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Agriculture Workers in Canada - History Timeline

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UFCW Canada plays a significant role in organizing and providing assistance to agricultural workers across Canada. While governments ignore the plight of agricultural workers, UFCW Canada has always been and continues to be committed to improving the working conditions of all agricultural workers.

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The UFCW Canada – AWA Awards Dinner

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The UFCW Canada – AWA Awards were established to recognize exceptional individuals and organizations for making outstanding contributions and engaging in groundbreaking social justice work on behalf of Canada's agricultural workforce.

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AWA Videos

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A reminder of the faces and lives behind our harvests: Toronto Launch for new photography book

Harvest Pilgrims: Mexican and ……Caribbean Migrant Farm Workers in Canada By Vincenzo Pietropaolo

Harvest Pilgrims tells the little-known story of Canada’s migrant workers. The photographs in the "Harvest Pilgrims" collection have been highly acclaimed internationally through many publications and exhibitions, including a traveling show curated by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography that opened in Mexico City.

For more information:
Between the Lines 416.535.9914

info@btlbooks.com

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Please, scroll playlist module for more movie selections.

Labour Movement Issues:

Stan Raper Presentation (UFCW Canada)
Stan Raper 17/Nov/08 (UFCW Canada)

Health and Safety Issues For Farm Workers:

(provided by: www.casa-acsa.ca)

Road To Recovery
Pesticide Safety
Musculoskeletal Injuries
Farm Injuries
Bruce Osiowy Story

Illustrative Cases

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These cases show the kinds of problems that farm workers face in Canada on a daily basis.

Work Accident, Repatriation
Clarksburg, Ontario

While loading machinery onto a truck, the worker displaced two vertebrae. The doctor prescribed an operation but the worker was pressured to return to Mexico by both the employer and the consulate.

Breaking Contract, Mistreatment, Sickness
Prince Edward, Ontario

A worker at this farm reported that they did not have potable water and eight workers suffered itching skin, eye irritation, stomach aches, and diarrhea. One worker was seriously ill as a result. The employer provides no facility to wash their clothes or pots for cooking and is aggressive and insulting toward them.

Anti-Union Reprisal, Slander
Québec

As of 2006, this worker had six years with the same employer. In the airport he informed our staff that the night before returning to Mexico, the employer requested that four of the workers sign a letter to renounce their wish to be represented by TUAC Canada (UFCW Canada). They refused and subsequently the employer wrote in their letter of recommendation that they had behaviour problems and did not request them back for 2007.

Obscene Gestures, Insults, Mistreatment
Manitoba

In 2006, three workers report that every morning the employer offers them bread, rubs it on his genital area, and requires all eight workers to eat it. If they refuse he becomes furious, shouts, and gives them fewer hours of work. He insults them saying “you are pigs” and “you eat shit”. He drives the truck in which they are transported at high speeds. He subtracts money unduly from their paycheques.

Discriminatory Treatment by Federal Authorities
British Columbia

When workers arrive at the airport, they are put in a separate line at customs. They are sniffed by police dogs. In February of 2007, one worker was strip-searched and detained for questioning, although the customs officers knew no Spanish at all. He was eventually released and no evidence was ever produced of any wrongdoing.

Violating the CSAWP
British Columbia

The CSAWP clearly prohibits employers from employing migrant farm workers in industries other than agriculture. In 2007, one British Columbian farm employer sent his migrant employees to Alberta to do construction work. They were not paid construction wages, they were not properly trained and some of these workers suffered work-related injuries. The employer has claimed in the media that building greenhouses might be considered agricultural work, but we assert that this was clearly construction and the injuries could have been avoided.

Retention of Documents, Violation of Contract
British Columbia

The employer demands piecework although the contract specifies workers will be paid by the hour, as reported by workers in 2007. The employer confiscated their documents, and did not provide beds, only sleeping bags. The Canadian workers at this farm must fill three boxes per day and they receive $50 per box; the Mexican workers are required to fill seven boxes per day at $17 per box.

Sub-standard Housing
British Columbia

A group of approximately 15 Mexican workers in 2007 reported that their housing conditions were substandard. The local health and fire departments were contacted and the employer was compelled by the authorities to make changes. The changes included covering an open septic tank and a pipe that were next to their living quarters and the fields where vegetables are grown.

Maltreatment, Violence
British Columbia

A Mexican worker in Abbotsford was physically assaulted because he was not weeding according to the farm employer’s expectation. This 25-year-old worker was deeply frightened and came to our support centre to seek refuge. The police were notified and the worker sought to press charges. The Abbotsford police have stated in the media that they may not be able to follow through with any charges as the complainant has since returned to Mexico. The worker experienced great difficulty in receiving his wages and his flight ticket home, both obligations that the employer was reluctant to fulfill. The worker is worried that he will be blacklisted from the CSAWP in the future because he complained about his employer. In this case, the Mexican Consulate was made aware of the problem by our Abbotsford Migrant Worker Support Centre staff and worked co-operatively to return the
worker home.

Delays in Receiving Pay
Leamington, Ontario

The CSAWP agreement signed with Jamaica provides that 25% of these workers’ earnings will be withheld from their cheque and provided to them on their return to Jamaica. Workers approached our centre in Leamington for help in recovering these wages due to them for over a year. Through the intervention of our Migrant Worker Support Centre, the employees finally received their money.

Bibliography

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Note: Some of the articles, reports, studies, documents, etc. provided on this page are in Spanish only. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the AWA o www.awa-ata.ca. The AWA is not responsible for the content or views expressed on external sites.

Barndt, Deborah. Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail. Landham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

Link

Basok, Tanya. “Free to Be Unfree: Mexican Guest Workers in Canada.” Labour, Capital and Society 32 (2), 1999. pp. 192-221.

Basok, Tanya. Human Rights and Citizenship: the Case of Mexican Migrants in Canada. University of California, San Diego, 2003. Center for Comparative Immigration Studies.

Link

Basok, Tanya. “Mexican Seasonal Migration to Canada and Development: A Community-Based Comparison.” International Migration 41(2), 1999.

Basok, Tanya. (2004). “Post-National Citizenship, Social Exclusion, and Migrants’ Rights: Mexican Seasonal Workers in Canada.” Citizenship Studies 8(1), pp. 47-64.

Basok, Tanya. Tortillas and Tomatoes: Transmigrant Mexican Harvesters in Canada. Montreal: McGill University Press, 2003.

Binford, Leigh. Campos agrícolas, campos de poder: el estado mexicano, los granjeros canadienses y los trabajadores temporales mexicanos.
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

Link

Binford, Leigh (2003). “Migrant Remittances and (Under)Development in Mexico.” Critique of Anthropology 23 (3), pp. 305-336.

Binford, Leigh (2002). “Social and Economic Contradictions of Rural Migrant Contract Labor Between Taxcala, Mexico and Canada.” Culture & Agriculture 24(2), pp.1-19.

Brem, Maxwell. Migrant Workers in Canada: A Review of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program.
Ottawa: North-South Institute.

Link

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “Rights of Migrant Farm Workers Recognized.”

Link

Durand, Jorge. Programas de trabajadores temporales: Evaluación y análisis del caso mexicano.
Consejo Nacional de Población. (Noviembre 2006)

Link

Gibb, Heather. Farmworkers from afar. Ottawa: North-South Institute, 2006.

Link

Gibb, Heather. Trabajadores Agrícolas de Tierras Lejanas – Resultados de un estudio internacional
sobre los trabajadores agrícolas temporales de México y el Caribe que trabajan en granjas de Ontario. (Febrero 2006)
Ottawa:North-South Institute

Link

Preibisch, Kerry. Patterns of Social Exclusion and Inclusion of Migrant Workers in Rural Canada.
Ottawa: North-South Institute.

Link

Queens University discussion on the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program with Leigh Binford (Universidad Autónoma de Puebla), Ken Forth (FARMS) and Stan Raper (UFCW Canada).
Link

Southern Poverty Law Center. Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States.

Link

UFCW Canada: Status of Migrant Farmworkers - Reports 2010-2011.

Link

Verduzco, G. and M. I. Lozano (2003). “Mexican Farm Workers’ Participation in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Labour Market and Development Consequences in their Rural Home Communities.” Ottawa: North-South Institute.

Link

Verma, Veena. The Mexican and Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program: Regulatory and Policy Framework, Farm Industry Level Employment Practices, and the Future of the Program Under Unionization.
Ottawa: North-South Institute.

Link

Verma, Veena. The Regulatory and Policy Framework of the Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program.
Ottawa: North-South Institute.

Link

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United Food and Commercial Workers Union
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