At the Provincial Court in Palma on Monday, a businessman accused of exploiting two workers at his finca in Majorca denied that this was the case.
The facts of the case go back to 2013. The two former workers maintain that they were each paid 280 euros a month and worked eight-hour days when they were only contracted to do two hours. One of the men told the court that the pay was never regular. After the first couple of months, their employer "began to bring frozen food from his house" and argued that if they had food, why did they need money.
It is claimed that there was no running water and that in order to use the bathroom, they had to get water from a well. "We heated the water in pots so that we could shower, and the toilet didn't work." The second man made similar claims, noting that a condition of their employment was that they didn't leave the finca.
The accused said that he went to the finca "at most" two times a week, that the gates were open and that the men, who were mainly employed for gardening, had the keys. He had acted, he added, "out of a certain charity".
His defence stated that evidence given by one of the two men in court contradicted what was reported to the National Police and during the pre-trial investigation. This was that he had worked as a volunteer and did the work as a "favour".
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