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Bad berry-year: bad for immigrant workers

National News | 2009-08-24
This year has been a very bad season for berries in the forests of northern Sweden. This also means a catastrophe for those immigrants who have come to work with picking them. Around 200 Thai people demonstrated in the city park of Luleå against how they have been treated by the staffing companies.

The foreigners who have come to Sweden to work as berry pickers are mostly from Thailand. There are around 3000 of them in Sweden, less than half of them have work permit.

But due to the very bad season, they have not found very much berries in the forest. Therefore they are very unhappy with the situation. Many of them have taken loans to afford coming to Sweden.

Staffing companies in Thailand have arranged their travel to Sweden. Most of the Thai people have been stationed in Västerbotten but yesterday and today many of them organized their protest in Luleå which is a bit north. The reason was that the Minister for labour in Thailand was on a visit in Luleå that particular day.

According to Svenska Dagbladet, the Thai staffing companies have promised to arrange the travel home for the Thai workers.

They want to go back to Thailand as soon as possible and they demand promises that the loans they took to afford the journey will be cleared.

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