Greenhill Produce Migrant Workers' Plea for Help
Guatemalan migrant farm workers in Canada.
On its web site, Justicia for Migrant Workers
posted
the following letter that it received and that it wants to share widely
in light of recent reports about the outbreak of COVID-19 at Greenhill
Produce in Chatham-Kent, Ontario. According to the medical officer of
health for Chatham-Kent, as of April 27, 40 workers tested positive for
COVID-19 among the workforce of about 100 workers. On May 4 it was reported the number had risen to 51. As of the date of
the letter, April 28, 2020, all the workers had been tested, and 22
tests had come back negative. The majority of the workers at Greenhill
Produce who have tested positive for the disease are migrant workers,
but most are not new arrivals, having been in Canada four months
to one year or more. Greenhill Produce grows sweet peppers.
The letter from a worker at Greenhill Produce
reads:
 "We the farm
workers of Greenhill produce feel a bit
outcast like we are the least we feel a bit disrespect... guys test
result positive and guys test result negative from Sunday April 22 and
up to this date April 24 we the positive and the negative are living in
the same house using the same utensils, same bathroom, doing everything
like nothing
is wrong only told they are following the health procedures... we ask
for sanitizers to help kill the spreading of the virus in such a
crowded place until now none. Thanks to God some guys always buy bleach
that's what we have to be using...we gave them food list we get what is
the Canadian norm of shopping.
"We want a voice we are so afraid to talk, we are
afraid we get sent back home. This is our JOB this is how we survive
this is how we take care of our family back home. Without this God help
so we are grateful for the job we are happy for it but we need to be
treated as equal as everyone. Liaison officers who should be our
advocate we
haven't seen nor hear from them. We have to speak out for us, we want to
feel comfortable working that if we get injured we are treated equal.
This could have been avoided this is a part of negligence. When workers
took sick, they took too long before medical attention and still going
to work then it spread... please please hear our cry."
This article was published in
Number 31 - May 5, 2020
Article Link:
Greenhill Produce Migrant Workers' Plea for Help
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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