terra fecundis sent more than 26,000 workers, from South America to work on French farms by paying social charges in Spain, where they are up to 40 % lower.
Le Monde with AFP
The sum is spectacular. The Spanish Temporary Labor Work Company Terra Fecindis, found guilty of violation of European rules on detached work, was sentenced, Friday, June 10, to pay more than 80.3 million euros to French social organizations.
This sum comes to “compensate for financial damage” provoked by the non-payment of social contributions and contributions to the organization responsible for collecting them to French companies, the Union for the collection of social security contributions and Family allowances (URSSAF), according to the judicial decision.
For four years, from 2012 to 2015, this Spanish firm sent more than 26,000 workers, from South America, most of them, work on French farms located in the Gard, the Bouches -Du-Rhône or La Drôme.
Social charges paid in Spain
In July 2021, Terra Fecundis had already been found guilty of having diverted the European detachment procedure which allows companies to make staff work abroad, but only for missions limited in time.
Terra fecundis remunerated these workers detached from the French minimum wage but by paying its social charges in Spain, where they are up to 40 % lower, making this vulnerable workforce cheaper for French farmers.
“This is the most important social security fraud ever judged in France”, recalled the lawyer for the URSSAF Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, M > Jean-Victor Borel, during the trial.
Deemed guilty of social dumping by the Marseille court, the company officially based in Murcia (southern Spain) and today renamed work for all, was then sentenced to a 500,000 euros fine. Four years suspended prison sentence and 100,000 euros fine had also been pronounced against the three Spanish leaders.
Friday, all three were jointly recognized responsible for the damage suffered by the social organizations civil parties and will therefore have to participate in the payment of the 80 million euros.
“important symbolic victory”
The terra fecrandis trial had highlighted the exhausting working conditions of these precarious workers that are not inclined to defend themselves. “It is Germinal on farms with terra fecrandis, the human beast has become a temporary work company,” said the prosecution by evoking the novels of Emile Zola.
The accusation had recalled the fact that the workers were “sometimes accommodated in conditions where one could not even accommodate animals” and that they were not paid up to the work carried out.
workers assigned to the packaging of fruit worked in particular from 6 am or 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. in the evening, depending on the accusation. Asparagus pickers had also testified to work in the fields up to 70 hours per week, including Sunday, when others had only benefited from a single day of leave for forty days worked.
“We have never had sanctions from the Murcia labor inspectorate”, defended Juan José Lopez Pacheco, only of the three leaders present at the trial last year, ensuring that the Company “regularized the hours at the end of the mission” of the detached employee. The manager had also been surprised by the absence of French farmers in this court.
The more than 80 million euros in reparation inflicted on Terra fecrandis on Friday constitute “an important symbolic victory thanks to which the voice of the workers was heard,” reacted the lawyer of the CFDT union, civil party, M E Vincent Schneegans.
“It is a very satisfactory decision and at the same time frustrating, because agricultural workers who dare not act for fear of reprisals have no direct reparation,” he added. The union obtained on Friday the payment of 30,000 euros in compensation for moral damage.