ce St salty

Immigrant workers particularly vulnerable

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The
nearly 6,500 English speaking Caribbean
farm workers who work in Ontario every

year need to join a trade union to correct

an unsavoury state of affairs which,
among other things, forces these migra-
tory workers to receive lower wages than
Canadian workers for similar work.

According to the recently formed

Canadian Farmworkers Union (CFU),
the need for workers to organize is close-
ly related to the political campaign for
Improved legislation in the areas of
Wages and medical and other benefits for
the farm employees. Making these points
While passing through Barbados earlier
this month was the CFU’s Ontario or-
Zanizer, Mutali Chanda.
_ Chanda, who was born in Zambia but
1S now a permanent resident of Canada,
also visited the neighboring island of
Dominica where he spoke at a seminar
Organized by that country’s Dominica
Farmers Union on the 15-year-old
Seasonal farm program between Ottawa
and regional governments.

Under the program, agricultural
Workers come from a number of coun-
tries, mainly from the Anglophone
Caribbean and Mexico to pick apples,
tomatoes, tobacco leaves and other pro-
duce. They usually come up in July and
leave in late November. At present,
about 800 Barbadians for example make
the trek to Ontario farms every year
Under the scheme.

_ ‘The 100,000 seasonal farm workers
in Ontario, the province where the bulk
of the overseas seasonal workers come
to, are excluded from the main legislation
Covering the minimum wage, medical
benefits, safety measures and so on,”’
Said Chanda.

_ “Our present thrust, although we are
In the field with the workers with the aim

of establishing locals,’’ he continued, “‘is
to wage a political campaign for basic
protection, for improved legislation. In
reality, these workers have no legal pro-
tection whatsoever that other workers
enjoy.”

Chanda said that there are two aspects
of this campaign. The first, he pointed
out, is to make sure that seasonal farm
workers as a whole, including Cana-
dians, get paid wages similar to Cana-
dians in other occupations.

“The present minimum wage in On-
tario is $3.65 per hour. This means that
no employer may pay a worker less than
that. However, the average for all farm
workers, the bulk of whom are seasonal, _
last year was $2.85 per hour. This is not
good enough,” stressed Chanda.

‘Secondly, as aunion représenting the
interests of all the workers in the indus-
try, we are anxious to make sure that
because of their status those workers
coming from other countries are not paid
less and given fewer benefits than other
farm workers doing similar work. We

|OTO — NORMAN FARIA

O
TRIBUNE PH

MUTALI CHANDA

From the
Caribbean

note, for example, that employers are
wont to give bonus payments to the
overseas workers,” he said.

The three year old CFU, which is af-
filiated to the Canadian Labour Con-
gress, and has locals among the 20,000
East Indian farm worker community in
British Columbia, is also fighting for im-
proved legislation regarding health
hazards in the farmworkers’ working
environment.

“The use of pesticides and other
chemicals sprayed onto the crops, even
when workers are in nearby fields, is a
definite problem for the workers and it is
our aim to see that there is meaningful
legislation in this regard,’ said Chanda.

Turning to the question of ownership
patterns among employers of farm work-
ers in Ontario, the CFU official said that
over the last few years many Canadian

family farms have folded up or have been

taken over by big food companies and
agro industries which now control 15 per
cent of all farm land in Ontario.

“The way we see it is that the present
program involving workers from over-
seas is a way of obtaining cheap labor to
the benefit of the big agro-industries and
big farms. It is also a divisive tool used by
Ottawa against the workers in their
struggles to organize,’’ argued Chanda.

‘‘The problem is that the farmers, who
are themselves under pressure from the
agro-industrial firms, may use the ample
supply of overseas workers to keep

| Farm workers source of cheap labor

Norman
Faria

wages and the supply of benefits low to
all the workers,’’ he added.

‘‘An important dimension of the
CFU’s work is to build worker unity and
reduce racial tensions among the domes-
tic work force who are mainly white and
the seasonal workers from other lands
who are mainly Afro-Caribbean peoples
and other visible minorities like Mexi-
cans and East Indians. The English
speaking Canadians also have to learn to
work closely with the French speaking
Quebecois farm workers who come to
work on Ontario farms during the sum-
mer, said Chanda.

Responding to the question whether
the CFU would like to see the Otta-
wa-Caribbean farm worker program
scrapped, Chanda said that the CFU is
working for the interests of all farm

- workers. However, the union is never-

theless concerned that employers may
wish to manipulate the number of em-
ployees coming from overseas so as to
undermine the campaign of all workers
to improve their working conditions, to
receive a decent wage and other benefits.

“The bringing in of Caribbean farm
workers to Canada, as is presently done,
is not in our view a form of Canadian aid
to the Caribbean countries. Canada
should train more Caribbean workers in
Canada so that when they return to their
countries, their skills will be put to good
use that would benefit the islands,”
Chanda concluded.

Who runs CLC international affairs?

On several occasions this column has referred to
John Harker, head of the International Affairs
Department of the Canadian Labor Congress. On one
Occasion we referred to the composition of the
Department and its habit of ‘‘seconding’’ workers
from the government and vice-versa.

Mr. Harker was quick to respond and deny our

allegations. We responded by offering to substantiate

our allegations and proposed that we would publish
both his denial, our allegations, substantiating mate-
Tial and any rebuttal he might like to. make.

We proposed that this material be published at the

same time in the CLC publication. We have not heard
from Mr. Harker or the CLC on this proposal.
_ What brought us back to the matter was a short item
in Canadian Labor, monthly publication of the CLC
for May 1983. Here it is: ‘‘Rick Jackson will join the
CLC International Affairs Department in Ottawa as a
National representative on June 14. At present he is
working with the Inter-American Federation (ORIT)
Of the International Confederation of Free Trade.
Unions, (ICFTU) with headquarters in Mexico City,
On short-term contract which began last August.

A member of the Public Service Alliance of Cana-
da, he was assistant to the national president of PSAC
Prior to his ORIT appointment.

He began full time union work as an education

Officer with PSAC in 1977. While employed in the —

Department of External Affairs, 1973-77, he had a two
year posting to Santiago, Chile, as the communicator
for the Canadian Embassy.” (emph. W.S.)

Sceptical, Suspicious
_ Weare not aquainted with Rick Jackson, but we are
More than a little sceptical as to how a two-year stint

+ « |Labor in action
/ | William Stewart

in Santiago, Chile, during the fascist junta of Pinochet,
would qualify anyone for the international affairs
department of a labor body.

Beyond this, it seems almost policy of the CLC to
have their International Affairs Department person-
nel trained through the agencies of the ICFTU. While
we are all in favor of internationalism, we are more
than a little suspicious of the internationalism of the
ICFTU which ends at the borders of the socialist
countries.

The ICFTU was born in close collaboration with
the CIA which built it up to smash the united world
labor movement after World-War Two. When it veer-
ed away from the cold-war line ascribed to it by U.S.
imperialism in the early 1960s, the AFL-CIO pulled
out of the organization.

During this period the Canadian Labor Congress,
which had previously kept a low profile inthe ICFTU,
assumed a more prominent role. It was also during
this period that the possibilities of united actions be-
tween the ICFTU and the World Federation of Trade
Unions (WFTU) improved.

Glaring Contradiction
Under the’ leadership of Lane Kirkland, the AFL-
CIO has re-entered the ICFTU, for the obvious pur-
pose of sharpening up the cold-war stance of that
body in line with the policy aims of U.S. imperialism
which the AFL-CIO slavishly supports.

In these circumstances the CLC finds itself more
and more in the position where, whether it likes it or
not, that as long as it gets its international affairs line
from the ICFTU it will more and more find itself being
influenced by the AFL-CIO. At a time when the CLC
is fighting for the full atuonomy of the Canadian trade
union movement this is a glaring contradiction.

Our information leads us to believe that the Inter-
national Affairs Department, does not fully reflect the
views of the CLC executive on a whole range of
international issues. Rather, it is like many other
departments of the CLC, a semi-autonomous body
pointing to the fractured character of the CLC which
is far more inclined to be a pale reflection of its con-
stituent parts, rather than a firm guiding body with
definitive policies and aims.

President Dennis McDermott, perhaps more than
any other president, has aimed at overcoming this
scattered character of the CLC, and perhaps with
some degree of success. He has not however over-
come, it seems to us, the problem of semi-
autonomous centres like the International Affairs
Department which tends to operate outside the deci-
sions of Congress conventions, and also influence the
CLC executive and leadership in wrong directions as
a result of their own orientation and connections.

We would suggest tha the position of head of the
International Affairs Department of the Congress is
far too serious a post to be held by a staff appointee.
Rather it should be held by an elected officer of the
Congress, someone who would have to answer to the
Convention for their policies. We hope it will not
offend Mr. Harker when we suggest that if this were
the case he would be looking for a job following the
next convention.

PA RIBUNE—JULY 15, 1983—Page §

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