Glastonbury Exploits Workers on Zero Hour Contracts

Glastonbury Exploits Workers on Zero Hour Contracts

Glastonbury is currently under fire for hiring hundreds of workers and firing most of them after two days of work.

According to The Independent, over 700 workers from Czech Republic, Spain, Latvia, Poland and others arrived at Worthy Farm with zero-hour contracts to help with the annual post-festival large-scale cleaning. However, just after two days, all but 100 workers were told to leave.

This comes at an odd time. Just a week ago, Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party along with organizer Michael Eavis made an appearance on the festival’s Pyramid Stage and spoke to young people that they should not “accept low wages and insecurity as just a part of life”.

Good weather and plenty of volunteers graced this year’s festival. An on-site litter team worked throughout the festival, leaving it with less trash than years before. A worker from the Czech Republic, Simon Kadlcak, told The Independent: 

“We found out quite soon that there was not as much garbage as usual, so there was less work. Rumors were being spread about what would happen and there was no proper information.”

Kadlcak also mentioned that many of the workers spent enough money getting to Worth Farm thinking that they would be receiving two-weeks pay in return. Workers flew back home or stayed in the UK jobless due to a majority of them having no work. Others left the farm and are attempting to find work in order to recoup their financial losses.

Workers still on the site are having disconnected feelings towards the migrant workers. Robin Denton from South Africa has been helping clean the festival since 1997 and mentions that he has “never seen the people treated so badly” and points the blame to the zero hour contract. On the flip side, a video taken on site shows a supervisor telling a worker “everyone is on a zero hours contract. We have no commitment to feed these people, they’re on paid jobs, their job is over”.

The Independent has contacted Glastonbury organizers about the fiasco and they have declined to comment.

Source: The Independent