Demand for Safe Working and Living Conditions and Status for Migrant Farm Workers
Justice for Migrant Workers has issued an appeal for people to call on Scotlynn Group to pay the workers full wages during their quarantine, to commit to not repatriate injured and sick workers so they receive full access to our health care system [and do not spread contagion to their home countries -- Ed. Note], and to rehire all the workers next year if they choose to return. [1] Santiago Escobar, national representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Canada, recently told CBC he wants the public to know which farms have outbreaks, something the Windsor-Essex Health Unit will not do. "We have spoken about these issues in the past," he said. "We think we have witnesses that employers are not providing enough information and personal protective equipment and also these workers are not able to practice social distancing." Escobar pointed to overcrowded housing which fails to meet federal housing standards as living conditions in which COVID-19 can easily spread. "Unfortunately we're witnessing that a lot of employers are not complying with the regulations they are supposed to follow," he said, adding that many workers from the Windsor-Essex region have reached out because they do not feel safe at their jobs.
"The COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased concerns around food security and supply shortages, has underscored just how essential these workers are. Permanent status must be extended in order to ensure their safety and well-being, particularly at a time when they are risking their lives working on the frontline. The Canadian government needs to recognize that migrant workers are not disposable -- the fruits of their labour are quite literally those that feed us," Jade said. Note1. Details can be found on the Justice for Migrant Workers Facebook page. (With files from Justice for Migrant Workers, UFCW, CBC. Photos: Justice for Migrant Workers.)
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As COVID-19
spreads in the migrant farmworker population of
southern Ontario, demands for safe working and
living conditions and status for migrant farm
workers increase. As of June 2, Justice for
Migrant Workers reports that there were more
than 500 confirmed infections: more than 200 at
17 different farms in Windsor-Essex; 164 of the
216 migrant workers at Scotlynn Group in
Vittoria; 102 at Greenhill Produce in
Chatham-Kent; 60 at Pioneer Flower Farms in the
Niagara region.
Jade Guthrie, a
food justice advocate and member of Justice for
Migrant Workers, recently voiced again the
demand for permanent status, a demand which
migrant workers and advocate groups have been
making for decades. "These workers pay taxes and
into social benefits programs, but cannot access
these services without status. They return every
year, proving that the work they do is not
'temporary' but rather is a permanent and
critical part of our economy. And perhaps most
impossible to ignore, they put food on the
tables of Canadian households," she said.