Mexican migrant workers apply to join Canadian union UFCW/TUAC: Workers seek say in contract imposed by Mexican and Canadian governments
TORONTO, September 20, 2006 - In a historical breakthrough that could eventually impact thousands of migrant agricultural workers brought each season to Canada, Mexican migrant workers at three farms in Québec and one farm in Manitoba have applied to go union with UFCW Canada (known as TUAC Canada in Québec).
Once the automatic certification applications at the four locations are granted by the Québec and Manitoba labour boards, the Mexican workers at the four farms will be able for the first time to bargain their wages and working conditions which up until now have exclusively been set by the Mexican and Canadian governments under the federal government’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP).
“These men and women supply an essential service. We have food on our tables because of these workers,” according to Wayne Hanley, the National Director of UFCW Canada, “but at what cost to them?”
“For decades they have been cycled between Mexico and Canada with little support or protection from either government, and with the fear of being sent back to Mexico early at their own expense if they raise any workplace concerns.”
“By choosing to form a union,” said Hanley, “these workers will have a say in how they are treated and compensated, which they never have had under SAWP.”
Every year nearly 18,000 workers from Mexico and Caribbean countries are brought to Canada under SAWP. They typically are paid minimum wage and many of the workers are subject to working and housing conditions that Canadian residents would find intolerable. The workers, who are contracted exclusively to a single farm location for the season, are admitted under temporary work permits that require them to return to their home countries after their employers either fire them or have no more work for them.
Without the protection of a collective agreement, workers have historically been hesitant to report dangerous working conditions or hostile employers for fear of being sent home or blacklisted from returning the next season.
The Mexican consulate in Canada claims it is there for migrant workers who have workplace issues but according to Hanley, “time and time again, these workers have told us the consulate is nothing more than an employment agency that doesn’t want to hear about problems.”
To fill that void, UFCW Canada has since 2001, at its own cost, directly supplied services and counseling to seasonal agricultural migrant workers by providing health and safety training, translation assistance, ESL classes, legal assistance (compensation, insurance, etc.), and recreational activities through five Migrant Workers Information Centres located in Ontario and Québec.
As part of its support for agricultural workers, UFCW Canada also launched a legal challenge in 2003 against the Ontario McGuinty government for not including agricultural workers under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). In June 2005, the government relented and committed itself to extending OHSA regulations in June 2006 to cover the agricultural sector. Following that victory, OHSA and Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) training have now been added to the services supplied by UFCW Canada at the Migrant Workers Information Centres.
On another legal front UFCW Canada continues to pressure the Ontario government to change Ontario law that currently prevents agricultural workers from exercising their constitutional and democratic rights to unionize. “Farm work in Ontario is just as dangerous and demanding as it is in other Canadian provinces that allow these workers to unionize,” says Hanley.
“The ban on Ontario farm unions is an unconstitutional leftover of the Mike Harris era. The current McGuinty government has regrettably chosen to continue it, in spite of the fact that its neighboring governments in Québec and Manitoba acknowledge that a worker’s right to join a union is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That includes people working on the farm in Canada no matter where they come from, whether that be from Canada, from Mexico, Jamaica or any of the other SAWP partner countries.”
The Mexican migrant worker applications for the three UFCW Canada union units in Québec have been filed with the Québec Labour Relations Commission (QLRC). The QLRC has scheduled determination hearings to commence on September 24th. The union application for Mexican migrant workers at a farm near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba is before the Manitoba Labour Relations Board which likely will commence determination hearings before the end of October.
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For a comprehensive current overview of Migrant farm workers in Canada go to: www.ufcw.ca/Theme/UFCW/files/PDF2006/UFCW5thMigrantWorkersReport2005.pdf
For more information, contact
Stan Raper, UFCW Canada Ag Workers Program Coordinator
416-675-1104 [email protected]
Michael Forman, UFCW Canada National Communications
416-675-1104 [email protected]
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