TORONTO - Thanks to the efforts of the Agriculture Workers Alliance/UFCW Canada, the door has been opened for about 130 migrant and domestic farm workers to get the back pay they were owed when the Ontario farm they worked at declared bankruptcy last fall.
UFCW Canada’s outstanding commitment to empowering workers through training and education recently went global with its participation in the first-ever Global Workers Defenders Network Forum, held in Tapachula, Mexico from January 24 to 28.
Report finds federal government complicit in Canada’s abuse of migrant farm workers
Canada’s most comprehensive annual report on the challenges facing migrant farm workers has been released. It confirms that abuse and exploitation of migrant farm workers are rampant in Canada’s agriculture industry.
Decision to slash funding a brutal surprise to longtime community agencies
On December 24, 2009 four migrant workers were killed and another critically injured when the scaffold they were working on collapsed and sent them plunging 13 stories to the base of a Toronto apartment building. In the wake of the investigation of the Christmas Eve tragedy — and in large part because of pressure from UFCW Canada, labour allies and community groups — more than 60 charges in total were filed under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act against various construction and repair companies.
In 2010, UFCW Canada, our community partners and allies continued to fight for dignity and respect for the over 250,000 migrant workers that enter Canada annually. For instance, in British Columbia, migrant farm workers at Abbotsford’s Sidhu and Sons Nursery (and see) became members of UFCW Canada Local 1518 and successfully negotiated a first collective bargaining agreement with their employer. What makes this victory so important is that, for the first time in Canadian labour legal history, migrant workers were organized as a separate bargaining unit from domestic workers. Similar successes occurred in Quebec as well.
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United Food and Commercial Workers Union
Canada's private sector union