A farm worker who came to the UK for harvesting work is suing her ex-employer for unpaid wages and discrimination at an employment tribunal in what is claimed as the first case of its kind.
Sapana Pangeni, 31, who is from Nepal, said in a witness statement this week that her hands bled because she was not given gloves and was forced to live in an unheated caravan in winter 2022 with five men at a farm near Reading.
She is bringing her case against EU Plants Ltd, which specialises in soft fruit production, based in Wokingham. The firm is defending the claim.
Pangeni had arrived in the UK on a seasonal visa. With far fewer farm workers available from Europe and from Russia and Ukraine in particular, many of the seasonal workers in the UK on visas designed to help farmers finding it hard to source local workers come from distant countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.
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According to advocates at the Work Rights Centre, which is supporting Pangeni, her case is the first to be brought to the employment tribunal by a labourer on the seasonal worker policy.
Pangeni said her treatment amounted to discrimination because migrant workers find it harder to enforce their rights.
If she wins, the case could set a precedent for other migrant workers who weren’t sufficiently paid to bring a discrimination claim — which could boost the amount they can seek from employers, according to Work Rights Centre chief executive officer, Dora-Olivia Vicol.
“There are many people who have suffered exploitation who cannot speak out about their situation,” Pangeni said in a statement. “I hope that my case will be a source of inspiration to them. I want other workers to know that they can challenge employers who underpay or mistreat them.”
The issue is said to have drawn the attention of major supermarkets and industry groups.
A government survey of seasonal workers from 2021, but updated this year, found that 10% of seasonal farm workers had been threatened by farm managers. Most (93%) said they had been paid in full and 85% said the accommodation matched the description that had been given to them prior to starting the work.
The seasonal worker route was launched in March 2019 with the number of visas that could be granted limited to 2,500 per year. This has since increased to 47,000 in 2023. The government has made 45,000 seasonal visas available in 2024.
The Work Rights Centre argues that there have been countless reports of migrant workers being exploited in sectors such as agriculture, social care and fishing under the sponsorship system. It said that specific visa categories like the overseas domestic worker visa and the seasonal worker visa restrict workers’ mobility and practical access to justice. The centre accuses the government of failing to implement any of the proposals identified in the independent review of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, completed in 2019, save for establishing a government-run registry for modern slavery statements.
The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern with the UK’s “visa policy for migrant workers, increasing their precarious situation and leaving them open to abuse and exploitation by employers, as well as about the lack of protections available to them”.
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