In Granada, entrepreneurs are having serious difficulties to harvest their crops due to a lack of day laborers. And they need solutions to a problem that is not new, but is reported campaign after campaign.
For this reason, UPA Granada is considering hiring in countries such as Ecuador for the next green asparagus campaign. General secretary Nicolás Chica, accompanied by the general secretary of UPA Huelva, Manuel Piedra, met with the subdelegate of the Government in Granada in order to outline the pioneering initiative launched by the organization for Huelva's strawberry campaign, and which has yielded such good results.
"Employers need solutions to the problem of the shortage of labor. We already had it in mind to start recruiting at origin, so we asked the Administration a few months ago to make the bureaucratic procedures for the hiring of day laborers from other countries more flexible. And given the magnificent results achieved by our colleagues of UPA Huelva in the strawberry campaign, we have considered it appropriate to have this meeting, so that we can also implement this strategy in the next asparagus campaign," says Nicolas Chica.
"Since the start of the pandemic, agricultural entrepreneurs have found it harder to hire labor for the harvesting or processing. UPA Granada has been warning for a long time that there was a risk that the crops would have to be left in the field due to lack of personnel. That is why we want to facilitate the entry of Bolivian and Ecuadorian day laborers by hiring in their countries of origin, similarly to how it has been done in Huelva."
According to UPA Granada, while the Migratory Flows Commission has been constituted and has met twice so far this year, it has not managed to find solutions to this serious problem.
"And we are faced with an added problem, and that is that some sectors are trying to blame the employers for this shortage of labor, arguing that too little is paid and that justifies the lack of day laborers. It is important to recall that the labor relationship between worker and employer is protected under the Farm Labor Agreement, which is respected, and that the salaries paid are, in fact, often higher than what is stipulated. That is why, I insist, it is necessary that the Administration facilitates the hiring of these workers at origin, so that we won't have such problems," says Nicolás Chica.
Source: upagranada.com