In a very worrying development, the abuse of several hundred migrant workers in the Czech state forest sector was widely reported in 2011. Workers from Vietnam, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine were hired by sub-contractors in 2009 to work in the state forests but were left unpaid over a period of months.
The Czech State Forestry enterprise (Lesy CR) had subcontracted work to two Prague based companies Affumicata a.s. and Wood Servis Praha s.r.o. In the case of the Vietnamese workers, it is thought that they were tricked into signing educational rather than employment contracts. Lesy CR said that they could were not responsible for the actions of subcontractors, whilst the parent body of Lesy CR, the agriculture ministry stated that it could not be held responsible for employment matters.