Medan, Indonesia – Indonesian workers who paid thousands of dollars to travel to the UK to pick fruit say they face the prospect of returning home heavily in debt after being sacked for failing to meet unrealistic targets.
Migrant worker Abdul said he left for the UK in May with nine other Indonesians under the country's seasonal worker programme, which gives foreign workers six-month visas to work on British farms.
Hired by British recruitment firm Agri-HR, Abdul was posted to Haygrove, a farm in Hereford, about 215 kilometres (135 miles) southwest of London.
“A friend of mine who had been to the UK before told me about the opportunity. He said I could earn $65 a day picking fruit,” Abdul, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.
Abdul, who earned about $130 a month at his previous job as an ice cream vendor in Central Java province, said he ran up a debt of about $4,000 by borrowing money from family and friends to pay fees to two Indonesian third-party organizations (a recruitment agency called PT Mardel Anugerah International and a worker center called Forkom), as well as out-of-pocket expenses for traveling to the U.K.
Abdul said Haygrove workers were expected to pick 20kg of cherries and strawberries an hour, which proved an impossible task due to the lack of fruit, a problem that only got worse as the harvest season progressed.
“Us [the Indonesian workers] “They always put us on the edges of the plantations where there was little fruit. Several times they gave us trees that were not in good condition and we picked all the fruit there was, but we could not do more than that,” he said.
Abdul said he and four other Indonesian fruit pickers were given three written warnings before being fired five to six weeks after arriving at the farm.
He also claimed that other workers who had not met the targets had not been dismissed.
“When we were let go, Haygrove simply said, ‘We’re sorry, we didn’t want this either,’ and gave us an official letter saying we had been fired and our return ticket to Indonesia was the next day,” he said.
In a statement provided to Al Jazeera, Haygrove said the workers had been dismissed for poor performance and that it is “committed to fair employment practices and the well-being of all our workers”.
“On 24 June 2024, five Indonesian workers were dismissed following a thorough and fair disciplinary process due to consistent poor performance. These dismissals were carried out in accordance with our structured performance management procedures, which include multiple stages of feedback, training and support,” the farm said.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), the UK's main agency for investigating labour exploitation, launched an investigation into the case earlier this year.
According to GLAA licensing rules, “a licensee must not charge a worker a fee for any job-finding services.” However, other costs, such as travel and medical checks, may be charged as long as they are voluntary.
“Additional goods or services must be optional and cannot be discriminated against if they are not used,” the rules state.
In a statement provided to Al Jazeera, GLAA said it was investigating the workers' complaints.
“We are currently investigating the recruitment processes of a number of Indonesian workers in the UK and are working to establish the exact circumstances. At this stage, we are unable to comment further while the investigation is ongoing,” he said.
Haygrove said he takes the allegations of misconduct “very seriously” and is cooperating fully with the GLAA investigation.
“We were unaware of any illegal recruitment fees being paid until concerns were raised by a third party and subsequently reported to GLAA by Agri-HR. Haygrove has a zero tolerance policy for such practices and is actively supporting the GLAA investigation,” the farm said.
“We stress that Indonesian workers have not directly raised any issues regarding their recruitment, accommodation or working conditions at Haygrove.”
After being made redundant by Haygrove, Abdul and two other workers decided to stay in the UK.
Abdul has since found work on another farm picking lettuce, although his six-month visa expires in November, after which he will have to return to Indonesia.
PT Mardel told Al Jazeera that Indonesians who wish to take advantage of the UK's seasonal worker programme must be able to cover the cost of a visa, medical check, return flight tickets and insurance, along with other processing costs in accordance with provisions set by Indonesia's labour department.
“The estimated costs required are a maximum of 33 million Indonesian rupiahs. [$2,123]“The workers we have placed in the UK are very happy to be able to work there with very good wages. The farms also pay a lot of attention to their well-being,” the spokesman said.
PT Mardel also said that “there was no relationship between PT Mardel and Forkom”.
Forkom did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Several other workers hoping to leave for the UK told Al Jazeera they were also burdened by debt.
Ali, a seasonal job seeker from Central Java province, said he was still waiting to go to the UK after Forkom told him he could leave in August last year.
“They said if I went to the UK I would earn $65 a day picking strawberries. I had to stop working in Indonesia so I could focus on getting all the documents together, but then I couldn’t leave,” Ali, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.
Ali said he now owes his family about $1,300.
“I have spent all the money I had. I used to buy second-hand things and sell them on the side of the road. I had been doing this for 25 years and it was enough to support my family,” he said.
“All information about the plan was sent through Forkom, and they made promises that they did not keep. PT Mardel also said that we needed to transfer money to them to secure our work in the UK.”
“My wife and children are suffering because we have run out of money,” Ali said. “I cannot pay my children’s school fees or their daily allowance. The biggest impact has been on my family. Now I am always fighting with my wife because we have no money.”
In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, the Indonesian Embassy in London said it is aware of reports that Indonesian fruit pickers are being exploited in the UK.
“The Indonesian Embassy in London supports the efforts of the Indonesian government to ensure the placement of Indonesian migrant seasonal workers in England in accordance with applicable regulations and laws in both countries,” the embassy said.
The embassy said it was aware that, as of 22 July 2024, 136 seasonal workers had arrived in the UK and had been placed in seven worksites in England.
“The placement of seasonal workers was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower and verification and consultation with relevant authorities in the UK,” it said.
In response to allegations of illegal fees being charged during the recruitment process, the embassy said it “supports investigations and enforcement by Indonesian and UK authorities, including lobbying the GLAA to conduct an investigation.”
Andy Hall, a labour rights campaigner who supports Indonesian workers, said UK companies were increasingly turning to migrant workers because of Brexit.
“This means that they are now recruiting workers from far away destinations, but they don’t want to pay their fees. If something goes wrong, it’s a really risky situation because the workers think they are going to make a lot of money,” Hall told Al Jazeera.
“The fault lies with the British side. The system is broken and the actors are broken. They are negligent and naive. They have set up a system where workers have to pay their own costs, but they could do it properly and if they did it properly everything would be fine.”
Hall said supermarkets in the UK are a big part of the problem as they want to buy produce at the cheapest prices, meaning farms in turn do not want to pay the costs of hiring workers.
“Farms don’t want to pay recruiters, and recruiters expect workers to pay for themselves,” he said. “Supermarkets are responsible for this whole mess. They have the money to do it right. This is all just a way to squeeze prices.”
