http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7357762.stm
Greek farmers clash with migrants
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Athens
Map
Fighting has erupted in Southern Greece between strawberry farmers and
migrant workers striking for higher pay.
According to a Greek trades union sup****t the migrants, about 400 were
attacked by farmers and what were described as "hired thugs".
Three trade unionists were hurt and one farmer was arrested, police
say.
The clashes occurred in an area hit by last year's fires, and where
slave labour conditions for fruit pickers have recently been revealed.
The fighting took place in the village square of Neo Manolada in the
province of Ilia - which produces 90% of Greece's strawberries, and
whose agriculture was ruined during the fires.
No compensation
Slave labour conditions in the strawberry plantations were exposed
earlier this month.
Most of the pickers are immigrants, and receive wages well below the
national average.
They live in shacks and are forced to pay as much as half their income
in rent to their employers.
Last week the workers from South Asia and the Balkans went on strike
to demand that their daily wage be increased from $36 to $47 (=A318 to
24; 23 to 30 euros). The farmers say that would ruin them.
Ilia is one of the areas complaining that it is still to receive
compensation promised after the fires.
For their part, the pickers say they are virtually destitute and are
being exploited.
Most of them came to Greece to send money back home to their families.
But with food prices rising in Greece as elsewhere in the world, the
migrants say they are finding it impossible to survive.
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