brought them to Portugal by enticing them with
supposedly favorable working conditions. And the threats are real.
They are instilled with the fear of speaking
Alberto Matos, Immigrant Solidariedade
Sudberry has more than 500 workers and has dozens of hectares of plantations. In alentejo, there are at least 130 agricultural
fields, which justifies that every day is on the ground a team of the Authority for Working Conditions. ACT has already
opened a fact-finding process for this company, as it has done in the past to others.
In the centre of St Theotónio, in an informal conversation, the working conditions “Routine Stars” is the name of an
work agency to which some would rather not be connected.
In silence, a young man of Indian nationality, recently em Portugal, writes the name on a sheet, indicates Malavado as
the place of the company, and does not answer any more questions. With an open smile, he denies being afraid to
speak. “No, no, no,” he says in English before abandoning the conversation so he wouldn’t come back.
At Internet, this agency has no address record. But in Malavado,
it’s easy to find the house with low ceilings, the
broken back windows, and a patio, which everyone calls “the Routine Stars office”, though without any indication.
Here, there is no office, but there live nine people in two rooms and no conditions of hygiene or confort. In the same
village , in a big villa, live the owner – Tells us his name Vilak not the surname and dodges questions about the activity of the
multi-year-old firm.
He
assures that with him (who claims to have been in Portugal for 20 years), no one has been brought from
Nepal, India. “My workers found me. I just deal with local bureaucracy documents in the SEF, when workers can not and I
don´t charge anything for it. It presents itself as someone who helps their contractors by paying rent and food when they
are excused overnight.
Support offices
Sabita Karki was discharged overnight after three months of work. I thought i had a horizon, not collecting fruit
because I was pregnant, but packing it —that’s what you’ve done in the last few months. Sabita and her husband, Hum
Bahadur, are
therefore at the Local Migrant Integration Support Centre (CLAIM) in St. Theotónio, where they
have come several times to ask for advice.
This is one of 120 offices across the country belonging to the High Commissioner for Migration, but “one of those
that do not have legal support,” says the head Tania Guerreiro. “When these cases arise, we directly cover the ACT
Some temporary employment companies operate completely illegally and are “the most threatening” to the worker for
whom the production company is not responsible, says Alberto Matos.
“In intermediaries, so-called service providers, the situation is heavy,” he adds. “The workers have been paying for years
the thousands of euros charged by those who brought them to Portugal by exciting them with supposed fantastic conditions.
Even so, when one of the contractors to harvest raspberries, thinking that he was coming to one of the best in the area in
terms of compliance with labor rights, he says: “In this company? Nothing will ever get better.”