Introduction

In this paper we focus on the situation of migrant farmworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, a country that occupied first place among OECD countries between 2016 and 2019 regarding the number of temporary migrant workers (around 1 million) admitted each year (OECD, 2019OECD. (2019). International Migration Outlook 2019. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/c3e35eec-en , 2020OECD. (2020). International Migration Outlook 2020. OECD Publishing. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/international-migration-outlook-2020_ec98f531-en ). The great part of temporary workers from third countries work in agriculture, for which special instruments of admitting migrants to the labour market were introduced in 2006. At that time, the Polish authorities decided to significantly facilitate access for non-EU citizens from the neighbouring states (i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) to short-term work in Poland, without the obligation to obtain a work permit. More than a decade later, a seasonal work permit was introduced, as required by EU law¹Directive 2014/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the conditions of entry and stay of third-country nationals for the purpose of employment as seasonal workers, OJ L 94, 28.3.2014, p. 375-390 [Seasonal Work Directive]., which meant a change of regulatory framework for migrant workers in agriculture. Both instruments, i.e. a simplified procedure for entrusting work to foreigners and issuing seasonal work permits, assumed facilitations in accessing the labour market in Poland (and thus also Polish territory).

Looking at both migrant farmworkers’ presence in Poland and the regulatory framework of their access to the labour market from a longer time perspective, we want to understand how the situation of the migrant farmworkers and the conditions of working in agriculture look like during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This time perspective also enables us to elaborate on the specificities of employment of migrant farmworkers in Poland, a new immigrant destination country and a European leader in employing temporary migrant workers. It also allows us to shed light on thus far little discussed special solutions adopted for employment in agriculture (Plewa, 2007Plewa, P. (2007). The Rise and Fall of Temporary Foreign Worker Policies: Lessons for Poland 1. International Migration, 45(2), 3-36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2007.00402.x ). In doing so, we apply the perspective of ‘agricultural exceptionalism’ and analyse - throughout recent history - how exceptional the situation of (migrant) farmworkers was and why. As has been documented (Liebman and Augustave, 2010Liebman, A. K., and Augustave, W. (2010). Agricultural health and safety: Incorporating the worker perspective. Journal of Agromedicine, 15(3), 192-199. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2010.486333 ), (migrant) farmworkers have already experienced a long history of ‘exceptionalism’, translating to excluding the agricultural workforce from many regulatory laws (and poor enforcement of the regulations already in place). Our aim is to look at how this concept has been exposed during the exceptional pandemic circumstances in Poland.

The approach of countries to seasonal migration during COVID-19 outbreak is aptly summarised by Haley et al. (2020, p. 37)Haley, E., Caxaj, S., George, G., Hennebry, J., Martell, E., and McLaughlin, J. (2020). Migrant Farmworkers Face Heightened Vulnerabilities During COVID-19. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(3), 35-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2020.093.016 : “while migrant farmworkers have been excluded from immigration policies that privilege ‘skilled’ workers, the pandemic has shifted the discourse to emphasize that migrant farmworkers are essential due to their expertise and skill”. It has since been documented how migrant farmworkers were exposed to increased risks to their health and safety, by the introduction of fast track procedures allowing their travel and work, thus shifting entire categories of risk to seasonal workers (Fiałkowska and Matuszczyk, 2020Fiałkowska, K., and Matuszczyk, K. (2020). Essential hands for work. CMR Spotlight, 12(18).; Molinero-Gerbeau, 2021Molinero-Gerbeau, Y. (2021). The Problem is not Covid-19, it’s the Model! Industrial Agriculture and Migrant Farm Labour in the EU. EuroChoices, 20(3), 69-74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-692X.12308 ; Papademetriou and Hooper, 2020Papademetriou, D. G., and Hooper, K. (2020). Commentary: How is COVID-19 Reshaping Labour Migration? International Migration, 58(4), 259-262. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12748 ). To date, the pandemic has accentuated many of the already long-existing problems of foreign employment in agriculture (Corrado and Palumbo 2022Corrado, A., and Palumbo, L. (2022). Essential Farmworkers and the Pandemic Crisis: Migrant Labour Conditions, and Legal and Political Responses in Italy and Spain. In A. Triandafyllidou (Ed.), Migration and Pandemics. Spaces of Solidarity and Spaces of Exception (pp. 145-166). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81210-2_8 ; Haley et al., 2020Haley, E., Caxaj, S., George, G., Hennebry, J., Martell, E., and McLaughlin, J. (2020). Migrant Farmworkers Face Heightened Vulnerabilities During COVID-19. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(3), 35-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2020.093.016 ; Neef, 2020Neef, A. (2020). Legal and social protection for migrant farm workers: Lessons from COVID-19. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 641-642. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10086-w ; Tagliacozzo et al., 2021Tagliacozzo, S., Pisacane, L., and Kilkey, M. (2021). The interplay between structural and systemic vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic: Migrant agricultural workers in informal settlements in Southern Italy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(9), 1903-1921. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1857230 ).

Following the outbreak of the pandemic, all the special rules and exceptions introduced for agriculture with regard to migrant farmworkers, such as possibilities of border crossing, travel, testing, employment, living conditions, or work-quarantine, were not introduced in other sectors of the economy. In spite of the state of emergency under which all the measures were announced, our analysis indicates that this was not an exceptional situation for agriculture in Poland. The timing and pressure were exceptional, but extraordinary rules apply to agriculture even under regular circumstances. In this paper we argue that it is precisely because of the long standing policy of agricultural exceptionalism that work in agriculture enjoyed such special treatment during the pandemic.

Agricultural exceptionalism has for many decades efficiently insulated agriculture from regulations afforded to workers in many other sectors of the economy regarding labour and employment law (Daugbjerg and Feindt, 2017Daugbjerg, C., and Feindt, P. H. (2017). Post-exceptionalism in public policy: Transforming food and agricultural policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(11), 1565-1584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1334081 ). In the context of e.g. the USA, the evolution of employment regulations since the New Deal labour laws has subsequently improved working conditions in various sectors of the economy (e.g. industry), but omitted employment regulations in agriculture with many aspects of work in agriculture left unregulated (Liebman and Augustave, 2010Liebman, A. K., and Augustave, W. (2010). Agricultural health and safety: Incorporating the worker perspective. Journal of Agromedicine, 15(3), 192-199. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2010.486333 ). Agriculture has long been an area of extremely compartmentalised and exceptionalist policy making. As has been argued, a special set of beliefs assign a special status to agriculture, linking it with a historical narrative and raison d’etat that justifies and legitimises special treatment of agriculture by governments and international bodies (Daugbjerg and Feindt, 2017Daugbjerg, C., and Feindt, P. H. (2017). Post-exceptionalism in public policy: Transforming food and agricultural policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(11), 1565-1584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1334081 ). The literature has provided many explanations of how policy exceptionalism operates and what forces are at play - not only the farmers’ lobby, but also the state creating a set of policy arrangements that are difficult to dismantle and reach a level of complexity which makes it essential to formulate policies in isolation from other policies (Vitkauskaitė-Ramanauskienė, 2020Vitkauskaitė-Ramanauskienė, J. (2020). Policy Exceptionalism: Analysis of ideational framework governing agricultural sector in Lithuania. Viešoji Politika Ir Administravimas, 19(3), 86-101. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.19.3.26320 ).

In Poland, too, farm work is perceived as exceptional for many reasons. It is considered a dangerous industry, with many reported accidents (including fatal ones), and with farmworkers subject to long hours of strenuous work, working with heavy machinery, exposure to agricultural chemicals, and living in substandard accommodation. The crucial risk factor relates to the lack of adequate training (see also Puślecki and Lipińska, 2009Puślecki, D., and Lipińska, I. (2009). Wypadkowość przy pracy w rolnictwie na tle wybranych krajów zachodnioeuropejskich. Roczniki Naukowe Stowarzyszenia Ekonomistów Rolnictwa i Agrobiznesu, XI(5), 258-263.), including training in an understandable language. In light of the fact that majority of farmworkers are not Polish nationals (Fiałkowska and Matuszczyk, 2021Fiałkowska, K., and Matuszczyk, K. (2021). Safe and fruitful? Structural vulnerabilities in the experience of seasonal migrant workers in agriculture in Germany and Poland. Safety Science, 139, 105275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105275 ; Frelak, 2011Frelak, J. (2011). Cudzoziemcy zatrudnieni przy pracach rolniczych. In W. Klaus (Ed.), Ziemia obiecana? Warunki pracy cudzoziemców w Polsce (pp. 127-146). Warsaw, Poland: Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej.; Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2018Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2018). A known but uncertain path: The role of foreign labour in Polish agriculture, Journal of Rural Studies, 64, 177-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.12.015 , 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.; Iglicka and Gmaj, 2013Iglicka, K., and Gmaj, K. (2013). Circular Migration Patterns between Ukraine and Poland. In A. Triandafyllidou (Ed.), Circular Migration between Europe and Its Neighbourhood: Choice or Necessity (pp. 166-187). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ), the latter point raises serious concerns. Their vulnerabilities come about at the intersection of their demographic makeup (gender, age, education, language skills), and the transient character intrinsic to their migrant status and migration policies (Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.). There is a high level of informality in the farm work in Poland, where working without a contract, or withholding of employees passports for the duration of their contract are not uncommon, as reported by the workers themselves (Frelak, 2011Frelak, J. (2011). Cudzoziemcy zatrudnieni przy pracach rolniczych. In W. Klaus (Ed.), Ziemia obiecana? Warunki pracy cudzoziemców w Polsce (pp. 127-146). Warsaw, Poland: Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej.). Even if control activities and new regulatory frameworks have caused the level of informality and punishable practices to reduce, the conditions of work in agriculture still assume underpaid workers with almost unlimited time spent on hard work. These conditions are accepted only because in a short time they bring income unavailable in the workers’ countries of origin, or in other sectors (Górny et al., 2018Górny, A., Kaczmarczyk, P., Szulecka, M., Bitner, M., Okólski, M., Siedlecka, U., and Stefańczyk, A. (2018). Imigranci w Polsce w kontekście uproszczonej procedury zatrudniania cudzoziemców. WISE-Europa, Ośrodek Badań nad Migracjami UW. http://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/raport-power.pdf ). This is also consistent with Ruth McAreavey’s (2017)McAreavey, R. (2017). New immigration destinations: Migrating to rural and peripheral areas. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. findings on new immigration destinations, in which migrant workers entering employment accept precarious conditions and inferior treatment, valuing the fact of having a better paid job over the conditions they experienced in their country of origin.

The conditions of work in agriculture, and thus the vulnerability of migrant farmworkers in Poland has not yet been at the centre of discussion between policy makers, employers and farmers associations, workers’ unions, and the media. Considering the latter, beyond several headlines reporting on fatal accidents involving temporary migrant farmworkers, their presence has mostly been discussed in the context of lacking enough ‘hands for work’. Thus, interest in farmworkers is, similarly to much of their work, seasonal, focused on their presence/absence and the formalities linked to their employment, and not on the working conditions in agriculture. Migrant farmworkers are most often not in touch with, nor visible to the majority of society, being a hard-to-reach population living near the farmlands, on the outskirt of villages, and due to their long working hours they are hardly a visible element of the social fabric in rural areas (Stachowski and Fiałkowska, 2020Stachowski, J., and Fiałkowska, K. (2020). ‘Living on the edge’?: A comparative study of processes of marginalisation among Polish migrants in rural Germany and Norway. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 104-120). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.). To different extents, these factors contribute to the peculiarity of agricultural exceptionalism in Poland, that being a strong focus on the needs of farmers during the pandemic and little consideration of workers’ rights, combined with a low level of enforcement of pandemic health and safety measures on the ground.

Against this background, we argue that agricultural exceptionalism played a crucial role during the pandemic, satisfying the needs of farmers, but also protecting state authorities from an influential lobby during potentially critical times. Fast track solutions adopted in the sector after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (which we will go on to discuss in greater detail) are thus nothing new, but rather follow an already beaten track. While documenting these aspects (including analysis of the legal solutions, observations from the field, and conversations with migrant farmworkers) we locate it in the larger context of migration to agriculture in Poland and against the background of the already adopted solutions to ease access of farmers to ‘hands for work’ and how they were called for or assessed by employers in agriculture during the COVID-19 outbreak.

In order to discuss farm work in Poland through the lens of agricultural exceptionalism and argue how it benefited farmers during the pandemic, we shed light on the migrantisation of this field in Poland and discuss how the legal framework around this issue was successively built to provide ‘hands for work’ to farmlands. We then move on to discuss the salience of farmworkers’ issues during the early months of the pandemic when we documented what steps were taken in order to ensure the workers’ presence despite the introduction of a general lockdown. Later, we present the sources of empirical data and move to discuss the situation of migrant farmworkers during the pandemic, based on observations and interviews with farmworkers and employers. In the conclusions, we refer to the exceptionality of agriculture in the context of economic immigration to Poland, in both ‘normal’ and pandemic times.

Migrantisation of farm work in Poland in the context of agricultural exceptionalism

Generally, foreigners need a work permit to be able to work in Poland, but there are many exceptions to this rule²For instance, this obligation does not apply to, among others, EU/EEA citizens, third-country nationals with a permanent residence permit, graduates from Polish universities, or holders of the Card of the Pole. The latter is a document confirming the holder’s belonging to the Polish nation through Polish roots or activity for the benefit of Polish communities and culture. It offers various privileges, such as free access to the labour market or (since 2017) the possibility to obtain financial support for the purpose of accommodating in Poland in case of applying for permanent residence permit. For the provisions determining this instrument - see Ustawa z Dnia 7 września 2007 r. o Karcie Polaka (t.j. Dz. U. z 2019 r. poz. 1598) [Law on the Card of the Pole]. . The so-called simplified procedure (hiring migrants through declaration on entrusting work to a foreigner), introduced in mid-2006, could be treated as one of the exceptions from this obligation. This simplification concerned the possibility to hire citizens from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus in agriculture for a period of work not longer than three months within a six month period, without the obligation to apply for a work permit. Introduction of this instrument was lobbied for by farmers themselves, emphasising lack of workers and, at the same time, lack of flexible and economic solutions of employing foreigners (Duszczyk et al., 2010Duszczyk, M., Lesińska, M., Szczepański, M., Stefańska, R., and Szulecka, M. (2010). Polityka migracyjna w Polsce oraz jej wpływ na napływ i osiedlanie się imigrantów. In A. Górny, I. Grabowska-Lusińska, M. Lesińska, and M. Okólski (Eds.), Transformacja nieoczywista. Polska jako kraj imigracji (pp. 69-124). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa. Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.; Plewa, 2007Plewa, P. (2007). The Rise and Fall of Temporary Foreign Worker Policies: Lessons for Poland 1. International Migration, 45(2), 3-36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2007.00402.x ). Due to the development of the procedure, which in 2007 extended its application to all sectors of the economy, and in 2008 extended the allowed period of work based on a declaration to six months within twelve months, a few years later it began playing a crucial role in attracting migrant workers on a short-term basis (Górny et al., 2018Górny, A., Kaczmarczyk, P., Szulecka, M., Bitner, M., Okólski, M., Siedlecka, U., and Stefańczyk, A. (2018). Imigranci w Polsce w kontekście uproszczonej procedury zatrudniania cudzoziemców. WISE-Europa, Ośrodek Badań nad Migracjami UW. http://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/raport-power.pdf ). The modifications at the beginning of 2018 were supported by the introduction of a seasonal work permit dedicated to agriculture. However, they also responded to the phenomenon defined by control services as visa extortion, i.e. using declarations from Polish employers only to obtain visas, without taking the jobs stated in the declarations (Szulecka, 2016Szulecka, M. (2016). Paradoxes of formal social control. Criminological aspects of foreigners’ access to the Polish territory and labour market. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Kryminologicznego Im. Prof. Stanisława Batawii, 23, 79-95.). Including the rules of the simplified procedure with new requirements in the main legal act determining foreigners’ access to the labour market in Poland³Ustawa z dnia 20 kwietnia 2004 r. o promocji zatrudnienia i instytucjach rynku pracy (t.j. Dz. U. z 2021 r. poz. 1100 z późn. zm.) [Law on Promotion of Employment]. Earlier, functioning of the simplified procedure was based on a very general and laconic provision included in the ordinance regulating exceptions from the obligation to possess a work permit by foreigners (Rozporządzenie Ministra Pracy i Polityki Społecznej z dnia 21 kwietnia 2015 r. w sprawie przypadków, w których powierzenie wykonywania pracy cudzoziemcowi na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej jest dopuszczalne bez konieczności uzyskania zezwolenia na pracę; Dz. U. poz. 588)., as well as the popularity of the procedure (in particular, in agriculture until 2018) resulted in the procedure becoming a parallel system for admitting migrants to the labour market in Poland, alongside the ‘old’ work permit system and the ‘new’ seasonal work permit system. The difference between the simplified procedure and the other two pertains to the limited number of countries whose citizens may be employed based on the declaration. As of March 2022, the citizens of six countries either neighbouring Poland and/or cooperating with the EU within the Mobility Partnership were eligible for the simplified procedure (i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia⁴According to new regulations, since 28 October 2022, Russian citizens can no longer be employed under the simplified procedure., Moldova, Armenia and Georgia). Since 2019, however, this instrument no longer applies to seasonal work in agriculture.

Contrary to the declarations within the simplified procedure, seasonal work permits can be obtained by all third country nationals who do not have free access to the labour market in Poland. This (relatively) new instrument, introduced to implement the Seasonal Work Directive, allows access to work in agriculture, forestry, tourism and catering, in which the demand on labour force depend on the seasons of the year. The period of validity of seasonal work permits is up to nine months within a calendar year. This means that if farmers need foreign workers for longer periods or permanently, without rotation of personnel, they have to obtain ‘traditional’ work permits, issued for up to three years. For short-term work that is not specified in the law as seasonal, and thus not requiring seasonal work permits, employers in agriculture can still use the simplified procedure (declarations)⁵In January 2022, a new law amendment came into force, extending the allowed period of work based on a declaration to 24 months. . The procedures of obtaining the mentioned documents differ - declarations and seasonal work permits are issued at local labour offices within seven days (30 days for complicated cases) at a relatively low cost (approx. 7 EUR)⁶Until 2018, registering declarations on intent to entrust work to a foreigner was free of charge. . In turn, work permits (in general, for the purposes of sectors of the economy other than agriculture) are issued by voivodeship offices within 30 days (60 days for complicated cases) and the procedure incurs costs between approx. 25 and 50 EUR.

The introduction of the simplified procedure in 2006 also served other two goals (apart from satisfying the needs of labour force on farmlands). The first one related to facilitating access to the territory through attaching the possibility to get a visa based on a declaration (later also via a seasonal work permit). This step was necessary in the context of the more restrictive visa issuance process after Poland’s accession to the Schengen zone in December 2007. The second goal concerned the state’s attempts to regularise work in agriculture and decrease the level of informal employment. Facilitated access to the labour market for foreigners was especially needed in agriculture due to the huge dependence of the sector on migrant workers⁷According to the study covering the years 2016-2017, the share of immigrants in the structure of workers on the farmlands in Poland amounted to 90 per cent, whereas the same indicator for construction was equal to at most 30 per cent (Górny et al., 2018, p. 71).. The latter was also recognised by the state authorities, remaining under pressure of farmers claiming that regular employment contracts in agriculture are inadequate for agriculture, which depends on many external factors (such as weather). To further ease formalities regarding employment in this sector, those who enter under a seasonal work permit can be employed with a special type of civil contract, applicable only to seasonal workers in agriculture, for maximum period of 180 days within a calendar year (contract for persons assisting in harvesting).

The policy of admitting migrants to the labour market (not only to agriculture) in Poland on a short-term basis has been perceived as quite advantageous for both employers and employees, which contributed to an increased scale of arrivals in Poland. However, this increase stems not only from relatively easy access to the labour market, especially temporary jobs. The increase observed since 2014, translating in the growing scale of arrivals from Ukraine as a result of a combination of factors - Russian aggression in eastern part of Ukraine, the deterioration of Ukrainian economy as a consequence, and developing liberal policies for admitting Ukrainian migrants to the Polish territory and labour market⁸Apart from simplified procedure, we should mention visa free regime between Ukraine and EU (since June 2017) and privileges attached to the Card of the Pole accessible for a substantial number of Ukrainian citizens (Keryk, 2021). . The main legal channel for Ukrainian migrants coming to Poland was the facilitated procedure (based on the employers’ declarations). Each year at least 90 per cent of holders of declarations issued under the simplified procedure were citizens of Ukraine. The same characteristic applied to the seasonal work permits introduced in 2018. In light of this information, the high numbers and share of Ukrainians employed in agriculture (e.g. 99 per cent of all migrant workers in this sector in 2017; see Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.) are not surprising. This phenomenon has been even dubbed the ‘Ukrainization’ of agriculture in Poland.

However, this term concerns the predominance of Ukrainian citizens among immigrants in general (Górny and Kindler, 2018, p. 222Górny, A., and Kindler, M. (2018). Cudzoziemcy w Polsce na przełomie XX i XXI wieku. In. M. Lesińska and M. Okólski (Eds.), 25 wykładów o migracjach (pp. 221-234). Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. ). The number of first residence permits, including long-term visas and temporary stay permits, issued by Polish authorities amounted to 108,000 in 2011, and in the pre-pandemic year 2019, it reached 724,000. Despite travel restrictions and lockdowns affecting also immigration offices in 2020, the number of first residence permits issued by Polish authorities remained as high as 598,000, which constituted 26 per cent of all first residence permits issued by all EU states to third country nationals in 2020. Ukrainians obtained almost 489,000 first residence permits issued by Poland in 2020, usually for work-related purposes (Eurostat, 2021Eurostat. (2021). First residence permits visualised. (n.d.). Retrieved 21 March 2022, from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/-/wdn-20211102-1 ). Intensive growth, with higher shares of Ukrainian migrants (always exceeding 60 per cent), relates to all kinds of documents allowing migrants’ access to the labour market, i.e., work permits, seasonal work permits and employers’ declarations on entrusting work to foreigners. In 2011, almost 41,000 of work permits were issued and 260,000 of employers’ declarations registered. In 2020, these numbers amounted to, accordingly, 418,000 of work permits and around 1,500,000 of employers’ declarations. In addition, in 2020, 137,000 of seasonal work permits were issued (2-4 per cent more than in 2018 and 2019, which is since the instrument was introduced; MRPiT Departament Rynku Pracy, 2021MRPiT, Departament Rynku Pracy. (2021). Informacja o zatrudnieniu cudzoziemców w Polsce. https://psz.praca.gov.pl/web/urzad-pracy/-/8180234-informacje-o-zatrudnieniu-cudzoziemcow-w-polsce ). Both the statistics on national level, and when compared to other EU states reflect the new migratory status of Poland and the increasing role of immigration for the functioning of its labour market (see also Okólski, 2021Okólski, M. (2021). The Migration Transition in Poland. Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 10(2), 151-169. https://doi.org/10.17467/CEEMR.2021.16 ).

Agriculture, with the low wages pertinent to this sector, isolation from urban centres, and often a substandard level of accommodation, must compete with other sectors of the economy for workers (Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.). In particular, it must compete for Ukrainian workers, who are desirable due to their easy access to legal entrance on the Polish territory. However, due to the same reasons and perceived easiness in adaptation in Poland they are also desirable by other sectors, where they may achieve higher wages and better conditions of work.⁹Such an observation was also shared by a representative of the Ministry of Development, Labour and Technology that is regularly contacted by farmers experiencing problems with employing Ukrainian workers attracted by employers in other sectors (Interview, Warsaw, 23.12.2020; interview conducted within a small-scale study on the impact of pandemic-related regulations on migration control practices performed by Witold Klaus and Monika Szulecka as a part of the project ‘Ensuring the safety and public order as a justification of criminalisation of migration’ financed by the National Science Centre, Poland under the grant number 2017/25/B/HS5/02961; see also Klaus 2021). The situation of shortages of ‘hands for work’ in agriculture not only in Poland, but Europe-wide, begs the question of the sustainability of such mode of agri-food production in the future. The existing legal framework and the number of facilitations do not mean that entrusting work in agriculture to migrants is easy and free from violations (e.g. Górny et al., 2016Górny, A., Kaczmarczyk, P., Fiałkowska, K., Piechowska, M., and Szulecka, M. (2016). Imigranci z Ukrainy w Polsce. Raport z badania. Warszawa: OBMF.; Szulecka, 2016Szulecka, M. (2016). Paradoxes of formal social control. Criminological aspects of foreigners’ access to the Polish territory and labour market. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Kryminologicznego Im. Prof. Stanisława Batawii, 23, 79-95.). In brief, these violations, referring directly to the conditions of employment in agriculture, include the lack of a formal job agreement as many employers were allegedly convinced that the declaration or seasonal work permit would suffice, a lack of social contributions and medical insurance, and no specification of a minimum standard of accommodation. What is more, the possibility of inspection or control of the working and living conditions in agriculture has remained almost non-existent, with limited severity of sanctions for violations on the side of the employer. Violations associated with the use of the simplified procedure led to a greater interest by the control services in the legality of migrant work in agriculture, and the ambiguous role of intermediaries in this respect (Górny et al., 2018Górny, A., Kaczmarczyk, P., Szulecka, M., Bitner, M., Okólski, M., Siedlecka, U., and Stefańczyk, A. (2018). Imigranci w Polsce w kontekście uproszczonej procedury zatrudniania cudzoziemców. WISE-Europa, Ośrodek Badań nad Migracjami UW. http://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/raport-power.pdf ; Szulecka, 2016Szulecka, M. (2016). Paradoxes of formal social control. Criminological aspects of foreigners’ access to the Polish territory and labour market. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Kryminologicznego Im. Prof. Stanisława Batawii, 23, 79-95.). Increase of control of this aspect has focused on the legality issue, but the living and working conditions remained untouched.

In this paper, we focus on the situation of migrant farmworkers in agriculture in the Mazovian region of Poland, where intensive horticulture and fruit farming would be impossible if not for migrant farmworkers¹⁰The highest share of both declarations and seasonal work permits were issued for this voivodship (MRPiT Departament Rynku Pracy, 2021).. It is argued that the importance of agriculture in the Polish economy has decreased since the democratic transformation started in 1989, but while this is the case, the number of people employed in the sector is still higher (more than 17 per cent in 2004 and 10 per cent in 2018) than the EU average (3 per cent) (Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.). The excess of workers in Polish agriculture has been estimated at the level of 500,000-900,000 (Wiśniewski and Rudnicki, 2016Wiśniewski Ł., and Rudnicki, R. (2016). Labour Input in Polish Agriculture Against Size of Agricultural Holdings - Spatial Analysis. Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development, 3(41), 413-424. https://doi.org/10.17306/JARD.2016.69.), with many of them being family members, and non-salaried workers. Nevertheless, under pressure of farmers, Poland introduced a series of exceptions for employment of foreigners in the sector, quite unexpectedly playing an important role in the recent history of immigration to Poland, which is thus an interesting case for agricultural exceptionalism.

The state-industrial complex of agricultural exceptionality during the COVID-19 pandemic

The beginning of the pandemic in Europe in 2020 and the introduction of lockdowns coincided with the beginning of the harvesting season and intensive work in agriculture. When the lockdown was introduced, the expected seasonal workers were unable to come. Their absence due to the closed borders, instantly brought them to attention and recognised how they were valuable, important or even essential to certain sectors of the economy well known for reliance on migrant labour (Molinero-Gerbeau, 2021Molinero-Gerbeau, Y. (2021). The Problem is not Covid-19, it’s the Model! Industrial Agriculture and Migrant Farm Labour in the EU. EuroChoices, 20(3), 69-74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-692X.12308 ). During the first couple of months of the pandemic, amid the strictly closed borders to minimize the mobility and spread of the virus (but also delimiting who was eligible for state protection, that being citizens and limited groups of non-citizens; Nowicka et al., 2021Nowicka, M., Bartig, S., Schwass, T., and Matuszczyk, K. (2021). COVID-19 Pandemic and Resilience of the Transnational Home-Based Elder Care System between Poland and Germany. Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 33(4-5), 474-492. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2021.1927615 ), a series of exemptions were made for those who were deemed essential, i.a. migrant farmworkers, but who were simultaneously targeted with policies restricting cross border mobility (Molinero-Gerbeau, 2021Molinero-Gerbeau, Y. (2021). The Problem is not Covid-19, it’s the Model! Industrial Agriculture and Migrant Farm Labour in the EU. EuroChoices, 20(3), 69-74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-692X.12308 ).

As such, the announcement of the pandemic in March 2020 contributed to many uncertainties related to the functioning of labour markets. In particular, in the context of restrictions on cross-border mobility, it raised questions about seasonal workers, among whom third country nationals predominate. Concerns that seasonal workers would not be able to come led to a search for alternative solutions and - at the same time - to pressure on the authorities to establish special pathways for migrant workers. For example, the Polish Minister of Agriculture stated that work in agriculture would be beneficial to one’s physical and psychological well-being after a period of lockdown, especially among those who had lost their job due to the pandemic (‘Minister do nauczycieli’, 2020Minister do nauczycieli: Idźcie do pracy w polu zbierać truskawki! (2020, May 25). Głos Nauczycielski. https://glos.pl/minister-do-nauczycieli-idzcie-do-pracy-w-polu-zbierac-truskawki ). This was no different to what was already happening elsewhere, in the UK (“Help feed the nation” campaign) or in Germany (“The country helps. Together for the agriculture and us all”) where volunteers registered with local farms, declaring their willingness to work during the harvesting season. Meanwhile, in April and May, some 80,000 migrant farmworkers were allowed to enter Germany (Neef, 2020Neef, A. (2020). Legal and social protection for migrant farm workers: Lessons from COVID-19. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 641-642. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10086-w ) and soon charter flights took off to deliver Central and Eastern European farmworkers to farmlands in Germany, but also to the UK, and Finland. Poland was a latecomer in introducing solutions to provide much needed ‘hands for work’. The state’s policies first and foremost aimed at facilitating border crossings in an era of ‘immobility’ that were very much dependent on pandemic-related policies in the source country, as in the case of Ukraine with its regulation closing the border crossings and thus preventing the previously very intense mobility between Poland and Ukraine.

Addressing the issue of migrant workers in general, and seasonal workers in particular, the Polish authorities enacted two kinds of provisions that remain relevant for the purpose of this analysis. The first relates to the rules on border crossing during the pandemic. On March 14th, 2020, along with the ‘closure’ of the state’s borders, the ordinance specifying the conditions of border crossings and persons eligible came into force¹¹Rozporządzenie Ministra Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji z dnia 13 marca 2020 r. w sprawie czasowego zawieszenia lub ograniczenia ruchu granicznego na określonych przejściach granicznych (Dz. U. Poz. 435 z późn. zm.) [Ordinance on limitations to cross-border mobility]. . The first version already identified migrants with seasonal work permits as being entitled to enter Poland despite the general restrictions. Migrants with other titles authorising them to work in Poland were in the same situation - they could come to Poland for the purposes of work performance. All those who held no Polish or EU citizenship, or who lacked a permanent residence permit and access to the labour market, would not be allowed in. This relates, for instance, to holders of biometric passports who did not require any additional documents to travel across borders in the ‘pre-pandemic’ period. With time, this ordinance, along with its amendments, addressed other categories of migrants, whose status was previously omitted from the regulation. For instance, the authorities added to the list of persons eligible to enter Poland (during the time of cross-border restrictions) migrants who needed a seasonal work permit, but whose applications for such a permit were already registered by Polish offices. In September 2021, the list of categories of persons allowed to enter Poland despite restrictions was enriched with the general term ‘citizens of Ukraine’¹²In September 2020, the general category of ‘citizens of Belarus’ was also added to the list. This was, however, aimed at easing access to Polish territory for Belarusian citizens fleeing political repression in their country of origin. , which is the most common citizenship amid migrant farmworkers and all migrant workers in Poland.

The second group of provisions related to work and residence permits, the validity of which was prolonged under the special laws introduced as a counter-pandemic measure and remedies for all restrictions posed on individuals, companies and public institutions¹³ Ustawa z dnia 2 marca 2020 r. o szczególnych rozwiązaniach związanych z zapobieganiem, przeciwdziałaniem i zwalczaniem COVID-19, innych chorób zakaźnych oraz wywołanych nimi sytuacji kryzysowych (t.j. Dz. U. z 2021 r. poz. 2095 z późn. zm.) [Law on special measures to prevent and tackle spread of COVID-19].. According to these provisions (since May 16^th, 2020, under article 15.z⁷), all migrant workers who had any kind of authorisation to work in Poland (a work permit or employers’ declaration) valid after March 13th, 2020 (the day prior to the introduction of the special provisions related to the pandemic) could take up jobs in agriculture or harvesting without any additional permits. The validity of this rule concerned only the period of the officially declared state of epidemic or epidemic threat¹⁴The state of epidemic was in force till 16 May 2022, when it was replaced with a state of epidemic threat, which was prolonged until the end of 2022 in October 2022.. Already in early spring of 2020 there was a consensus that third country nationals’ access to jobs in agriculture could not be blocked by formal requirements¹⁵Such a conclusion can be drawn based on the small-scale study on the impact of pandemic-related regulations on migration control practices (Interview with a representative of the Ministry of Development, Labour and Technology, Warsaw 23.12.2020). , but the idea was implemented in the provision in mid-May 2020, i.e. when the high season for agriculture had already started. Thus, the fast-track solution introduced assumed foremost that all those who were already present on the labour market in Poland and had rights to work (on any basis) could easily access jobs in agriculture and - in addition - be very mobile in it (change places of work without the obligation to obtain additional permits for this).

The authorities also provided guidelines regarding all those migrant workers who had entered Poland from abroad and started work in agriculture (usually based on documents obtained previously). The guidelines were elaborated under pressure of farmers who actively called for abandoning COVID-19 related restrictions (in particular, quarantine and testing) for paid activities conducted in the open-air¹⁶Ibid.. The announced guidelines assumed that seasonal migrant workers taking up jobs on farmlands were allowed to work during the obligatory 14 day quarantine, provided that they were tested (and had negative results) and respected other rules aimed at preventing the spread of the virus. The costs of the testing of farmworkers against COVID-19 were to be covered by the state (as declared on 22 May 2022). Possibility to work during quarantine was not linked to possibility to leave the farm. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Sanitary Inspection announced a set of non-binding recommendations for both employers and farmworkers, e.g. reaching the employers’ facilities within 24 hours after entering Poland, securing proper conditions of accommodation and commuting to work, introducing additional safety measures. In particular, detailed recommendations referred to higher numbers of workers - e.g., separate entries for a groups up to ten workers should be organised in order to prevent infections (see more MRiRW, GIS, 2020MRiRW, GIS. (2020). Wytyczne MRiRW i GIS dla producentów rolnych zatrudniających cudzoziemców przy pracach sezonowych w związku z rozprzestrzenianiem się SARS-CoV-2.). The special provisions directly addressing seasonal migrant workers or seasonal work (in agriculture) as such illustrate to some extent the significance of the issue among the decision makers. Mitigated restrictions (the possibility to work already during the quarantine period) confirm the exceptionality of the sector. However, when it comes to practicalities, such as transport, organisation and cost of testing, deeper reflection came with a delay (see more below in the discussion of the empirical findings).

Source of empirical data and methods applied

To shed light on the exceptional solutions for agriculture applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, we refer to multi-sited, replicated study initiated in May 2019 and carried out for over three years during the busiest times for horticulture in Poland. It enabled us to gain a better understanding of employment conditions, and above all, to capture the changes to the sector and the ability of farmers and migrant farmworkers to adapt to the new circumstances, as brought about by the global health crisis. Participatory observation, consisting of employment on five farms, has to date consisted of 49 days (ongoing research). Not coincidentally, the research was carried out in the Grójec district, commonly referred to as the ‘orchard heart of Europe’, located about 50 kilometres south of Warsaw. Every year for the last two decades, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been employed there to harvest fruits and vegetables (Górny and Kaczmarczyk, 2020Górny, A., and Kaczmarczyk, P. (2020). Temporary farmworkers and migration transition: On a changing role of the agricultural sector in international labour migration to Poland. In J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (Eds.), International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (pp. 86-103). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.). Brief characteristics of the research sites are presented in Table 1.

The daily participant observations included such elements as working and eating together, helping each other during everyday mundane work tasks and after work duties (e.g. shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, etc.), socialising after work. Additionally, some employees agreed to recorded semi-structured interviews, which were usually carried out after a few days of getting to know each other and building up trust and rapport by the researcher. In total, 29 interviews were conducted with Ukrainian migrant farmworkers with different work experience (in terms of length as well as industry) in Poland. In addition, interviews were conducted with three Polish employees who were supervisors of migrant farmworkers on the visited farms. Interviews with both Polish and Ukrainian farmworkers lasted on average 30-60 minutes and were carried out during their free time (mainly on Sunday evenings). Daily interactions with the employers and 5 in-depth interviews with them, carried out at the end of the seasonal work (October, November of 2019, 2020 and 2021), complemented the field research.

Policy exceptionalism, farmworkers and their employers - insights from the field

Conclusion

In this paper our aim was to analyse how the exceptional policies were used, rationalised and applied in the sector during the pandemic, from the perspective of the state and its institutions, and this is the view that prevail in current analysis. Farmworkers’ rights are an area practically excluded from the regulatory framework and this was not different during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, during the fieldwork we uncovered that exceptionalism also operates at the level of employers and migrant farmworkers, who from their respective positions implement a series of exceptional practices, beliefs, convictions and rationalisations related to their situation as employers or migrant workers. Importantly, both sides have different reasons, linked to their asymmetric power relations and the intrinsic hierarchies on the farms, but overall it influences the general conditions of employment and worker-employer relations in agriculture. And it is aimed at maximising expected profits on both sides.

Migrant farmworkers’ position on the Polish labour market is very peculiar. Despite this sector being first migranticised sector of employment in Poland, there is little or no institutional support afforded to the migrant farmworkers. In spite of the long lasting presence of migrant farmworkers in the region of Grójec (since early 1990s), no immigrant organisations or trade unions have been established in the region, and the locally functioning welfare state institutions do not offer any form of support for third-country workers. Therefore, unlike in the region of Apulia, Italy (Tagliacozzo et al., 2021Tagliacozzo, S., Pisacane, L., and Kilkey, M. (2021). The interplay between structural and systemic vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic: Migrant agricultural workers in informal settlements in Southern Italy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(9), 1903-1921. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1857230 ), there were no actors that could support workers in need during the pandemic. Thus migrant farmworkers mostly rely on their migrant networks and on their contacts with the drivers in order to escape difficult working conditions, abuse or mistreatment. The lack of institutional support and the still high level of informality in agriculture increases the vulnerability of migrants to malpractice or fraud by employers. For many of them, mainly those working for the first or second time in Poland, the coping strategy in case of possible illness would be a quick return to Ukraine. This shows that, regardless of new pandemic circumstances, workers would rather retreat to mechanisms they were familiar with before the outbreak of the global health crisis (Fiałkowska and Matuszczyk, 2021Fiałkowska, K., and Matuszczyk, K. (2021). Safe and fruitful? Structural vulnerabilities in the experience of seasonal migrant workers in agriculture in Germany and Poland. Safety Science, 139, 105275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105275 ).

Exceptional solutions adopted during the pandemic to address the demand on seasonal workers in Polish agriculture served first and foremost the employers. However, migrant workers also took advantage of these solutions. They could start work in Poland after arrival much sooner than migrant workers hired in other sectors. Moreover, migrants who were already authorised to work in Poland had free access to lawful work in agriculture, of greater importance especially in the context of reduced operations in other sectors (such as hospitality and catering, services). However, from the perspective of potential health risks, Izabela Florczak offers a summary of the exceptional rules of quarantine and access to work after crossing the border regarding seasonal migrant workers: “Trying to find justification of introducing such an exception from the unconditional obligation of having quarantine in isolation, it seems that [in agriculture] the rule ‘the end justifies the mean’ is applicable. The supreme objective was to guarantee the continuity of work in agriculture, here considered as the value of higher rank than health and life of people” (Florczak, 2020, p. 73Florczak, I. (2020). Pandemia COVID-19 jako papierek lakmusowy sytuacji migrantów ekonomicznych z krajów trzecich na polskim rynku pracy. Władza Sądzenia, 18, 63-77.). Similar conclusions were reached by Corrado and Palumbo (2022, p. 163)Corrado, A., and Palumbo, L. (2022). Essential Farmworkers and the Pandemic Crisis: Migrant Labour Conditions, and Legal and Political Responses in Italy and Spain. In A. Triandafyllidou (Ed.), Migration and Pandemics. Spaces of Solidarity and Spaces of Exception (pp. 145-166). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81210-2_8 , who, when analysing the situation of seasonal workers in agri-food systems in Italy and Spain, concluded that the pandemic period was not a time of labour shortage, but rather a shortage of respect for workers’ rights.

Despite the common threats posed by the pandemic to everyone, the conditions of work and accommodation in agriculture have not changed when compared to the state of play before 2020. This means that recognition of seasonal workers at the political level, or even raised awareness in the society were not very influential as far as health and safety are concerned, in particular in the context of increased health risks (see Charlton and Castillo, 2021Charlton, D., and Castillo, M. (2021). Potential Impacts of a Pandemic on the US Farm Labor Market. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(1), 39-57. DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13105 ). Nevertheless, it seems that the recognition of essential workers (with farmworkers included within this group) during the pandemic at least partially contributed to raising awareness of migrant work and the conditions of such work among general population. This conclusion, however, cannot be isolated from the awareness and perceptions of migrant workers themselves. Pressure on employers regarding safety measures could change the employers’ strategies. However, if both migrant workers and the control institutions do not insist on the counter-pandemic guidelines being applied, it is unsurprising that employers take full advantage of this situation. Having said that, it must be stressed that the agency of migrant farmworkers in this respect is limited, along with their opportunities for e.g. unionising and to apply pressure for improvement of the living and working conditions on farms.