FEATURE «We went to the provincial govern- ment and asked them to give farm- workers equality with all other workers in B.C. What they have done under Bill 19 is bring all workers down to the level of farmworkers.? — Sarwan Boal, president Canadian Farmworkers Union, April, 1987 Farmworkers fight Socred ‘betrayal’ as CFU turns 7 By ANGELA KENYON B.C. farmworkers are hurting. Excluded from the minimum wage laws, they are paid piece rates which average out to $2 or $2.50 an hour. They do not receive overtime pay but are expected to work 10- 12 hours per day. They’re being squeezed by labor contrac- tors who regularly hold back wages until the end of the season and then declare bank- ruptcy leaving the workers with no pay for their work. They are frequently unable to qualify for unemployment insurance benef- its. They are regularly exposed to dangerous __ pesticides but there are no health and safety regulations to protect them. A majority of them are immigrant women. Sexual harassment by employers and labor contractors is not uncommon. And now most important of all, the very existence of the union that has fought for seven years to lift up their standard of living is threatened. “Our fight will be a long one. We should not expect miracles overnight,” Raj Chou- MAY DAY GREETINGS from Organization of Unemployed Workers, han told the delegates to the founding con- vention of the Canadian Farmworkers Union (CFU) in April 1980. But Chouhan could not have been prepared then for the impact on the union of the repeated misrep- resentations by successive Socred govern- ments. Sarwan Boal, current president of the CFU, has been part of the effort to organize B.C. farmworkers since 1977 when the B.C. Farmworkers Organizing Committee was established. He has experienced again and again the regular “double-cross of Socred policies” as the union fought for fair legisla- tion for farmworkers. The climate of restraint and anti-labor policies created by the Socreds has ravaged the trade union movement with growing unemployment, loss of union membership and increasing decertifications. And if that climate has taken its toll on established unions, it has devastated the organizing efforts. of the CFU. Farmworkers did not even win the right to organize into a trade union until 1975 when amendments were made to the B.C. Labor Code. But organizing the workers in the fields was made especially difficult by the fact that even if organized into a trade union, farmworkers. could expect to be excluded from the very minimum of labor standards legislation: the Minimum Wage Act, the Hours of Work Act, the Annual and General Holidays Act andthe Payment — .of Wages Act. “Our fight has always been for demo- cratic legislation. A democratic system would not discriminate against farm- workers,” said Boal in an interview with the Tribune. But he emphasized that the work of the CFU has always been on two fronts — to educate and organize the workers while at the same time maintaining the fight for legislation to protect them. The fight for fair legislation began in 1979 when the 1,500-member Farmworkers Organizing Committee launched a petition drive for inclusion of farmworkers in labor MAY DAY GREETINGS our friends in the labor movement Marine Workers and Boilermakers industrial Union Local 1 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 29, 1987 Canadian Farmworkers Union demonstrates over Labor Minister Bob McClelland’s | (third from right) dropping of farmworkers from Workers Compensation coverage, — August, 1983. standards legislation. At the Socred conven- tion in Vancouver that year, the committee presented former premier Bill Bennett and labor minister Allan Williams with a peti- tion containing more than 7,000 names. Williams agreed to meet with the committee and promised legislation in the spring, 1980 session “which will meet the problems expe- rienced by the province’s farmworkers.” With the ongoing support of the labor movement and community groups, the committee called together a convention of its members and on April 6, 1980, launched the Canadian Farmworkers Union. Within a few short months the membership in the union was up to 500. The fledgling union was greeted by increased intimidation from employers and labor contractors. The windows at CFU offices were smashed twice in three weeks and the home of the vice-president of the union was attacked by goons with baseball bats and empty beer bottles. Only two months after its inception, the union received its first indication of the worth of Socred promises with the intro- duction by labor minister Jack Heinrich of the new Employment Standards Act. None of the recommendations of the organizing committee were enacted. In fact, Section 105 (2) and (3) virtually guaranteed con- tinued discrimination against farmworkers by providing that they could be excluded from any section of the act and by enshrin- ing piece rates as acceptable payment for farmworkers. Undeterred by the actions of the Socred government, the CFU went on to win its first certification of 45 workers at Jensen Mushroom Farms Ltd. in Langley on July 17, 1980. A second certification at Country Farms Natural Foods in Richmond was won just days later. Throughout 1981 and 1982, it seemed the future of the union was in no doubt. Despite increasing intimidation and racist attacks on union organizers, the certification of new units continued. Fund-raising and solidar- ity campaigns for the union members on strike at Jensen Mushroom Farms and Country Farms Natural Foods for a first contract were meeting with success. The fight to have Section 16 of the Unemployment Insurance regulations re- voked and to have farmworkers covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act also gained momentum. Section 16 caused considerable hardship for farmworkers as it required that they must work 25 days with the same employer and earn a minimum of $250 in a season FY Lye TRE a ee OkHeye oH 10 you PHL IE y: before entitlement to UI weeks. This provi- sion left the farmworkers with no choice but to rely on labor contractors who could take’ them from farm to farm to provide the necessary 25 days. In the campaign for Workers’ Compen- sation coverage, the union stressed that the consumer would benefit from health and safety regulations for farmworkers. Only government protection for the workers” health would provide the mechanism to advise consumers of just which chemicals and pesticides were being sprayed on agri- cultural products. In March 1982, public pressure promp- ted the Socreds to announce that farm- workers would be covered by the Workers Compensation Act, and that all employers of farmworkers would be required to regis- ter with the WCB and pay assessments. — Under the Act employers would be subject — to inspections and would be required to_ comply with the Industrial Health and Safety regulations. The Workers Compen- sation Board also stated that it would work in close collaboration with the B.C. Federa- tion of Agriculture, the B.C. Safety Council and the CFU before it would implement the coverage in the spring of 1983. ' Throughout 1983, the employer bias of the Labor Relations Board and _ the Workers Compensation Board was felt by many unions but for the CFU, the repeated betrayals of both boards left them facing defeat and decertifications. In March of 1983, the Workers Compen- sation Board refused to implement cover- age for farmworkers under the Workers Compensation Act. Labor minister Bob McClelland had intervened directly stating that farmworkers didn’t need health and safety regulations. Instead, he set up the machinery for the farming industry to become self-regulating — a process that guaranteed that farmworkers would have even less protection than before. A small victory for the union was achieved with the enactment of an amend- ment to Section 16 of the Unemployment Insurance regulations which reduced the number of days that farmworkers had to work for the same employer before they were eligible for unemployment insurance. Farmworkers were victims not only of Socred anti-labor policies but the policies of restraint and cutbacks also deeply affected their lives and the ability of the union to organize. One of the first cutbacks in educa- tion was the English as a Second Language curriculum which left many of the farm- ‘see CFU page 17 MAY DAY GREETINGS from the Kamloops Unemployed Action Committee “FULL EMPLOYMENT”