The agricultural world in France united in protest on the 24th September against the new government legislation exempting seasonal workers of social security charges. These seasonal workers are hired for harvest or packaging on farms and often make up most of the manual labour.
Endive producers will be the first to be effected by the situation which represents approximately an extra €240/worker/month. One farmer explains that it makes sense that short contract workers are payed less than full time employees as it takes them longer to do the jobs. With heavy competition from Belgium and Germany, farms are considering employing foreign workers. In 2016, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais alone had almost 15,000 seasonal workers.