Slavery conditions in France’s famous wine region, Champagne

Robert Schmidt
Stéphanie Wenger
Ishaq Ali Anis

In 2022, for the first time, the value of shipments of Champagne bottles has been exceeding the six billion euros threshold. In total, 326 million bottles have been exported all over the world. About two thirds of the Champagne harvested is used by the big Champagne producers including famous brands such as Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot as well as Nicolas Feuillatte, Mumm and Laurent Perrier.

The success of the whole industry is also due to a massive foreign workforce being the majority of the more than 100 000 seasonal workers who flock to the region at this time of the year. According to the Champagne Industry Federation, during the 2017 Champagne harvest, for the very first time, the workload of the external workers from abroad exceeded the work done by French employees. Following worker’s Union representatives and other experts, the share of the foreigners has been increasing since, some of them evaluate its today’s share at about 2/3. Many of them are hired through service providers. Hundreds of them exist.

Over the last years, several news stories came out accusing the industry of Modern Slavery treatment towards grape pickers, often involving service providers. In September, five harvest workers died under circumstances that are still under investigation. In the same month, at least four collective worker’s accommodations have been closed down by Public Authorities, including illegal campsites. Two new prosecutor’s investigations were opened in Champagne for “human trafficking”. Workers without papers, without employment contracts and also malnourished were housed in unsanitary conditions in collective accommodations.

“The entire profession is deeply affected and expresses its condolences to the families (of the five deceased harvest workers)”, the industry declared in a written comment. “Some harvest workers were taken in under intolerable conditions. We condemn this unspeakable behaviour in the strongest possible terms.” Adding: “The industry association has agreed with the authorities to (...) take all necessary measures to ensure that such derailments are not repeated. This also includes the fact that we will be involved in legal proceedings on the side of the injured parties.” First suggestions were presented in mid-October: There should be more accommodation, work should be better organised and, above all, safer, and strict rules should apply to service providers in the future.

According to findings of a team of international journalists, the new revelations aren’t isolated cases. Indepth-research research on behalf of Evrensel, European broadcaster ARTE, German daily taz and other partners now reveal that many large champagne manufacturers have been profiting for years from a system that many refer to as modern slavery.

According to the findings of the journalists, a Turkey born businessman can be linked to strong misbehaviour towards workers for the grape harvest in Champagne. Unal O. was born in Ulupınar in Kemer, Antalya Province, in 1978. For about 20 years, he has been acting for many years as a major service provider for the Champagne industry. Most of his business is done through his company STV which was founded in 2004 in Epernay, a town which is considered as the centre of the Champagne industry. O. clients include major Champagne producers. According to the research of Evrensel and their partners, the Epernay based entrepreneur recruits thousands of workers abroad every year. Recently, much of the workforce was hired in Bulgaria, many of them coming from the Turkish community.

Five former workers who worked in different seasons as harvesters for STV are now accusing the company of bad working conditions. To protect the former workers, their names won’t be quoted here. The workers complained about the non-observance of the legal rest periods of 11 hours per day and one day per week. One of them, an experienced French harvester the reporters met in Reims, worked for STV ten years ago with a team. He claimed: “They kept several thousand euros from our salaries.” A Bulgarian worker from this year's harvest, the reporters met in the vineyards. He also asserted that he was given only about 700 euros for 11 days. The worker declared that he worked at least nine hours per day, meaning that he was remunerated more than 20 percent under the binding minimum salary in France. Following him, no contract was given. According to public documents, businessman O. sometimes paid extremely high dividendes to himself. In 2018 for example, O., as the one and only owner of STV, was paid 500 000 euros. The year after, he decided to give himself one million euros, more than 50 times of the minimum salary in France.

The field work of the journalists also showed that STV has been lacking this season to supply water to at least some of the workers, a legal obligation for this kind of company. The journalistic investigation furthermore obtained testimony on the fact that problems with accommodation of workers have been repeatedly reported to Public Authorities. Last year, a citizen’s report was made about a STV’s worker’s accommodation on a campsite, a two hours ride away from the vineyards. Public Authorities refused to comment on specific cases. According to José Blanco, head of the local worker’s Union CGT representing the workers from the Champagne industry, “STV is one of the worst service providers” when it comes to working conditions and accommodation. For years, Blanco has been complaining about an overpopulated worker’s house in Epernay owned by the STV group. The company would also bring workers every day from far away destinations sometimes infringing labour law on rest periods.

The businessman denied any wrongdoing. “Your description doesn’t fit my business at all”, Unal O. commented on the phone. “I have never had a tax adjustment or something like that.” His company works for “very large Champagne producers”, he added. “I have always paid my employees correctly above the minimum wage” and “always paid my social contributions”. According to him, the housing conditions of the workers are “more than adequate”. Big Champagne producers would carry out systematic checks in the dormitories. “We go through audits two to three times during the harvest." Unal O. confirmed that he also recruits in Bulgaria, “all of France has Bulgarian seasonal workers”, but everything would be in order, everyone would have a French contract. Regarding the findings on the lack of water supply, he said: “I provide everyone with water.” According to him, his company was recently even invited by public authorities in order to advise them on how to improve the situation of the seasonal workers in Champagne.

Only one out of five clients of STV reached out by the reporters directly commented on his partnership with the company. “We have been working with this service provider for about twenty years, without any difficulty”, Champagne bottler Taittinger declared. “We are aware of the annual inspections carried out by the competent labour law authorities (...) which to date have never alerted us to non-compliance.” The company added: “For several years, all professionals have had to adapt to face growing recruitment difficulties, particularly locally.” This situation would have led to resorting to the provision of services during the harvest to “complete the teams recruited directly by our house”. The company added that it selected these service providers “based on their experience in the Champagne wine sector, the quality of their work and the transparency of our regular exchanges before, during and throughout the harvest”. Taittinger concluded: “We frame the service through a contract concluded each year.”

Asked about their years-long cooperation with STV , Moet and Chandon refused to comment. The company simply declares that “we confirm that throughout the year, our priority is to ensure the health, safety and well-being of all people who work there, whether they are direct collaborators or employees of specialised service providers.” It added: “In order to maintain our requirement for continuous improvement among service providers”, the company would work with a specialised external audit firm. Moet and Chandon also declared that it “mobilised around ten auditors from different departments”. When non-conformities are noted, “corrective actions are immediately put in place, up to and including the immediate termination of the contract with a subcontractor for non-compliance with our code of conduct.” Other STV partners such as Vranken Pommery Monopole, Bollinger and Mumm didn’t reply at all to the questions of the reporters.

Problems with bad working conditions in Champagne have been documented for a while already but only few cases have resulted in judicial trials. In the majority of these court cases the providers were prosecuted but the champagne producers they worked for - whether independent winemakers or bigger companies - were left aside of the courtrooms. Protagonists of the cases siding with the victims, like the CGT union or lawyer, cast a doubt about the real of the authorities to punish all the wrongdoers in the industry and thus the industry to reform itself.

in 2012, a Champagne winemaker was sentenced to prison for the first time. He employed hundreds of Poles through a shell company. In 2019, after four years of investigations, there was a second verdict against a service provider. He had housed hundreds of Poles in inhumane conditions. Another service provider was then arrested in September 2021. He had recruited, together with accomplices, 350 to 500 Bulgarians available for the harvest in Champagne every year since 2017, according to the special investigators from Lille. The Franco-Bulgarian network defrauded the French state of “several million euros”. Eight people were charged with illegal work and organised money laundering. In September, a local court in Châlons-en-Champagne definitely sentenced MHCS, the Champagne branch of LVMH, to pay around 17,000 euros for cases of non-compliance with rest period laws during the 2019 grape harvest. The company didn’t want to comment on the court judgement.

In June 2022 already, a couple from Sri Lanka was ultimately sentenced by a court in Reims for “trafficking in human beings”, punished to three years in prison, one of which was suspended – the couple had been equipped with electronic bracelets. About 200 victims, mainly from Afghanistan, have been identified and accompanied by a French Human Rights NGO. According to court documents, their work has been benefiting major Champagne brands.“The work was very difficult”, commented Safituhla Warziwal, an Afghanistan born victim and whistleblower within the affair. “We worked until 11 and 11:30 during the night. We would wake up around 5 or 6 in the morning. In one room, there were 36 people. There was only one toilet.” He added: “Another thing which was very difficult was the food. We did not receive enough food.”  “People were exploited in an inhumane way”, resumed Benjamin Chauveaux, a French lawyer who defended 15 of the victims, all of them asylum seekers: “Uprooted people, chaotic, incredible life journeys.” According to the lawyer, all these people were “exploited in an inhumane way”. He remembers that “they were afraid of discussing their situation in front of the police, afraid of being expelled. The victims' feeling after the verdict was both frustration, but became almost anecdotal, compared to their situation.”

This story is part of the investigative journalism project “Champagne Leaks” which has been backed by journalismfund.eu. The team can be reached out by mail: champagneleaks@protonmail.com.