The UFCW Canada and Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) campaign No More Injustice and Oppression Against Migrants! has prompted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Canadian employer associations FERME and FARMS to stop demanding an outrageous security payment from Guatemalan migrants.

Prior to the shift in policy, over 4,000 temporary Guatemalan farm workers had to pay a $400 deposit – representing a significant portion of what the average Guatemalan earns in an entire year – before they were allowed to make an essential contribution to one of Canada’s most important industries.

“This is just a small victory that will strengthen our resolve to defend the Guatemalan migrant workers who harvest our food,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley. “We will continue this fight until every discriminatory clause of this contract is reviewed and reformed to be in conformity with Canadian and international labour and human rights.”

The reversal in policy was announced in a recent IOM news release that states the “security deposit for participation in the program is no longer requested.”

Workers visiting AWA Centres in Saint-Remi and Saint-Eustache confirmed to activists that newly-arrived Guatemalan migrants did not have to pay the deposit. When asked about the victory, the workers expressed their gratitude to the wide number of people and organizations who are participating in the campaign by sending protest letters to the Harper Government.

The Guatemalan migrants also explained that the policy shift comes as a huge relief because the $400 deposit was almost always borrowed from loan sharks, who would take everything from the workers if they couldn’t earn enough to keep up with the debt payments.

“The deposit is just one example of the rampant exploitation that exists in the federal Temporary Foreign Workers Program,” says UFCW Canada national representative and AWA activist Andrea Galvez. “Just in Quebec, the agribusiness’s abuse of the program led to two major complaints last year concerning Guatemalan migrants, one with the Human Rights Commission and the other with the Quebec Labour Standards Board.”

According to Sister Galvez, the first complaint concerns the violation of the Guatemalan migrants’ Charter rights, and the other concerns inflated housing prices forced on temporary workers by some employers.

UFCW Canada is calling on all activists, friends and supporters to join the No More Injustice and Oppression Against Migrants! campaign by sending a protest letter to Prime Minister Harper.


Vol. X No. 32 • August 16, 2010