The champagne industry is a billion-dollar enterprise, yet much of its wealth is built on the backs of exploited workers. Last year, France’s famed winemaking producers took a hit when reports of migrant workers from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, and Gambia were found living in deplorable conditions while harvesting grapes for some of the most coveted champagne houses. These workers are often undocumented, forced to endure days of grueling labor, and housed in unsanitary, makeshift shelters.

The Telegraph reports that a human trafficking case involving pickers is underway and will open next spring. The case is expected to massively damage the reputation of the romanticized industry, exposing the culture of wine producers’ blind eye to exploitative practices.

Modern slavery within the grape vines

Despite working long hours under the scorching sun, migrant laborers receive as little as €80 per day, paid under the table. They are denied proper meals and forced to sleep in overcrowded, unsafe conditions—conditions likened to “hell” by the workers themselves.

As written in the article,

They [authorities] discovered “makeshift bedding, dilapidation, unsanitary conditions, lack of cleaning and disinfection, the disgusting state of toilets, sanitary facilities and common areas [and] the accumulation of faecal matter in the sanitary facilities.”

A video shot on one worker’s smartphone showed the only meal of the day: a weevilled bowl of rice eaten standing up, around camping tables. Inside, bare electric cables were exposed on the roof of the shower, posing the risk of electrocution.

Most winegrowers pay subcontractors to provide and look after the pickers.

“Every morning between 5 and 6am”, these subcontractors came to collect the pickers, loading them into three vans with no air-conditioning “like animals”.

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