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🇧🇪 Belgium /Economy & Trade

Fruit grower sends 50 seasonal workers home after hotel accommodation in Borgloon is cleared: “Very unfair”

From VRT NWS · () Dutch

Translated from Dutch and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Fruit grower Gaston Derwael is sending 50 of his seasonal workers back to Romania after authorities cleared their accommodation at the Château de Looz estate.
  • The workers expected to earn money for two months, while Derwael says the loss of labor will delay the remaining apple and pear harvest.
  • ARIEC Limburg urged local governments to introduce permits for room rentals so authorities can better monitor seasonal-worker housing.

Gaston Derwael says he must send 50 seasonal workers back to Romania after the accommodation they used at the Château de Looz estate was cleared. For the workers, he says, the sudden loss of housing is a disaster.

For those people, this is a disaster.

· Gaston DerwaelThe fruit grower described the impact of the accommodation closure on the seasonal workers.

Derwael employs more than 100 seasonal workers during the harvest of apples and pears, which runs from mid-August into October. He can house about 60 people on his own property. This year, the remaining 50 stayed in an outbuilding at the hotel estate and traveled by bus each day to the orchards.

After the mayor ordered the estate cleared, Derwael said he could not find a proper replacement for all 50 workers in a single day. Their only option, he said, was to return to Romania, meaning they would miss out on two months of expected earnings. The workers considered the decision unfair because they had been away shopping when a fight took place and, according to Derwael, had nothing to do with it.

It is impossible to find a proper solution for those people within one day.

· Gaston DerwaelHe explained why the workers had to return to Romania.

The disruption also affects the harvest. Derwael plans to continue with the workers who remain, but said the rest of the fruit will be picked later than usual. He added that the pear harvest began early, there are fewer apples than normal, and the work is already nearing completion, though the situation is still far from ideal.

They have no choice but to return to Romania.

· Gaston DerwaelHe described the workers’ immediate consequence after losing their accommodation.

Derwael said he was surprised that so many people had been staying at the estate. He maintained that his 50 workers had a permit and that the building was an approved place to house them. ARIEC Limburg, a federal police expertise center that tracks organized crime and assists local authorities, said it regularly encounters similar practices and called for local rules requiring permits for room rentals.

They considered this extremely unfair. At the time of the fight, they were at the shop. They had nothing to do with the argument.

· Gaston DerwaelHe said the workers disputed being affected by the clearance after the fight.
About this summary

Originally published by VRT NWS in Dutch. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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