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Comment by xroche | Hacker News Reader

> “We can produce the wine at lower cost because salaries are less,”

And also in many cases, because illegal immigrants, who work in these vineyards, are treated in such poor conditions, close to slavery, that salaries can not be matched without breaking labor laws.

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As a french who grew up in wine-producing counties, I hardly ever saw immigrants working on the fields; it's most of the time high school students wanting to make a good buck during summer vacation; the rest of the time the winegrower handles it alone. Also, many winegrowers (in france) work in cooperativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winemaking_cooperative

Would second that. I've worked in vineyards at the end of summer in the Bourgogne region, never come across any foreign illegal workers there. It would be students and temporary workers from the area.

This is my experience as well, as the grand-child of a French winemaking coop member/owner.

Regarding the harvest in particular, there used to be a tradition where people who came to help would be compensated with food and drinks at the end of the day, rather than a salary. Not sure if that's still the case now that mechanical harvesting is so common. At least I don't think one would have to pay to experience hand-picking, like some fancy American wineries require.

I agree and say hello from Saint Chinian (another french wine region). :)

Hérault en force :D

He's talking about Spain, not France.

During many years there have been lots of Spanish workers going to France to work on the vineyards on season. Maybe that have changed but Spanish were the cheap temporary workers of the French vineyards.

The root of the problem is over production in both France and Spain (and Italy) in bulk wine and lower tier of everyday wines, combined with lowering consumption in all of those traditional wine consuming countries.

Production of these wines are not very labor intensive: harvest is done mechanically, pruning is semi automated and most of the other operations are either not done or automated. All of those vineyards use irrigation to increase yields. Those are not very interesting wines, but we are talking about approx. 0.5 euros per litre (when buying in bulk) wines.

It is not that they can't compete against it, they just want to make sure they have market for themselves as it is saturated.

So, are we going to have quotas for wine too? :(

We already have, not if you are France or Italy of course. I do own quite some land, but I was not able to plant in there, because of quota.

70% of wine consumption in Czech republic have to be imported and we were not allowed to plant new vineyards. The rules changed last year and we can plant up to 1% of our allowed area now. Still not enough.

Weird. I would expect a lot of potentially nice Grüner Veltliner type of wines from CZ. The EU works in mysterious ways.

>70% of wine consumption in Czech republic have to be imported and we were not allowed to plant new vineyards.

Why is that?

Because of EU enforced quota. Even if your land is in vineyard apellation place you can't plant any new vineyard. This rule was enforced as we were joining the union, it is basically way to ensure big producing countries with over production have enough of market to sell their product.

Local producers are able to sell all of their wines without much problem and there is demand for more, but there is nothing we can do about it. Prices of vineyard land did grow 400% over last 10 years and there is huge consolidation going on. Not great place to be independent winemaker with expansion plans.

400% is a lot. A pity about those rules.

Can you provide some sources for this? I know this happens in the U.S. but this is my first time seeing an allegation like this for an E.U. country.

Have a look at eg http://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/

http://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/about-modern-slaver...

> Those who are enslaved are exploited for the financial gain of their captors. The vulnerable are made to work in cruel conditions for long hours without pay. Examples include women and girls forced into prostitution for profit, young boys made to commit criminal acts against their will and men kept in slave-like conditions in factories.

> Last year there was a total of 3805 recorded victims of modern slavery in the UK, a 17% increase on the year before. Victims came from 108 different countries, with the top 3 being Albania, the UK and Vietnam (find out more on the Resources page).

> In 2016 the most common types of exploitation for adults and children in the UK, where known, were labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. Individuals in the UK are exploited for labour in various places of work, from hotels to farms, boats to building sites and nail bars to cannabis factories. Labour exploitation spans the agricultural, hospitality, fishing and construction sector. In addition, people are exploited for sexual purposes, including forced prostitution, escort work and pornography.

> Can you provide some sources for this?

As I understand it Africans are the main labour source for many farms in Spain.

Some articles to read:

https://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/more.php?id=40

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/feb/07/spain-salad...

While both describe some incredibly poor working conditions, neither suggest that illegal immigrants are large factor. The UC Davis piece says that it existed but the numbers were exaggerated, the Guardian piece says there might be 100,000 in a labor force of 23 million.

Not about vineyards, but about market gardening:

http://info.arte.tv/fr/espagne-les-naufrages-de-la-mer-de-pl...

(Audio in French or German, subtitles in Spanish or Polish.)

They say about 40.000 illegals work in those greenhouses.

I remember reading about african immigrant being paid 4 euros an hour on Sting's vineyard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/underpaid-illegal...

http://www.ibtimes.com/plight-migrant-labor-barolo-italys-ki...

Is that very low? 4€/hour at 8h/day, 22 days/month is 700€/month. I don't know how are the salary levels in Italy, but that's quite a bit more than the minimum wage in Portugal, and only slightly less than the minimum wage in Spain at the time.

It's way below a livable wage in Italy if it's before taxes.

In Spain? _Illegal_ immigrants? As in those who crossed the border without the state noticing?

Are you sure or are you extrapolating?

African migrants come in and serve this role in Spain. You can see Africa with the naked eye from parts of Spain

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