Two workers posted to a greenhouse near Arles. – CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP
- The trial of the Spanish interim company Terra Fecundis opened on Monday in Marseille.
- She is on trial on suspicion of labor bargaining and covert work.
- The Urssaf claims 112 million euros from them for evaded social contributions or late penalties.
The trial of posted workers. The trial of a Spanish temporary employment company, Terra Fecundis, a labor supply company to a number of French farmers and tried for massively abusing the rules for posting workers in the European Union, began this week. Monday in Marseille.
Only one of the three founders of this company, Juan Jose Lopez Pacheco, a 45-year-old Spaniard, appeared before the criminal court for one of the most important cases of French Social Security fraud. His brother Francisco Lopez Pacheco and Celedenio Perea Coll, partners in 2001 to found this company, are represented by their lawyers.
“Labor bargaining and hidden work in an organized gang”
President Pierre Jeanjean recalled at the opening of the debates that this file was “carrying heavy stakes in financial terms, public order and reputation”. Terra Fecundis and its three founders are tried for bargaining for labor and concealed work in an organized gang between 2012 and 2015 and incur ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros for individuals and 500,000 euros for legal persons. .
They are suspected of not having declared to French social organizations 6,800 agricultural workers, the majority of whom originate from South America, transported to French farms, in particular in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Languedoc-Roussillon regions.
112 million euros
Urssaf, the body managing social contributions and benefits in France, is claiming a total of 112 million euros from them for evaded social contributions and late payment penalties. The for-profit loan of labor which is criticized against Terra Fecundis and its managers would have resulted, among other things, in remuneration below the legal minimum and the absence of overtime increases.
Terra Fecundis was singled out in 2020 for the poor accommodation conditions of its agricultural workers after the appearance of 258 cases of Covid among seasonal workers in the South-East of France.