By Diego Reyeros

Imagine a place where the general labourer is exploited, and human rights aren’t fulfilled. You will probably think of somewhere in South America or Asia. But as foreign as it sounds, this happens legally in B.C., the best place on Earth.

Back in 1994, B.C. joined the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, a federal program that allows farm owners to hire temporary workers through contractors. The average profile of these workers is that of a middle-age man typically from Mexico or the Caribbean, with little education and skills limited to those required in the farming industry. This initiative stemmed from the need to fill the shortage of available labour, although it remains unclear if this shortage is due to the difficult working conditions in this sector rather than a lack of supply from the labour force.

As a consequence or requirement of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico started privatizing communal lands, which displaced Mexican farmers and forced them become the exploitable migrant labour force that nowadays supplies the SAWP in Canada. Currently, this program brings approximately 20,000 workers to Canada. A contractor first employs migrant workers, then the contractor provides farm owners with the workers.

Rules on how the SAWP should be utilized are well understood by contractors and farm owners, although they are unclear to migrant workers due to little accessibility in their native tongue. Such rules are used to the contractors’ and farm owners’ advantage, and for the easy exploitation of migrant farm workers. Although each worker signs a contract, the employer is free to dismiss them regardless of the time remaining on their contract. A dismissed worker is repatriated right away if no other farm owner hires that worker right away. Moreover, farm workers are not given overtime pay and are not paid statutory holidays.

With such a significant program, one would expect the authorities to regularly analyze its performance. However, WorkSafeBC has appeared to lose interest on the topic, decreasing inspection reports by 65 percent from 1994 to 2006. Both the Canadian and Mexican governments control farm workers by limiting their freedom of speech and right to unionize. Last year, the Mexican consul visited all farms with migrant farm workers in Manitoba to inform them that upon any intent to unionize they would be blacklisted and kicked out of the SAWP. Furthermore, in 2006, the outrageous case of Mexican farm worker Marcos Baac surfaced in Pitt Meadows. At that time, the B.C. Federation of Labour announced that Baac’s contract termination and forced repatriation were believed to be in response to allegations he made concerning the working conditions of several farms under the SAWP.

Several other concerns arise from this program, such as farm workers’ inclusion in employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan under tight regulations which limit their capacity to fully benefit from these plans even though they pay for it just as any of us do. For example, in order to be eligible for EI, a farm worker needs to work a certain amount of hours. Many of them are paid by piece, which means that their work needs to be converted into hours by the employer, giving farm owners and contractors another tool for exploitation.

The SAWP might appear to be an ideal and reliable solution to the Canadian agricultural industry’s labour needs. However, this will only become true when Canada implements new regulations and practices, and joins the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1990 but remains ignored by the federal government.

Diego Reyeros is an international student at Simon Fraser University who is concerned about and active on social issues.