= Unions are fighting for higher
wages for new Canadians.

Canada’s immigrant workers
are becoming even poorer

A recent Statistics Canada study
reveals that immigrants to Canada
are joining the poor classes in
increasing numbers. In the year
2000, 35.8 per cent of immigrant
families, living in Canada less than
five years, were surviving below the
country’s low income (poverty line).
That was a 4.5 per cent increase
from ten year’s earlier and up con-
siderably from 1980 when about
one-quarter of immigrant families
were living below the line. One sur-
prising statistic is that, in 2000,
about 42 percent of recent immi-
grants between 25-65 years old had
university-level degrees and were
relegated to living below the pover-
ty line, nonetheless. Things are get-
ting noticeably worse for immigrant
families and labour and the pain is
being felt right across the spectrum.
For those living in Canada between
six to ton yoarsy tte poverty rates
are still high. In 2000, 28.3% of that
group was living below the low
income level, up nearly 10 percent
from 20 years earlier.
“The living standards that new
Canadians are
forced to
endure speak
louder than sta-
tistics,” says
National IWA
president Dave
Haggard. “Tens
of thousands of
families in this
country can’t make ends meet. They
can’t afford housing, decent clothing
or transportation and many of their
kids can’t afford post-secondary
education. These are issues of social
and economic justice in this country
that have to be addressed and the
IWA is organizing workers to fight
against the imbalances that exist
right across Canada.”

Dave Haggard

Stupidest thing we've heard
There just ain’t no justice in Lotus
Land. On July 23 the B.C. Ministry of
Labour extolled the fact that since
they closed 10 of 19 local offices
and laid off staff in the Employment
| Standards Branch last year, needless
| complaints against employers have
| dropped by two-thirds. “This is the
_ Stupidest thing we've heard of in
| Years,” says IWA president Dave
"Haggard. “First the Liberals gut the
Emp oyment Standards and then
brag that there are less prob-

for workers out there. This one

takes the cake.”

FILE PHOTO BY CANDACE ASHTON

= Greenhouse work is preferred by many farmworkers, although the labour broker system exists in the sector.

FARMWORKER’S DEATH SPARKS CALL FOR COMPREHENSIVE ACTION PLAN

Treated like 3rd class citizens

WHEN A VAN OVERLOADED WITH workers flipped
over on the Trans Canada highway near Langley, B.C. on
July 13, it killed 52 year-old Mrs. Mohinder Kaur Sunar of
Surrey. She was one of the nineteen farm labourers
crammed into a van with a maximum capacity of sixteen.

Two workers were critically injured and are still recov-
ering. Several others were seriously hurt.

The fatality hit the front pages of the Vancouver Sun
and Province newspapers. While the media focussed on
the accident itself, the tire that exploded and the delay
that other travellers faced, not much was said about the
plight of farmworkers and what they must endure, day
after day.

Long hours, low pay, exploitation and the virtual abo-
lition of their rights is what they face. They are the for-
gotten workers of our society.

Most of the province’s 32,000 farm workers face con-
ditions that no other workers are required to. They often
travel in overcrowded, poorly maintained vehicles, have
no WCB protection, are often paid much less than min-
imum wage, are not paid overtime nor statuatory holi-
days, are exposed to potentially damaging pesticides
which they are not trained to understand, and have no
meaningful complaint process.

According to Charan Gill, secretary-treasurer of the
Canadian Farmworkers (CFU), a Vancouver-based advo-
cacy group founded in 1980, over 12,000 B.C. farm work-
ers are employed as pickers in the open fields, while
another 12,000 work in a growing greenhouse industry
(see photo above). Over 4,500 are employed by various agri-
cultural employers including dairy farms and ranches.

Although it has no official membership, the CFU does
work to assist largely immigrant workers with issues
such as unpaid wages, training and legal advocacy.

Even though farmworkers started organizing in the
1970’s, the sector of workers faces the same basic issues:
safe and economic transportation to and from work, low
pay, unsafe working conditions, exclusion from basic
labour and safety legislation, racial discrimination, lack
of sanitary facilities and lack of child care.

In many Canadian provinces, including B.C., third
world conditions are propogated by employers, labour

brokers and the government. ;
Last month B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim

Sinclair noted that recently-leaked government docu-
ments are pointing to the exploitation of farmworkers,
and that regressive changes introduced by the Liberals in
the spring have taken away basic rights of these workers.
The Fed is supporting the CFU in its call for an official
coroner’s inquest into the death of Ms. Kaur Sunar, one
which must examine and make recommendations on
issues including application of the province's
Employment Standards Act and inspections of vehicles
tranporting workers. It is also calling for the restoration

and increased spot checking of farmworker transport
vehicles for the aggressive overcrowding of such vehicles,
and mechanical conditions of such vehicles.

The Fed is also calling for the restoration of staffing
levels at the Employment Standards Branch to ensure a
basic level of staffing can enforce standards and hear
complaints.

Most significantly the Fed is calling on an inter-agency
team, which includes the WCB, RCMP, Human
Resources Development Canada and the Motor Vehicle
Branch of B.C. to ensure enforcement is “clearly delin-
eated and acted upon.”

IWA National Fifth Vice President
and Local 1-3567 president Sonny
Ghag, whose local has organized and
| serviced farmworkers in the green-
= f-| house sector, says it is important for
~~ | the labour movement to keep up a

= Se strong lobby in pushing for farm
Sonny Ghag

workers’ rights. He says the whole
sector of workers has been exploited
for far too long. “Even on the indoor
operations we found labour brokers at work and some
very bad conditions for workers,” says Brother Ghag. “It’s
most often the labour brokers, the middlemen, who take
a good cut of workers’ wages and they don’t always pay
up.” Ghag says labour has to lobby for better laws to orga-
nize the sector and keep the pressure on the government.

A berry picker can work all day for piece rates that
often work out to less than $4.00 per pound when the
fruit is not ripe. It is common practice, according to Mr.
Gill, for labour contractors to take 30
per cent of wages off the top as a
transportation fee. Over a 12 hour
picking day, plus travel time, that
leaves the worker with less than
$34.00 for a day in often brutal condi-

tions.

) According to IWA Local ar7x First
Vice President Harry Bains, whose
local union represents nearly 100
workers at the Gipaanda greenhouse in Ladner in peak
seasons, the labour broker system is prevalent in that
part of the industry.

The IWA has been able to negotiate improved hourly
wages, medical and other benefits, hours of work and
overtime provisions in the greenhouse industry.

“Many greenhouse workers come from the field indus-
try,” he says. “Because they are, many times, newly-land-
ed immigrants they suffer from exploitation and non-
enforcement of their rights. They are treated like third
class citizens and that is unacceptable in Canada or any-
where else,” adds Brother Bains. “Farmworkers suffer
the same problems they have suffered for decades.”

Harry Bains

AUGUST 2003 THE ALLIED WORKER [ 23