Conference turris::scandia

431.0. "Illegal, underpaid foriegn workers in So. Sweden" by MLTVAX::SAVAGE (Neil @ Spit Brook) Thu Nov 01 1990 12:52

    From: [email protected]
    Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.issues.civil_rights,
	clari.news.europe,clari.news.hot.east_europe
    Subject: Swedish farmers use Poles as slave labor, newspaper says
    Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, civil rights,
	social issues
    Date: 31 Oct 90 15:03:10 GMT
    Location: sweden, poland
    ACategory: international
    Slugword: sweden-poles
 
    	STOCKHOLM, Sweden (UPI) -- Farmers in southern Sweden hire illegal
    workers from Poland for less then a third of what the Swedes are being
    paid for a similar job, a Swedish newspaper reported Thursday.  The
    report, in the respected southern Swedish daily Skanska Dagbladet
    reported the latest case discovered was in the town of Sjobo, a rural
    community which in 1988 voted overwhelmingly against housing 40 foreign
    political refugees.	The controversial local referendum provoked a
    national outrage for stirring racist sentiments.

    	Sjobo's local Farmer's Union told Skanska Dagbladet that use of
    illegal Polish labor has been practiced throughout southern Sweden for
    several years.  "We get calls all the time about illegal and underpaid
    (foreign) workers, but we're unable to do anything about it," union
    spokeswoman Britt-Inger Nilsson told Skanska Dagbladet. "Every time our
    car arrives at a farm, we see the backs of people running over the
    fields to hide."

    	Swedish law stipulates an employer using temporary foreign workers
    must pay them in accordance with general pay tariffs. But the newspaper
    reported Polish workers are being paid about $2.30 an hour -- less than
    a third of what a Swede would be paid for a similar job.	Also, both
    employer and employee need a permit from the national immigration board
    -- a process that can take months.

    	"If an employer seeks permission in January to hire foreign workers
    over the summer, it's usually approved in November," said Staffan Hallo
    of Sjobo the public employer office in Sjobo. "It would be better if
    the local employer offices could issue permits."  "It's terrible that
    people are making money out of the difficult situations of others," he
    said. "It gives our country a bad name."

    	Some 500 Poles have received permission to work in Sweden in 1990.
    But Hallo said the true number of Polish workers in Sweden was much
    higher.