UN agency points finger at Ontario for ban on farm unions
The United Nations agency that oversees international labour standards has slammed Canada for its provinces where laws prevent agriculture workers from unionizing. In its latest review of labour rights under attack, the International Labour Organization (ILO) charged that Ontario, Alberta and New Brunswick continue to contravene Convention 87 of the ILO — The Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention.
Canada became a signatory to the Convention in 1972, but according to UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley, “here we are almost 40 years later with provinces like Ontario fighting tooth and nail to continue to deny farm workers their human and labour rights.”
The ILO was particularly critical of Ontario for failing to act in good faith in the wake of a successful UFCW Canada Charter challenge (Dunmore) which ruled in 2001 that Ontario’s ban on farm unions was unconstitutional. A 2007 Supreme Court of Canada ruling (B.C. Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Association) cited the Dunmore case in further upholding the Charter guarantee to collective bargaining under the Freedom of Association rights.
“Clearly the Ontario McGuinty government has no respect for the international bodies or international law or workers’ rights,” said Hanley, “or even its own Ontario Court of Appeal, which also recently ruled that the continuing ban on Ontario farm unions is unconstitutional.”
Last November 17th, the Court of Appeal of Ontario gave the government a year to provide Ontario farm workers with sufficient legislative protections to enable them to bargain collectively. The McGuinty government has now appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“To keep on fighting to deny these workers the same rights as other workers rights is a disgrace,” said Hanley. “In the eyes of the ILO and the United Nations, this mistreatment of agriculture workers, many who are temporary workers from other countries, is just out and out discrimination. In the eyes these workers, and the world, it’s undeniable.”