In Ljungaverk, 21 Thai forest workers rent a villa with seven bedrooms. At ocher price. Together they pay SEK 63,000 a month. And they are not alone. DA can show in a review that 52 percent of forest companies take unreasonable rents from migrant workers. At the same time, the Migration Board is closing your eyes.
In society Ljungaverk, An hour west of Sundsvall, 21 Thai migrant workers live. Everyone is seasonal employees as a cleaner and planter of the forest contractor Ljungan Skogvård AB. They have a basic salary just under SEK 25,000 a month, which is the lowest level of the collective agreement, according to documents from the Migration Board.
In addition, the employer deducts SEK 3,000 in rental costs per person each month.
The 21 Thai forest workers pay SEK 63,000 a month in rent for the brick villa in Ljungaverk. This is 41 percent too much according to the Migration Board’s way of counting.
More than half of all forest contractors who have reviewed Dagens Work take unreasonable rents from their migrant workers.
In every room in the villa in Ljungaverk As Da looks into lives between two and four people. In total there are seven bedrooms in the house.
39-year-old Apisit Buanak came to Sweden in May. He will work as a cleaner October. At home in Thailand, a job as a messenger driver awaits.
– I have to take care of my children. In Thailand, I need to work three to four months to get as much as I get in a month here, he says.
In the corridor on the ground floor, Apisit Buanak shows its bedroom. He divides a bunk with a workmate. To get there, he first needs to pass another bedroom. They share the bathroom.
I think it’s worth it because we have everything. Kitchen, laundry room, all appliances and such.
– Don’t go in there, says Apisit Buanak, referring to a door at the entrance, which lacks handles.
From the inside, a faint sound is heard from a shower beam. A minute later, a man comes out in bare torso with a towel wrapped around the waist. He continues into Apisit’s room.
Lack of conditions and risk of exploitation
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Ahead of this year Season, the Migration Board rejected thousands of applications for work permits for carrier pickers, mainly from Thailand. The reason was lack of working conditions and the risk of exploitation. The authority also considered that the pickers had to pay far too much for housing to their employers, which according to the GS union in practice is a way to push down wages.
The case was appealed. But the Migration Court gave the authority the right in a judgment that came on June 19 this year. The court ruled that a lease deduction should not be higher than the rent for a similar rental home in the immediate area. This is under the Aliens Act.
In the collective agreement there are similar rules enrolled. The tenant association also believes that the rent should be even lower if you share rooms, which is done in 70 percent of the housing in DA’s review.
The 21 Thais then met are not alone in paying too much for their home. Today’s work has mapped salary and housing costs for migrant workers who work in the forest and come from countries outside the EU.
Just over half take out too high rents
Of the 37 companies As applied for a work permit, DA has received information on rental costs for 21 companies that have taken migrant workers here. More than half of them – 52 percent – charge higher or significantly higher rents than is reasonable according to the authority.
Nevertheless, the Migration Board has approved the companies’ applications for work permits – in violation of the Aliens Act.
APISIT BUANAK itself takes the rent cost with rest.
– I think it’s worth it because we have everything. Kitchen, laundry room, all appliances and such. So I think that’s worth it, he says.
A large bag of rice stands leaning against a wall.
– That rice bag is from Thailand. That one too, he says, pointing to a broken cardboard box full of different translucent plastic bags.
In the bags there is dried mushrooms, chili and seeds. Behind the canopy in the window, stands a citrus scented plant with long narrow green leaves that shot up from the earth in a cut milk carton. Lemongrass, that’s what the seeds become when they have grown.
It’s time to cook. Around the kitchen table there are some and mecca with a rice cooker that has been broken. Apisit Buanak takes a jar of light beer in one hand and settles down with the others at the table.
“Employees are free to find other accommodation”
The house is owned by Hakala Skogskötel AB, which is the parent company of Ljungan Skogsvård where the seasonal workers are employed. Hakala rents out the accommodation for SEK 15,000 a month plus VAT to Ljungan forest management.
Ljungan forest management himself has stated to the Migration Board that it will live 21 seasonal workers at the address. But the company’s CEO Dorin Lazea says that more are registered at the address than will be living there. Where they live is determined later, when the jobs from the forest companies are determined.
– We will find out only in January, February. Right now, eleven people from Thailand live at the address. The others have moved on, he says.
We spend large sums on accommodation for the guys.
He confirms That 21 people lived in the house when DA was visiting. But that some had been moved there because of a water damage in two other apartments he rented.
– It was only two weeks that everyone lived in the house in Ljungaverk. Then I arranged a new accommodation for them, he says.
Dorin Lazea says that His employees are free to find their own accommodation if they wish. He does not think the rental cost of SEK 3,000 per month per person is high. According to him, the different accommodation he rents for the workers during the season is usually more expensive.
– It is the high prices for the accommodation that control the sum they have to pay, not us, he says.
Is the rental costs a way to keep wages down?
– The goal has never been to make money from housing costs. We spend large sums on accommodation for the guys, says Dorin Lazea.
In the house in Ljungaverk It starts to be evening. In the kitchen on the ground floor, the food has appeared on the table and the seasonal workers have started eating. When asked how they think it is to live so many guys together they smile and make the thumbs up.
Everyone becomes silent while an older thin -haired man in gray hoodie named Rodjanin Thanapong cannon starts to enter something on his smartphone. He hands over the phone. What he has written in Thai has been translated into Swedish.
“We share our time.”
Everyone nods in agreement.
Read the forest contractors’ response in its entirety here.
Emerik Einerstam Karis
