Critical, but Expendable -- Migrant Agricultural Workers in the Time of COVID-19TML Weekly is reprinting excerpts from an April 21 article written by Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW) and instructor in the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto, and Kevin Edmonds, a member of the Caribbean Solidarity Network and Assistant Professor also in Caribbean Studies at the University of Toronto. It addresses some of the conditions experienced by migrant farm workers at this time, in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. ***
Over the last month since Canada closed its borders, agricultural lobby organizations have orchestrated a massive lobbying strategy with their political allies, creating the mythology of a food crisis if Canada did not open its borders to meet the needs of farmers. As the Canadian Agricultural Minister recently pointed out, Canadians were not in jeopardy of starving. Much of the labour that today is deemed essential is to meet the needs of an ever expanding export-oriented agricultural industry. For example, the same lobby that emphasizes domestic labour and food shortages today was silent when thousands of acres of fruit and vegetable producing greenhouses were converted into cannabis production. [...] Since the closing of Canada's borders, Justice for Migrant Workers has received multiple calls from farm workers in Canada as well as those who are waiting to return to work. In Canada, migrant workers are complaining about differential treatment where migrant workers are confined to farms and not allowed to leave the employer's premises while their Canadian counterparts face no such restrictions. Many workers are expressing concern that there is no space to physically distance at work, they are not being provided personal protective equipment and are faced with crowded housing arrangements. For workers who have recently arrived, during the 14-day quarantine period migrants are supposed to be paid for 30 hours a week during the quarantine. We have heard threats of employers calling this a loan that needs to be paid back, undertaking different schemes to try to recover costs, including paying for groceries. It seems that even during this pandemic, some bosses are trying to curb whatever minimum safeguards migrant workers should be provided with during the quarantine.
For all migrant workers, whether in the Caribbean or Canada, there is an overall fear of speaking out about unsafe working conditions, as it has long been used as a disciplinary tool to intimidate "troublemakers." For those who remain quiet, they are accepting dangerous conditions not out of ignorance, cowardice or carelessness. It is a coping mechanism to ensure survival under precarious conditions. Workers feel that coming to Canada is not a choice. If they do not come their families starve and if they come to Canada they risk serious injury, illness and death. J4MW has long raised concerns regarding the power that employers have to 'repatriate' workers to their home country when they exert their rights or become sick. Prior to COVID-19, thousands of migrant workers have returned home sick, injured and disabled as Canada has taken no responsibility for ailments suffered while working in Canada. Given the dangers frontline workers face from COVID-19, there must be zero tolerance for this kind of intimidation. Employers must respect the duty of workers to report any outbreak in the bunkhouse or workplace and the rights of workers to refuse unsafe working conditions. No worker who falls ill or reports an outbreak should be sent home. Today's global economic crisis should also serve as a wakeup call on how we structure income supports for migrants. As thousands of migrant workers are facing spiraling poverty, we firmly believe that migrant workers, whether in Canada or not, should have access to Employment Insurance and other income supports. If so many of our essential workers must cross the border, it is time to think of income supports as portable beyond borders as well.
Until this happens, those of us in the Diaspora, as well as those in the Caribbean, must demand that our respective governments put increased protections for migrant workers in place. Support the work of Justice for Migrant Workers and the Caribbean Solidarity Network to achieve this. We recognize the importance of the SAWP program to migrant workers, their families and their communities, but no one should be risking their life to earn a pay cheque. (The full text of the article is available here.) (Stabroek News)
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
Starting in 1966,
Jamaican migrant farm workers have been
employed in Canada under the auspices of the
Commonwealth
Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAWP) program, a
government labour
scheme that imports thousands of Caribbean and
Mexican workers to
Canada to meet the labour needs of Canada's
powerful and wealthy
agricultural lobby. This migrant workforce
consists of
approximately 60,000 people, and their occupations
in the
agricultural industry have been designated as
essential
businesses.
For workers who
are stuck all over the Caribbean, the
desperation fills their voices. Many are outraged
that in their
time of unemployment, Canada's Employment
Insurance system and
the recently announced Canadian Emergency Response
Benefit is not
available to them despite their paying millions
into the Canadian
system over decades. Many hear the words
"essential worker"
confirming how integral farm workers are to
society, but are
angered by the seeming doublespeak when it comes
to a group of
workers who are so important but who even or
especially now are
denied basic protections that Canadian workers
enjoy.
Often employed
under dirty, dangerous and deadly working
conditions, we need to move beyond platitudes to
ensure that no
injured or sick worker is forgotten during this
crisis, and that
the necessary resources and support are accorded
to them to
protect their health and well-being at this
particular moment.
This pandemic calls for transformative changes to
answer the
demands that migrant workers are raising on a
daily basis. All of
this can be addressed today through the
implementation of
pro-worker legislation in order to ensure
fairness, respect and
decency for migrant farm workers.