成人论坛

S&A Produce - the largest strawberry producer in the country - employs nearly 4,000 workers from Eastern Europe, at the height of summer, at its polytunnel farms in Brierley and Marden.

It's also claimed the company operates a highly controversial penalty system.

Speaking on Howard Bentham at Breakfast, 19-year-old Polish worker Marcin Brzystowicz exposed a football-style yellow card disciplinary scheme.

Yellow-cards are mainly given to migrant workers who aren't able to pick the required 8kg of strawberries an hour - although many claim there's not always enough fruit on the farm to pick.

"For example, if the group collects eight kilos per person per hour then they're okay - but if it's three or four or even seven you'll get a yellow card.

"But there are no equal fields- one field will have more mud than another, and this is why the averages are low.

"Sometimes - when you go to clean the field - you're going second or third time, after a group that has gone for the first time, and there's not enough strawberries."

Legal view

One of Britain's top employment lawyers Tom Jones, of Thompsons Solicitors, told the 成人论坛 that the yellow-card system is not illegal but "highly unorthodox".

"If such a case went before a tribunal judge he would take an extremely dim view of it. It's fundamentally wrong and until now has been totally unheard of in this country."

Answering suggestions there are not enough strawberries to pick during the summer, the company added:

"This season we have employed some 3,900 workers, picked 11,000 tonnes of soft fruit, using some 22 million punnets, as well as five million cobs of sweet corn.

"Over the years we have employed more than 15,000 people, and many of those have returned year on year to work for us."

As for the metal boxes, S&A points out they are commonly used throughout Europe on agricultural and construction projects.

There will be more of 成人论坛 Hereford & Worcester's exclusive interviews with migrant workers on Howard Bentham at Breakfast.