09.01.2026 / News /

Tribunal victory as seasonal migrant workers’ exploitation case is revived

“It has been a long wait, but we must keep fighting until the system changes. I have lived this experience first-hand as a worker, and we cannot remain silent – if we do, this system will continue unchanged.“
Aida Luna Silvestre, seasonal worker and claimant

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has given new life to a legal challenge brought by a group of Latin American seasonal farm workers, who are UVW members, against Haygrove Ltd, one of the UK’s biggest berry producers.The tribunal has accepted their appeal after their original claims were thrown out for being submitted outside the strict three-month deadline, a decision which highlights how the system shuts migrant workers out of justice. Haygrove now has 28 days to respond.

The workers were recruited in Chile under the UK government’s Seasonal Worker Visa scheme. After arriving in the UK, they say they were subjected to serious mistreatment: unpaid wages, far fewer working hours than promised, spiralling debt from rent and living costs, and racially discriminatory treatment by supervisors. They argue that the conditions they experienced amount to modern slavery.

When the workers fled the farm, their visas were cancelled. They were left homeless, undocumented, without income and deeply traumatised. Despite having the legal power to extend time limits where it is “just and equitable”, the Employment Tribunal refused to hear their case, effectively shutting the door on their claims because of a missed deadline.

With the support of UVW, the workers are challenging that decision. They argue that it is fundamentally unjust to expect undocumented migrant workers in crisis, abandoned by their employer under a state-backed visa scheme, to navigate a complex legal system within rigid time limits. As they see it, the law as applied ends up shielding exploitative employers while denying migrant workers any real chance of accountability.

One of the claimants, Aida Luna Silvestre, described to us the long and exhausting fight for justice. “It has been a long wait, but we must keep fighting until the system changes. I have lived this experience first-hand as a worker, and we cannot remain silent – if we do, this system will continue unchanged. The temporary worker visa program needs more opportunities, including the right for workers to switch employers so that those being exploited can seek better conditions. Workers should also have access to unions to learn and protect their rights. The reality of modern slavery is often ignored. People do not see the main issue: how workers are treated on farms and what rights they are entitled to. Many are misled by the advertisements of large farms that promise good treatment and medical access, but this is far from the truth. Most people here simply do not know what workers endure.”

The appeal throws a harsh spotlight on the Seasonal Worker Visa scheme itself. Workers are legally tied to a single employer and barred from seeking other work, even when their rights are being violated. Campaigners argue this creates conditions that closely resemble servitude, leaving workers trapped and afraid to speak out.

The case follows the experience of Julia Quecaño Casimiro, a 23-year-old seasonal worker from Bolivia who worked at Haygrove’s Herefordshire farm. She arrived in the UK in July 2023 and was part of a group of nearly 90 workers who took the extraordinary step of wildcat strike action, raising concerns about broken promises, working conditions and treatment on the farm. It was the first-ever wildcat strike by seasonal migrant workers on visas in the UK.

At its heart, this case lays bare a brutal truth. These workers were not only failed by an individual employer, but by a system designed in a way that allows exploitation to flourish without consequence. When people are tied to one employer, pushed into debt, stripped of income and immigration status, and then denied justice for missing an arbitrary deadline while homeless and traumatised, that is not a flaw — it is how the system operates. These workers fed the country under conditions resembling modern slavery, and when they tried to challenge that treatment, bureaucracy was used to silence them.

This fight is about more than one farm. It is about confronting a visa regime and tribunal system that depends on migrant labour, protects profit, and treats migrant workers as disposable. It is also about refusing to accept that justice can be denied so easily.

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