Grape harvest in the Castilla-la Mancha region are starting this week in a heavy atmosphere, marked by the controversy between employers, administration and trade unions about the employment of illegal workforce. Whereas wine-growers are preparing for a mediocre harvest, they assure that this year, problems to recruit legal workforce have increased. The association of young farmers, ASAJA, warned that, whatever the legal difficulties were, they would not "let grapes rot on the ground". As for the government's representative in the region, he indicated several times that "all kinds of easiness" had been given to employers to make it easier to hire foreign workforce. (Ref. 070765)
Castilla-la Mancha represents, with the Ciudad Real province, one of the largest vineyards in the world – 600.000 hectoliters of wine. 30.000 to 35.000 people are employed each year during the harvest, many of them of foreign origin, to make up for the lack of available local workforce.
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