SHARE
COPY LINK

VIETNAM

Berry pickers in new strike in northern Sweden

A group of Vietnamese berry pickers have left their place of employment in Baggård south of Umeå in northern Sweden in protest against their pay and working conditions and have expressed a wish to go home, local media have reported.

The 50 berry pickers complain that they believed that they were to pick berries in plantations and not in woodland.

“They have sat down in protest and have set up banners declaring SOS Vietnam,” Magnus Haglund at Nordmaling municipality to the news agency TT.

The strike action is not yet become an issue for the municipality, said Haglund, who does not know why the berry pickers are striking.

Berry purchaser Kamala Karlsson, who has signed a contract with the Vietnamese recruitment firm which has employed the berry pickers, is disappointed.

“They think that they can come to Sweden and protest and not pick any berries, that is what has happened,” said Kamala Karlsson.

The Local has previously reported that over 100 Chinese berry pickers went on a 15-kilometre overnight march from Långsjöby outside of Storuman on Thursday to protest their salaries and conditions.

Thousands of seasonal workers from Asia, most of them from Thailand, come to Sweden each summer mainly to pick wild berries in the north under sometimes

difficult working conditions.

After a disastrous season last year sent many of the foreign berry pickers home weighed down by debt instead of profits, they have this year for the first time been provided with contracts guaranteeing them a monthly wage of at least 16,372 kronor ($2,321).

Some Swedish unions have however said that the minimum salary is insufficient, producing evidence that in some cases it is hardly enough to cover the money the workers have to shell out for things like plane tickets, housing and car rental.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

KIDNAPPING

Germany jails Vietnamese man who aided Cold War-style abduction

A German court on Wednesday sentenced a Vietnamese man to nearly four years in jail for taking part in a brazen Cold War-style kidnapping ordered by Hanoi of an oil executive from a Berlin park.

Germany jails Vietnamese man who aided Cold War-style abduction
Long N.H. standing trial in April in Berlin. Photo: DPA

Judges at the Berlin court said the 47-year-old Czech-Vietnamese national, identified as Long N.H., was guilty of aiding an abduction and working for a foreign intelligence service.

But they handed him a relatively mild sentence of three years and ten months after he confessed to his involvement.

“The accused knew of the plans of the Vietnamese secret service, but did not belong to the top level of command,” judges said in their verdict, according to DPA.

Long N.H. admitted during his trial that he rented the vehicle used in last July's abduction of fugitive Vietnamese state company official Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was spirited back to Hanoi.

Thanh – also a Communist party functionary who was seeking political
asylum in Germany – has since been sentenced to two life terms in Vietnam on corruption charges.

The 52-year-old and his companion were walking in Berlin's Tiergarten park when they were dragged into a van in broad daylight and smuggled back to Vietnam.

The German government was outraged, calling it a “scandalous violation” of its sovereignty.

Communist-ruled Vietnam has always insisted that Thanh, the former head of PetroVietnam Construction, returned voluntarily to face embezzlement charges.

Thanh's German lawyer, Petra Schlagenhauf, has described the kidnapping as
“like a story from the Cold War”.

Mystery route

Long N.H., was once among thousands of so-called guest workers in communist East Germany. He was later denied asylum and resettled in Prague.

He was arrested there last August and extradited to Germany days later.

He admitted renting the van used in the abduction in Prague and driving it to Berlin, but he was not at the wheel during the kidnapping. He then drove the van back to Prague.

It remains unclear exactly how Thanh was transported back to his home country, but investigators believe he was driven to the Slovakian capital Bratislava and then flown to Hanoi.

German media have reported that a Slovakian government plane lent to a visiting Vietnamese delegation at the time was involved in the transfer.

Slovakia has said it noticed nothing suspicious about the delegation or their flights, but warned Hanoi of harsh consequences if the allegations proved true.

SHOW COMMENTS