Four former agricultural workers claimed about 30,000 euros in damages each, Wednesday in Avignon, to the managers of the Spanish temporary employment company Laboral Terra, sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison, three of which were suspended, including for concealed work.

In September 2020, before the Arles labor courts, these employees had already obtained that Laboral Terra pay them several thousand euros for various irregularities on their salaries or their medical follow-up.

'Forgotten victims'

The judgment then referred to "fraudulent deductions from wages, paid holiday allowances never paid" or wages calculated without respecting the legal minimum.

On the other hand, the four former agricultural workers had not attended the criminal trial, before the criminal court of Avignon, of Diego Carda Roca and Sonia Ferrandez Fullera, the two spouses at the head of the Spanish company, because they had not been warned, according to their lawyer. They had therefore not been able to join the proceedings as civil parties.

"These are victims who have been forgotten," Fatma Ferchichi pleaded for them on Wednesday, recalling that the criminal investigation had started after the complaints of two of these employees, "whistleblowers". Deploring that they were never heard during the investigation, Mr. Ferchichi questioned the "dysfunctions" that prevented them from attending the trial: "It is through the press that our clients learned of the conviction".


  • Justice
  • Posted worker
  • Avignon
  • PACA
  • Arles
  • Agriculture
  • Work