There are many problems with the TFW system, including a lack of oversight that opens the door for all kinds of abuses. But leaving that aside, right now a great many Canadians suddenly find themselves unemployed, as their employers have shut down or are severely limiting services during the public health crisis.
This leads me to an inescapable question. Couldn't local workers pick crops?
They would need protective equipment, of course. And their hiring and any training would have to conform to health protocols. But so would hiring temporary foreign workers. Surely Canada is not going to bring in busloads of migrant workers from South and Central America without testing and quarantine?
The TFW Program is supposed to be a way for employers to fill positions when no Canadians are available for hire. Have farmers reached out to Canadian municipalities to (try to) recruit Canadians to pick their produce? I've seen no mention of this anywhere.
If the answer to the question, "Why not hire locally?" is "Where would we find people? How would we transport them?" and similar logistical issues, those can be sorted out with creativity and flexibility.
But if the answer to that question is "Because working conditions are so bad, no Canadian would want the job," then we have an ideal opportunity. Improve working conditions, make picking crops a decent job, and hire locally. Or at least try to hire locally first.
Access to nutritious, local fruits and vegetables is a basic element of our health and well-being. The act of picking crops lies at the very foundation of our ability to feed ourselves and stay healthy. Therefore, picking crops is a very important job.
Picking crops is difficult, grueling, back-breaking work -- work that must be done both efficiently and quickly. Therefore, the people who do it deserve to be decently compensated.
Picking crops must be done by humans. There is no digital or mechanical substitute. And all humans deserve decent working conditions.
That's what we believe in Canada, right?
Make picking crops a decent job and you just might find Canadians applying. That will decrease the chances of bringing coronavirus across the border, alleviate the need to test and quarantine temporary workers -- and it will right a longstanding injustice at the same time.
If you're unfamiliar with the issues faced by migrant farm workers, I highly recommend the movies, "Harvest of Shame" (1960), "Immokalee USA" (2009) and "Food Inc." (2008). A list of movies on the topic is here, compiled by Student Action with Farmworkers.
You might also visit the website of the United Farm Workers, one of the great movements of our time.*
And of course, there is the great American novel, and my most cherished book of all time, The Grapes of Wrath. If you haven't read it, or read it long ago, you might use some of your social distancing time to check it out. It's as relevant today as it ever was, and it's available for free download in either pdf or audiobook form.
* I have a soft spot for the UFW. They are one year younger than me, and their organizing and issues are part of my earliest political consciousness. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta are two of my great heroes.
4 comments:
Regarding "no Canadian would want the job", some information I learned from a translation project a while back that might be of interest to people reading this:
1. Employers who hire TFWs tend to pay minimum wage.
This means that workers who are allowed to work anywhere in Canada have no incentive to choose farm work over any other job.
Before we even get into the difficulty of the work and the working conditions, we also have the fact that farms tend not to be very centrally located, what with needing a lot of land. This means that most people have many other potential employers who are physically closer to their home than any farm is. So, before we get into the difficulty of the work and the working conditions, why wouldn't you first apply to literally every single other business you pass on the way to the farm?
2. Employers house TFWs on-site (in cabins or trailers located on the farm's property) and deduct the cost of housing from the workers' wages.
Again, before we even get into the working conditions and the housing conditions, this means that people who are allowed to work anywhere in Canada would be taking home fewer dollars than with any other minimum wage job. This means workers are disincentivized to take agricultural work unless they don't otherwise have housing costs.
If you're part of a multi-person household, this work won't save you housing costs. If, like many people, you live with a spouse or children or parents or other people, your household still has to pay for its housing even if you go work on a farm. So you're contributing fewer dollars to the household than you would be with any other job. If you're a student trying to save up for your tuition while living with your parents, you'll have saved up fewer dollars at the end of the summer than any other job. And, of course, if you simply don't want to uproot your life and move out of your apartment and put most of your belongings in storage, it's simply not worth your while.
So in addition to fixing working conditions, we also need to fix the economics, so that agricultural employers can afford to pay workers well while also keeping food affordable for everyone.
Fine sentiment. Completely useless where I live in Nova Scotia. For almost fifty years workers have been imported to the Annapolis Valley to both plant and harvest crops.
There is simply not the local population available for the job. The area is running down like many rural areas as young people have moved to cities over the last half-century, and only old folk remain in any quantity. Jamaica is where our temp workers have mainly come from and there are places built to house them. And they seem happy to come here - the same grinning guys turn up every year. We've had CBC TV programs on them. It's been a symbiotic arrangement with farmers. Until now.
Over fifty years ago, when high bush blueberries first hit the Digby area, Warne, who used to "own" the whole area prewar and issued scrip like in a bad movie, tried to hire local kids to plant them. The work was so difficult my brother quit - I spoke to him about it on the phone to Calgary just yesterday! Then there were the acres and acres of strawberries and no pickers available. The population density is low, but the land pretty arable, and much further south than BC for stronger sunlight and good growing conditions, not semi-arid like the Okanagan. Another bro moved back from Penticton after 40 years, so I've visited many times and I know the Annapolis Valley is far more verdant. But sadly neglected by population exodus.
The farmers here are desperate for the planting season. Weeping folks on TV, the whole shooting match.
Now, if things get as desperate as they might indeed become, then maybe the provincial government will have to dragoon people to work in the fields whether they like it or not. Then there's the logistics of all that. Feeding and housing them when they have family only 100 miles away in Halifax. They'll try to commute in jam-packed cars - just great for the virus. What about hundreds/thousands of teens with smartphones in their back pockets unable to get down to the hard labour and texting like fools? That's the current bad joke about the what-if possibility of enforced citizen involvement.
I can't speak for other areas of the country. Obviously there's industrial agriculture for grains and taters. Not for root veggies, tomatoes, cukes, caulis, peas, cabbages, fruit etc. etc. Wild blueberries? We have hundreds of square miles of heath with them, but that's been mechanized at least for harvesting. Nova Scotia is the wild blueberry capital of Canada, no joke, for BCers who haven't heard that.
Temp workers have a bad name because harper imported them to work at Tim's, Mickey D's, old folk's homes and on and on for nothing wages, and they have to fork over 40% of their pay to their despicable "agents" who got them their jobs when they were still back home. It's a desperate racket, as nasty as can be.
Even worse, temp engineers, IT workers etc. are imported from India by a hugely aggressive Indian agency who tithe their salaries. Royal Bank were caught dumping real IT persons after they had to spend three months training their cheap replacements! harperism - who needs it? Trudeau hasn't changed anything, still beholden to big business as the Liberals are.
The same is more true in the US - 737 MAX anyone? H1B Visas are how American industry imports Indian temp workers in high tech areas, and annoys people who've spent tens of thousands getting their university educations and can't get a decent job or salary. Neoliberalism at its jackass-worst driving down wages, with zero empathy for one's countrymen.
Has anyone heard about imported temp farm workers in Canada getting ripped off? I've only heard of it in Southern Ontario, and not widespread at that.
People shouldn't classify all imported temps in one bucket.
Thanks for fleshing this out, Imp Strump.
1. Employers who hire TFWs tend to pay minimum wage. . . .
2. Employers house TFWs on-site (in cabins or trailers located on the farm's property) and deduct the cost of housing from the workers' wages.
I see these as working conditions.
There are other types of work where a member of a household is away for a long period of time, still keeping up costs on their family's home while living elsewhere. Work in the tar sands, fishing, and logging are all like that. But that work can pay well enough, and/or costs to the workers are low enough, to provide incentive.
But farm work is the bottom the barrel. No one who can afford to do otherwise will do it. That's what I mean by working conditions -- pay and expenses.
So in addition to fixing working conditions, we also need to fix the economics, so that agricultural employers can afford to pay workers well while also keeping food affordable for everyone.
I question the impact a living wage would necessarily have on food prices. Perhaps it would have a huge impact -- I don't know. I just would not assume one thing or another.
Businesses always say they can't afford to pay their workers more. The richest corporations in the world often claim that if wages go up, their product will become unaffordable -- when in reality, the costs could easily be covered by slightly less profit. Agricultural employers are often sizable corporations who are accustomed to paying very little for labour, but that doesn't mean they can't afford more.
As I understand it, much of the mark-up (and profit) on food occurs in between farm and supermarket. These costs would have to be brought down.
To me, a job that doesn't pay a living wage is not a job. If a business survives only because it pays sub-living wages, it's not a viable business. The agricultural sector is so accustomed to depressed labour costs that it's unthinkable to pay decently. But that doesn't mean they can't.
In the past farm families often had large numbers of children to breed a free labour force. In certain eras in both the US and Canada, they were able to use child slaves.
If small family farms truly cannot afford labour -- they literally could not survive if they paid more than minimum wage and provided basic housing costs -- then yes, the whole system needs to change. If food prices are kept artificially low by depressing labour costs, then that's another reason all workers need to earn more, to afford the true costs of food.
Bill Malcolm, thank you for your insights.
Temp workers have a bad name because harper imported them to work at Tim's, Mickey D's, old folk's homes and on and on for nothing wages, and they have to fork over 40% of their pay to their despicable "agents" who got them their jobs when they were still back home. It's a desperate racket, as nasty as can be.
Even worse, temp engineers, IT workers etc. are imported from India by a hugely aggressive Indian agency who tithe their salaries. Royal Bank were caught dumping real IT persons after they had to spend three months training their cheap replacements! harperism - who needs it? Trudeau hasn't changed anything, still beholden to big business as the Liberals are.
Yep. Harper/Kenney and of course that hasn't changed with Trudeau. Another reason their TFW program was so dangerous -- it contained no path towards permanent residency. Supposedly that has changed, but I am highly skeptical.
The same is more true in the US
I don't know anything about that program, but "even worse in the US" is my default setting.
Has anyone heard about imported temp farm workers in Canada getting ripped off? I've only heard of it in Southern Ontario, and not widespread at that.
I have. That's what prompted this post. It was Southern Ontario, and it was extensive, and truly disgusting. It's all Googleable.
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