Thai berry pickers in Sweden | DW Documentary

cranberries blueberries they're delicacies that grow in sweden's forests they're harvested by seasonal workers and they come from thailand the harvest helpers fly halfway around the world they work in scandinavia for two months the swedish companies are pleased the thais help each other they just work very well together in the group we europeans can't do it that way eight thousand kilometers from her home pylin searches for the rare cloudberry she's one of six thousand two hundred thai people roaming through sweden's forests to be able to pick berries here she had to take out a loan for the trip will she end up doing good business [Music] we have to make an effort because first we have to pay back the debts that we have incurred and then there are all the expenses here but if everything goes well hopefully we can make a little money next month [Music] they're proud of their souvenir from the forests of sweden an elks antlers loom over udon's hammock the 45 year old has been flying to sweden for 20 years for a few months every year today it's time again sure it also means we have to work day and night but if everything goes well we make good money his wife pai lin is visiting a neighbor she's coloring her hair quickly before things get going even if it won't be a vacation pylin is looking forward to the long journey my hair is getting grayer and grayer but i have to look good in sweden i won't have time to do it there that's why i'm going to do it here quickly and my niece is helping me with it [Music] before they have to leave they want to ask for a good berry harvest in sweden upstairs in the small prayer room they don't kneel before the buddha but in front of a stag's head udom's left hand was mutilated in an accident in a textile factory in taiwan over 20 years ago but he doesn't let it hold him back i ask that i make a lot of money and not get sick i want to be healthy and strong i pray that we'll be lucky and find lots of berries and that the spirits will protect our house and our daughter the province of udonthani is home to udom and pailin rice fields and sugarcane plantations characterize the landscape in northeastern thailand 130 families live in the village of banlan someone from almost every family has been to sweden and udon wants to show us where he and his wife will be working this year he has relied on this old street atlas for years he uses it to navigate safely through the foreign country but whether the trip will be worth it in the end is anything but certain me from of course we're under a lot of pressure both of us are going so we've taken out a loan that's twice as high i'm worried because we just don't know if we can find enough berries but if we can do it together we could make twice as much money [Music] the couple took a big financial risk to be able to earn money in sweden udom and pylin each had to take out a loan of 75 000 baht the equivalent of just under 2 200 euros they borrowed the money directly from the thai employment agency it includes a fee as well as the cost of the flight and the work permit they were given this contract it's supposed to guarantee them fair working conditions and a minimum wage of almost 2 000 euro per month the contract says you work eight hours a day six days a week sunday is a day off but the contract is just a formality so that we can get to sweden in the first place this is just a piece of paper because there it's very simple the more you pick the more you earn [Music] word has got around the northeast of thailand that there is a country 8 000 kilometers away where hard work is paid much better than here chang also heard about it [Music] until now he has earned his money on the sugarcane plantations but he too wants to follow the call to sweden for the first time [Applause] today's my last day here there will be no work on the sugar cane plantations or the rice fields in the next few weeks there's nothing left for me to do until harvest time if things go well he gets around 300 euros a month for harvest jobs it's enough to survive nothing more chang lives in this house with his family the top floor is uninhabitable the wood walls have been eaten away by termites family life now takes place down here without walls or privacy i'd like to renovate the house and maybe open a little shop here and if the money is enough maybe i can still afford a car or a small piece of land that i can cultivate myself his wife lek has long fought for chang to be given a chance to go to sweden until now he has not been able to afford the job as a berry picker he lacked the collateral for a loan that's why they sell chicken skewers every afternoon only that way could they make a small down payment they borrowed the rest of the money from the employment agency it also means lex life could finally improve too well i've seen our neighbors bring money home and suddenly they can afford a car farmland and more when we see that we have hope we also want what they have a better future for themselves and for their daughter but will this dream come true hailin and udon pack their last things pailin is accompanying her husband to sweden for the 11th time have you also thought about the food and what about bags for the berries the bags for collecting the berries udom and pylin prefer to rely on their own equipment and their own ingredients there are so many things we bring dried chili sticky rice bamboo shoots we need all of these ingredients because we are issan people if we work all day we need our familiar food there is mostly meat over there in sweden but with our extra ingredients it almost tastes like home they have big plans each of them wants to earn a hundred thousand baht just under 3 000 euros per person but will the season be good they don't know they find enough berries they now have two months to do it and we will try to meet up with them again in sweden [Music] in this vast expanse more than 6 000 ties are here this year to pick the wild berries first we try to find chang since we visited him in thailand we have kept in touch with him via social networks chang wrote to us that he should be in this area about three hours drive north of stockholm [Music] he sent us the name of the place and a photo of his accommodations we find the building in the late afternoon but the berry pickers are still out [Music] in the nearest town zooderham there's only one blueberry dealer maybe we'll find chang here we ask for permission and we are allowed to film in the factory hall only thais sought cranberries here but there's no trace of chang is the managing director for two years he's been relying almost exclusively on seasonal thai workers more than 700 are out in the woods picking berries for him of course i also wonder why you have to fly people across half the globe but there are no others who want to collect berries the thais help each other they just work very well together we europeans can't do it that way european it's now evening the first pickers come back to deliver their harvest there's still no sign of chang we haven't received a message for him in three days we don't know where he is [Applause] and then we spot a red bubble hat suddenly he's standing in front of us chang looks exhausted and even now his working day is far from over he still has to weigh his berries he earns the equivalent of two euros 20 per kilo picking berries is piece work yeah i am tired very tired there are simply not enough fruits on paper the workers are employees and are entitled to the minimum wage but in real life they're paid by the kilogram berry entrepreneur bor axelson explains the principle to us 65 he says his workers have no interest in the minimum wage because the kilogram price gives them the opportunity to earn more and that's why they're willing to work longer than eight hours a day you're also conscious sometimes the thais are in the forest for 10 hours but maybe they've been shopping or doing something else in between in addition they want to make more money and i can't stop them from working an hour extra because they want to earn a few crowns more it's very difficult for us to control that to get over the minimum wage of just under 2 000 euros chang has to pick at least 36 kilograms every day today there are only 33 it's not a good day the next morning starts early chang has been on his feet since 4 am then he drives up to 200 kilometers with his group fuel food and accommodation cost him 25 euros a day in addition to the loan he took out in thailand [Music] when they reach the forests they separate quickly in the next few hours they all search for themselves chang is the beginner in his group it's a constant struggle one step forward one step back on some days when i pick a lot i feel really good but then on other days when things aren't going so well i sometimes think what am i doing here his bucket is filling up slowly whether he finds many berries is a matter of luck in addition many bushes were destroyed by heat and forest fires last summer hello it depends on whether i find a good spot right away then i can pick a lot but if not i have to walk up to 10 kilometers constantly looking around it's hard to your predict [Music] journalist matz vingborg also makes his way through swedish forests at harvest time he's been reporting on the situation in the berry industry for years he's worried the number of thai berry collectors has grown again this year to 6 200. so many more than usual and at the same time there are only a few berries this year that means there's a great risk that the thais will not earn enough money and will barely reach the minimum wage in fact many berry pickers may return to thailand in debt we learned from him that seasonal thai workers are even a tax saving model because they don't come from the eu swedish businesses don't have to pay income tax we show him the employment contracts of the ties we have been filming wingburgh says the minimum wage they agreed to is an improvement but the thais still have to deal with the loans they took out to come to sweden if you're here for two months you work one month just to pay off your debts and another month to be able to make money but that's pretty optimistic because it takes most of them longer to pay off their debts chang has been in sweden for four weeks and he's still paying off his loan the dream of big money gets a little smaller every day chang has a word with his wife telling her not to worry [Music] hello how are you what are you doing now [Music] his daughter also comes on the phone she wants to know whether he's already collected many berries what are you yes quite a few i don't take any time off i'm working all the time i'll probably make less money than i expected he is driven by hope chang says he'll tell us how much money he'll finally be able to bring home in six weeks we'll keep in touch [Music] at home in thailand we visit the village chief perrapon is something of a role model for many who travel to sweden every summer because he did it himself with his profits he bought a tractor a car and some farmland he and his wife are now working the field again but it's their own field other people in the village made so much money that they invested in a small business in the city or they now have a stand on the market and work there many just don't feel like working on the paddy field anymore they're waiting to be able to pick berries again in sweden seasonal work in sweden has brought money into the village but also a bit of envy because everyone here wants to live a better life they want to live like the village chief and his wife [Music] sweden's forests are a place of hope for thai berry pickers for a better life for a way out of [Music] poverty we're now in northern sweden just below the arctic circle pylin and udom must be here somewhere they sent us the gps coordinate for a meeting a parking lot somewhere in lapland the next morning we have an appointment at 6am in the ski area even in july it's just seven degrees celsius at this time of day the contrast with thailand could hardly be bigger tell us that they are more than four hours drive away from their accommodation we have to sleep here somehow we have a tent for the two of us the others have to squeeze into the car i am tired but whenever i find berries things somehow keep going they have to drive so far away because there are hardly any berries where they're staying to make the long journey worthwhile they sleep outside for one night and then spend another night in the camp the weather is miserable and wet but a particularly rare berry is said to grow here we were quite far south yesterday but it wasn't worth it we're now working our way further north if necessary up to the norwegian border i still don't know if this is a good area we'll have to walk around first then we'll get a better idea in the forest like every morning their day begins with a long walk along the road for a while and then into the wilderness udom does not want to rely on his phone or gps in this area every hundred meters he marks the way back when the day goes well and you collect a lot of berries things look up but on other days when things are not going well i ask myself why i'm here [Music] the two of them are searching for the rare cloud berry up here it looks like a yellow raspberry and only grows in the arctic regions of scandinavia they earn almost 11 euros for a kilogram pylin has found a good spot now she has to be quick before the others come in their group everyone picks for themselves out here i'm afraid of the white man's spirits that's why i pray every night before i go to bed so far everything has gone well his spirits have not come nor have the wild animals but we are always on guard [Music] what matters is the day's yield despite the cold and rain we'll keep picking until the very last day i will not do any laundry but we'll fly home in my work clothes we won't take a break anymore our boss also wants us to make enough money for months they searched for cloudberries the result is sobering 2019 was a bad year after all the debts have been paid each of them had just earned 1190 euros [Laughter] yes we will come back again even if we've earned less than last year it's still enough for us to pay the school fees for our daughter at least there's that [Music] at the end of the day they return to their accommodation a former youth hostel the two do not give up their belief in the great opportunity in sweden maybe it will get better next year and chang it was his first summer in sweden and he wasn't the fastest but his group divided the money for the berries evenly among themselves after two and a half months he won't come home empty-handed [Music] after deducting all costs he earned 1 300 euros [Music] i think of this year as something like my apprenticeship my first time not to so die at home but next year when i come back everything will be better then i'll already know the area and i know how to pick a lot of berries [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,645,519

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2020, Sweden, Thailand, migrant labor, migrant harvest workers, exploitation, berry pickers

Id: vW1QWG3xSNg

Length: 25min 56sec (1556 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020