Every summer thousands of Thai workers comb Sweden’s forests searching for berries – a job Swedes won’t do. What drives these people halfway round the globe to harvest berries in less than ideal conditions?
Chang is one of about six thousand Thai migrant workers who come to Sweden to work the summer harvest every year. Rather than toiling in a rice paddy at home, he spends up to twelve hours a day gathering blueberries and lingonberries. It’s Chang’s first time in Sweden, but he sees it as a great chance to earn good money. But even though an agency hired him and got him his visa and air ticket, Chang had to borrow money to finance his living expenses and will have to pay that back before he sees a cent of the guaranteed minimum wage of nearly two thousand Euros a month.
Investigative journalist Mats Wingborg has been following the fruit pickers from Thailand for a long time. He says, “The system is wide-open to fraud. The Thais also have to work at least a month to pay their debts. If the harvest is bad, some of them may even still be in debt when they go back home.”
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Dreams of big money 🙁 … Manual workers never make big money 🙁 the chief did quite well, but I'm guessing that they were in on it at the very beginning …. After that, the ability to earn good money diminishes
Those are note cranberries…
She seems like such a lovely lady, so optimistic and smart!🥰
Just given Sweden a few years and they'll be like the US saying they're taking our jobs.
An Wisconsin, all blueberries and cranberries are native. It's America's cranberry capitol. Just ask Ocean Spray. We pick wild blueberries every summer.
It looks like a good job! How can I do it too??!!!!
couldn't give a damn, having travelled to Thailand and other "3rd world" countries, I'm sick of the one way immigration benefits. westerners wanting to live in their country have to put up with hostile policies that make it hard to work and live in their countries, sometimes not even possible so make it the same for them, make them only be allowed to travel not work in western countries and thai immigration is the worst, making people recurringly go to their inconvenient offices to pay their payoff to stay in the country, immigration disparities around the world are extremely maddening.
Roma Communities worst nightmare
Work as low profile construction worker there and earn 3000 month
That shady piece of garbage in Söderhamn who bought their berries. "They don't want minimum wage of $2000/month because they want to be on commission and pick more." Yeah, right!
I wanna pick berries too, does anyone wants to hire me? Hehe
One day I will also make a documentary like this here in USA. Its so amazing!!
im pretty sure the red berries there its lingonberry and not cranberries… do not taste, grow, get picked or eaten in the same way at all actually. lingonberry jam is like the food stable of sweden, we also enjoy it very much here in Norway.
I am a swede and I had no idea. This is so embarrassing. I pray their working conditions will improve. They seem like such sweet people😢
That suxs. I work in Norway, fish factory. Easy job long hours. But at least i can make 5k euros after tax. Avarege 3.5k. and it good oportunity at least as i see it. At home working qualified job as engineer id make 1k with 5 years of expierence
It's nice to hear that it is rewarding for them to travel and do the work. It's also good that there is active work to ensure that they are treated fairly. Unfortunately, that's not the case with all migrant workers here in Sweden, most notably in the forestry and construction industries. I hope we'll see it get better.
As every mature and healthy male knows…. There is nothing more SATISFYING than a good ol’ hard day of work. Props to these Thai entrepreneurs for giving it their all to make a better life for themselves and their families. Enough with this bs victimhood culture, these guys are doing what it takes to make a better life for themselves. Period.
They're making good money, the 1st guy interviewed literally uses Supreme phone case. I couldn't afford that brand even with my salary working in the office.
I can confirm that most Thai are very hard working and do very well to stay positive and optimistic. It’s in their DNA. My wife, from Thailand, has manage to create her own business in Europe, with her own hard earned savings. I’m extremely happy for her and the success she fully deserves. I’m so proud of her.
Die liebenswerten Menschen arbeiten sich dumm und dämlich nur um die Schule für ihr Kind zu bezahlen während der König des reichsten Königshauses der Welt in Deutschland 21 Sexsklavinnen vögelt….
Can't help but admire their positivity. Look at them all smiles and giggling while roaming an artic forest 12 hours a day in the cold. I feel like Thailand has wealth but it's not distributed well. The Thai king is the richest monarch in the world, and I am not just being an anti-monarchist, this is a fact.
So that's why berrys are so cheap nowadays
It's kinda infuriating to see how these people are taking a huge risk to do honest and hard work just to get a wall to their house or fund their childrens education, while the higher up in these rings are considering what color their boat should be..
"Debt" is the new word for slavery.
In the 90-es it was young polish people picking the berries. They went with their cars filled up, lived in tents for 2 weeks and made 2 month of polish salary, when expences was payed off. Sat one evening and talked with 2 couples making the journey. Then Poland got better economy. Wages went up. Now no people from Poland comes anymore. Now it's Bulgaria and Thailand.
It's nothing wrong with giving poor people a chance to work for a chance to rise above poverty, but it shall be in a way they are not used and risk to end up in dept. It should pe possible to pay them better.
By the way. The red berries are not cranberries, but lingonberries. Vaccinium vitis-idea.
I just randomly clicked on this video and i live in the villiage they went to, Rossön. What a coincidence!
Just don't agree to slave labor, and stay in your own country. It's really that simple.
How is it legal to pick berries commercially in public forests?
We in the west take everything we have so for granted