'Exploitation' of migrant farm workers paid for picks, not hours

Call for investigation into pay for labourers on seasonal UK visas

- Eve Livingston

When 26-year-old Ben* boarded a flight in Uzbekistan in June, he was looking forward to more than just a summer job picking fruit and vegetables on a British farm.

"I wanted to see new places, cities I've never seen before," he said. "I wanted to make friends, exchange ideas and make new memories."

But Ben found the owners of the Scottish farm he worked on demanding and unresponsive to worker concerns. When the time came for him to receive his pay, Ben says he was not paid for all the work he carried out.

"I was surprised because the employer just pays you what they want, even if that is [different from] your contract," he said. "They come up with various excuses."

Ben is one of dozens of migrant workers who say they have not been paid after their employer linked their wages to the amount of crops they picked rather than the hours they worked. About 45,000 workers came from overseas to work temporarily in UK agriculture last year on the seasonal worker visa, a scheme introduced in 2019 to address Brexit-related labour shortages.