Seinforma Canada

   Workers from the Caribbean countries and Mexico have been coming to Canada for the growing season for forty years under CSAWP agreements with the sending countries, yet the federal and provincial governments continue to pretend that these are "temporary" workers. This classification as "temporary" is used to justify denying all worker and civil rights to this important contingent of the Canadian working class.
   The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has been organizing among migrant farm workers for the past ten years, despite the Ontario government's ban on farm workers (foreign and domestic) belonging to a union. UFCW releases a report every year at the end of the growing season on the conditions and situation faced by migrant farm workers and on the demands these workers are making for justice and the dignity of labour.
   The 2007 year-end report lists numerous indignities that migrant farm workers have reported when seeking refuge at worker action centres run by the union, including: violence at the hands of supervisors; grossly inadequate housing and sanitary services; confiscation of passports and medical documents; illegal piecework payment systems; non-payment of wages; denying medical treatment. These same kinds of abusive treatment of workers have been reported on in annual reports, year after year.
   UFCW indicates that it is the lack of civil rights, the classification as a "temporary" worker subject to repatriation by the Canadian government that allows this barbarity to continue:
   "When migrant workers raise issues of concern to their employer, they do so knowing they face the very real risk of being sent home under the CSAWP's repatriation provisions. Under these provisions, workers can and are sent home by their employer, often with just a day or two's notice, for any reason. This ability of employers to have workers repatriated for any reason is perhaps the most significant negative aspect of CSAWP. In essence, it provides a blanket of immunity for employers to treat workers as they choose, since any worker who tries to object can be immediately repatriated.
   "This provision also allows employers to send home workers who become sick or injured while working in Canada. It is a convenient method for farmers to avoid worker compensation claims and the temporary staffing issues associated with employee illness. In real terms for the migrant workers, it means that should they injure themselves on the job, they risk immediate repatriation if they file for compensation.
   "The same is true in cases of illness. Each summer staff at these union run centres encounter issues where workers become ill, require medical attention and are subsequently sent home."
    The report also outlines how any "reform" of the CSAWP is frustrated by the underlying injustice of repatriation/deportation by the employer. For example, in June 2006, CSWAP workers came under the protection of the Ontario workplace health and safety regulations as a result of a Charter of Rights challenge. But the report says that the situation hasn't changed:
    "As of June 2006, a migrant farm worker has the provincially legislated right to refuse to perform unsafe work. Yet, because of this critical flaw in CSAWP, this worker's employer can simply have him repatriated for exercising this fundamental right."
    This basic lack of recognition of rights reflected in repatriation of migrants by the employers also affects the efforts of the workers to join and build trade unions to defend themselves. There are union organizing campaigns ongoing in Manitoba and in Quebec, with workers at some farms already signed up and going for certification. In these cases, the employers are threatening repatriation and "blacklisting" in future seasons as a union-busting tactic, with the full cooperation of the Canadian government and the governments of the sending countries, in service of the monopolies.
    As in Ontario, unions for farm workers are illegal in Alberta. Litigation is underway to have these anti-labour laws thrown out as a result of recent Supreme Court rulings on freedom of association. But past practice has shown that any extension of rights is meaningless when the employers can continue their reign of terror through deportation.
    At the present time the government is working with the rich to extend similar temporary foreign worker programs into every section of the economy to create a severely exploited section of the working class held in thrall with the threat of deportation. Barbarous conditions imposed on migrant workers are justified with the racist theory that this is "good enough" for migrants because "they are still better off" or "lucky to be here."
    People throughout the country support the demands of the seasonal agricultural workers and other migrant workers for an end to repatriation and deportations and for access to permanent immigration status. Abuse of human beings and denial of human rights inherent in such programs are unacceptable. Suppression of migrant workers' right to resist exploitation undermines the struggle of all workers in defence of their rights and in defence of their livelihoods.
Note
1. UFCW Canada Report on the Status of Migrant Farm Workers in Canada, 2006-2007. Full report is available on line at http://www.ufcw.ca/Theme/UFCW/files/PDF2007/StatusReportEN2007.pdf

Migrant farm workers have reported indignities when seeking refuge at worker action centres run by the union, including: violence at the hands of supervisors; grossly inadequate housing and sanitary services; confiscation of passports and medical documents; illegal piecework payment systems; non-payment of wages; denying medical treatment. These same kinds of abusive treatment of workers have been reported on in annual reports, year after year.

By UFCW/Seinforma Canada

Rexdale, Ontario.- Sixteen thousand seasonal agricultural workers from Mexico and the Caribbean countries produce massive social wealth in Ontario. Horticulture makes up 56 per cent of Ontario farm receipts and produces net exports of almost $2 billion.
The labour in this highly capitalized sector is almost entirely provided by migrant agricultural workers employed in Canada under the terms of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CASWP).
Two thousand-five hundred migrant workers also work in the horticulture industry in Quebec and the employment of migrants in BC's horticulture industry is growing rapidly.