International Migrants Day Posters

International Migrants Day – December 18

Toronto – December 16, 2013 – International Migrants Day – December 18, annually commemorates the adoption of the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families by the United Nations on December 18, 1990. 

Human Rights Day Poster

International Human Rights Day 2013

Toronto – December 8, 2013 – International Human Rights Day is commemorated annually on December 10^th. Sixty-five years ago, on this date, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) was born, as a mechanism to promote human rights for all people.  

UFCW Canada brings comfort to flood-stricken migrant communities in Mexico

Guerrero, Mexico – November 27, 2013 – Last September, two powerful tropical storms hit the Pacific and Atlantic coast of Mexico, leaving behind an unspeakable amount of destruction. The state of Guerrero was particularly hit. The storms took away 40 years' worth of infrastructure in the region. Months after the tragedy, and after having lost almost everything, people are working together to rebuild their homes and communities.

In the wake of this tragedy, and as a token of respect for the unbelievable strength of migrant rural communities, UFCW Canada recently partnered with the state and municipal authorities to deliver blankets in the communities of Acalco, Coamancingo, Xalocan, San Marquitos, Amolixtlahuacán, Tepexaxococtitlán, Tetitlán, La Villa and Hueytepec. Around 1,000 families benefited from this donation and have expressed their gratitude toward Canadian workers, and UFCW Canada members in particular.

The delivery of the donations was made possible thanks to the support of Netzahualcoyotl Bustamante, Director of the Secretariat of International and Migrant Affairs (SEMAI), and Francisco Javier Garcia, Municipal President of Chilapa de Álvarez. UFCW Canada signed a mutual cooperation agreement with SEMAI in January 2012, as well as with the municipal administration of Chilapa in March 2013. The aim of the agreements is to improve the lives of migrant workers and their families in Guerrero by developing better practices and policy development regarding migrant workers, while providing support, training and assistance to workers abroad.

UFCW Canada is the country’s leading and most progressive private-sector union with more than 250,000 members across Canada, working primarily in the food production and food retail sectors. UFCW Canada, in association with the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) also operates ten agriculture worker support centers across the country.

Canada’s leading voice for migrant farm workers “commends” Manitoba government for extending healthcare coverage

Winnipeg – May 16, 2013 – Canada’s leading voice for agriculture workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada), is applauding the Manitoba government in response to its decision to extend public health care coverage to migrant farm workers: the people who make the country’s food supply and production system possible.

“As Canada’s strongest voice for migrant workers, UFCW Canada is very pleased to joinManitobans, and all Canadians, in commending the Greg Selinger NDP government for extending public health coverage to migrant farm workers in the province,” says Wayne Hanley, national president of UFCW Canada.

For the past several years, UFCW Canada has a led a wide-spread and popular campaign throughout the province, and across the country, dedicated to informing the public about the urgent need to grant provincial healthcare to migrant farm workers.

“We also applaud the Manitoba government for recognizing the essential role that migrant workers play in the province’s economy, and for acknowledging the difficult and dangerous conditions that migrant farm workers endure in producing our food, thereby, making full access to public healthcare all the more essential,” adds Hanley.

Effective this summer, seasonal agricultural workers will become eligible for Manitoba Health coverage while they work in the province, waiving wait times for eligibility which is consistent with the approach used in Saskatchewan. Currently, migrant agriculture workers are required to have health insurance through a private insurer and pay out of pocket for it. 

"Seasonal agricultural workers work hard to grow the food that Manitoba families enjoy and as taxpaying residents of Manitoba, they deserve the same public health care that other taxpayers already receive," says Jeff Traeger, president of the UFCW Canada Local 832. "On behalf of these workers,UFCW thanks the Manitoba government for extending provincial health coverage."

We Remember! April 28 – Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured on the job

Toronto – April 25, 2013 – On April 28, as we remember workers who have been killed or injured on the job, we must also remember to keep up the fight for the living.

Tragically, thousands of workers, every year, have their life changed because of a major injury while hundreds more lose their life because of their work. No job is worth dying for, yet 919 people lost their lives in 2011, the most recent year for which we have statistics. These are not accidents, they can be prevented. It is important to remember that Canada still has one of the highest rates of workplace deaths in the industrialized world, and even one death is still one too many.

Nothing can bring back those who have died, but a message has to be sent that cutting corners on health and safety and employees being killed is not acceptable. If and when an employer willfully neglects health and safety, knowing that someone can be injured or killed – they should be held criminally responsible. Corporations and their representatives need to be held accountable. 

As members of Canada’s largest private-sector union, it’s essential for us to be leaders in the movement to make sure our governments are responding to negligent employers with a very strong, clear message: “Kill a worker, go to jail.”

Another step forward for rights of Quebec agriculture workers

Montreal – April 18, 2013 – In the wake of a historic victory at the Quebec Superior Court,UFCW Canada Local 501 has welcomed the announcement by the Quebec government that it will not appeal the March 11, 2013 decision. The legal fight, to uphold the rights of seasonal agriculture workers to unionize, was commenced almost five years ago.

The successful outcome, and the government's decision not to appeal, means that seasonal agricultural workers in Quebec will have the same rights to unionize as all other workers in Quebec. In its ruling, the Superior Court gave the Quebec government twelve months to amend its legislation to conform to the court's March 2013 decision.

"We are very pleased to finally close an important chapter in the legal battle," says Louis Bolduc, Executive Assistant to the National President of UFCW Canada. "The government's decision not to appeal is of particular importance since it opens the door to discuss and address what has been a discriminatory situation faced by all seasonal agricultural workers."

To this end, a meeting was held on April 12, with Quebec Minister of Labour Agnès Maltais. At the meeting, Brother Bolduc and UFCW Canada Local 501 Secretary-Treasurer Mario Délisle had a positive discussion with the Minister regarding issues and priorities in the wake of the ruling. "By initiating this new chapter of dialogue with the government," says Bolduc, "we have moved one step further in ensuring the rights of agriculture workers in Quebec."

UFCW Canada and Mexico's CNC sign historic agreement

Cuernavaca, Mexico – April 11, 2013 – The National Farm Workers' Confederation (CNC) and UFCW Canada have signed an historic agreement to ensure that the rights of migrant agriculture workers are protected and defended in Mexico, Canada and the United States. The Mexican Secretary of Labour and Social Welfare, Alfonso Navarrete Prida, and Graco Ramirez, the governor of Morelos, attended the event and were honorary witnesses to the agreement.

The mutual cooperation agreement, which was signed on Tuesday by UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley and Senator Gerardo Sanchez, President of the CNC, will result in better conditions for migrant Mexican agriculture workers in North America. 

Labour rights training, and proactive monitoring and advocacy are cornerstones of the agreement. To this end, UFCW Canada and the CNC will also be developing a comprehensive database and analytical reports on the conditions facing migrant agriculture workers in Mexico, United States and Canada. This research and analysis will also be used to develop programs to improve access to social programs and benefits such as health, housing, and educational subsidies for the workers and members of their families.

As strategic allies, UFCW Canada and CNC will also share their experience and political strength to give a voice to the concerns of Mexican migrant agriculture workers internationally.

“As farm workers' unions, we understand that migration has historically been linked to the abuse and exploitation of migrant agriculture workers," said the UFCW Canada national president. "Together, UFCW Canada and CNC will fight to make sure that the rights of Mexican migrant agriculture workers are protected, and that they get their fair share for their work, whether they own the land or not.”

UFCW Canada is the country’s largest private-sector union and has led the fight for the workplace and safety rights of migrant agriculture workers for more than two decades. In association with the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA), UFCW Canada operates ten AWA agriculture worker support centres across the Canada.

Hundreds of foreign farm workers delayed from entering Quebec - Montreal - CBC News

Hundreds of foreign farm workers delayed from entering Quebec - Montreal - CBC News

Alberta Primetime - Alberta Farm Workers Fall Short in Provincial Labour Law Coverage

Alberta Primetime - Alberta Farm Workers Fall Short in Provincial Labour Law Coverage
SEE VIDEO!

In the News!

Ontario’s migrant workers fly under health radar

Fitzroy’s choice was simple — tell his boss a tractor had run over his foot and he needed a doctor, or grit his teeth and keep on working.

In the end, he chose to keep working, knowing if he didn’t, there was a good chance he’d be sent back to Jamaica before the harvest was over, and that would mean a hungry winter for his family.

Choices like that are made every day by the estimated 30,000 foreign workers Ontario imports annually to tend Niagara’s vineyards, to pick Leamington’s tomatoes and harvest Norfolk’s field crops.

“These workers are very much an invisible population,” American expert Bruce Gould told a Hamilton conference Monday. “They are essentially indentured servants and they’re afraid to make trouble.”

Gould is founder and director of a mobile free clinic in Connecticut that aims to help the state’s migrant farm workers get basic medical care during the months they add millions of dollars to local economies by harvesting tobacco leaves that are exported to the Dominican Republic to be turned into cigars.

His clinic is one of a growing number of initiatives throughout North America’s farm communities where doctors and others try to sell farmers on the idea it’s in their best interest to keep their temporary workers healthy.

“We can either look at the growers as the enemy or we can try to convince them that healthy workers are more productive,” Gould told his audience of doctors, nurses, labour activists and others. “We’re dealing with everyone from Archie Bunker on one end to articulate people who really care about their workers on the other.”

Studies in Connecticut show just over half of the state’s migrant farm population is from Mexico, 61 per cent are in the sexually active 21-44 age group, 14 per cent are under 20 years old and 67 per cent of them are men. On average, they have only six years of formal education.

Workers like Fitzroy — a real case cited by one of Monday’s presenters — represent a growing issue for Ontario’s health-care system, and one that’s not fully understood.

Jackie Barrett-Green, chair of the health subcommittee of the Niagara Migrant Workers Interest Group, told the gathering there are about 7,000 official migrant workers in Niagara Region and Norfolk County, but the actual number may be twice as high because not all of the workers come through official channels.

“They’re on nobody’s radar and there’s no money to provide services to them even though they contribute millions to the economy,” she said. “They’re just not part of the scenario, but they are part of our community.”

Most of those in Ontario come from Mexico and the Caribbean, and reaching them with messages about health care is not always easy.

One American program that has been successful in reaching that vulnerable population is the Promotores de Salud (Promoters of Health) effort operating in five states that make heavy use of migrant farm labour.

Colleen Reinert, the program’s national capacity building director, said reaching workers requires overcoming barriers of language and culture, lack of transportation, poverty and isolation.

Her program kicks down those barriers by training people from within migrant groups to carry the message to the people they work beside, helping them find the treatment they need when they’re sick or hurt and training them, as far as possible, to avoid problems.

“They become a bridge over which the community can access health care,” she said. “We’re not asking them to diagnose problems and be a doctor, we’re asking them just to provide information and education.”

The conference was organized by the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers.

sarnold@thespec.com

905-526-3496 | @arnoldatTheSpec

© 2013 — The Spectator

Media Advisory

Migrant Farmworker Awareness Week, March 26 - March 29, 2012
University Contact: Kerry Preibisch

University of Guelph
Phone: 519.830.0040

E-mail:kerry.preibisch@uoguelph.ca

Community Contact: Pablo Godoy
Students Against Migrant Exploitation
Phone: 416.420.6992
E-mail: pablo.godoy@ufcw.ca

STUDENTS SEEK GREATER RECOGNITION FOR THE FARM
WORKERS WHO FEED OUR COUNTRY
March 26 - 29th

WHAT: “Got Food? Thank a Farm Worker!” is one of the themes of Migrant Farm Worker
Awareness Week being held at the University of Guelph, March 26th to 29th. The week,
organized by students in their final year of Sociology and International Development Studies,
aims to increase awareness of the men and women who grow and harvest our food, as well as
their working and living conditions. The event is being held in partnership with the Agriculture
Workers Alliance and Students Against Migrant Exploitation, and runs in conjunction with over
100 events in the United States as part of National Farmworker Awareness Week. Through art,
films, and a panel discussion, students hope to shed light on farm workers’ efforts to secure just
living and working conditions and fair treatment under the law.
The week kicks off Monday at 10 am in the University Centre with an Arts Exposé, featuring
beat poetry, singer/songwriters and a photo montage by Vincenzo Pietropaolo. Tuesday is the
Canadian premiere of Eva Longoria’s The Harvest, a compelling documentary about farm
workers in the United States. Wednesday will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the NFB’s El
Contrato, including a Q&A with director Min Sook Lee and prominent migrant rights activists
who feature in the film. The week wraps up Thursday with a panel discussion on migrants in the
Canadian food system hosted by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Expert
panelists from the farming community, the labour movement, and the Ontario government will
share their views and take questions from the audience.


WHERE: University of Guelph Campus, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1
Monday Arts Exposé: University Centre Courtyard, 10am-4pm
Tuesday Film Screening, The Harvest: Rozanski Hall, Room 102, 5:30-7:30pm
Wednesday Film Screening, El Contrato: Rozanski Hall, Room 102, 5:00-7:00pm
Thursday Panel Discussion: Rozanski Hall, Room 102, 5:30-7:30pm


WHO: The week campaign is a collaboration between students in Dr. Kerry Preibisch’s
Sociology course “Migration, Inequality and Social Change” and community partners
Agriculture Workers Alliance and Students Against Migrant Exploitation.

WHY: Migrant farm workers feed Canadian cities. The majority of our fruits and vegetables
are handpicked by farm workers, including the approximately 40,000 men and women working
in Canada on temporary visas. Some 60 percent of these migrants live and work in Ontario.
While the local food movement rightly brings attention to growers in our community, farm
workers remain largely invisible.

Farm work is the fourth most dangerous job in the Canada. Occupational hazards include
agrochemicals, machines, poor living and housing conditions, and inadequate hygiene and
sanitary conditions. Unsafe transportation, including unsafe farm vehicles and worksite
transportation lacking seatbelts is a daily reality for many farm workers. Migrant workers
vulnerability to health concerns is amplified by immigration restrictions, such as employerspecific
visas that tie them to a particular work site. The vast majority of migrant farm workers
are legally prevented from having their families accompany them to Canada, a restriction that
encourages them to agree to working long, antisocial hours—on average up to 12 hours a day
during peak periods and up to 8 hours per day over weekends. Economic need and huge wage
differentials between Canada and their home countries compels many migrants to accept unsafe
work and extra hours, or to work when sick or injured out of fear of losing their jobs.
Farm workers are treated differently under the law. Overtime, unemployment insurance,
even protection when joining a union are not guaranteed under provincial laws. In Ontario, farm
workers are legally prevented from joining a union and engaging in collective bargaining. This
differential treatment under the law prompted the International Labour Organization to rule in
2011 that the Canadian and Ontario governments were in violation of human rights.

AWA Virgil and Simcoe Offices host their Annual Open Houses

AWA Virgil and Simcoe Offices host their Annual Open Houses

On July 8^th and July 10^th the AWA Offices of Simcoe and Virgil respectively held their annual Open Houses in order to welcome migrant farm workers from the Caribbean, Mexico, Guatemala and other countries back into their regions for the 2011 season.

Both centres had an amazing turn out of worker at their events. Virgil’s event was also highlighted by the participation of OPRIG, CUPE Local from Brock University and by the presence of Father Hernan Astudillo from San Lorenzo’s Anglican Church in Toronto. The festivities culminated with Father Astudillo celebrating a service for the workers at the end of the event.

The AWA team would like to thank UFCW Canada Local 175/633 for providing the centres with their BBQ trailer.

Workers pose for a group picture at the AWA Simcoe Centre

Banner displayed at the AWA Virgil Centre

Visit our web site for more pictures of these two events and many more.

AWA - Virgil Office Open House

Migrant workers applaud Grapes of Wrath

Recently, fact met fiction when two dozen migrant farm workers in southern Ontario attended a theatre performance of The Grapes of Wrath at the Stratford Festival. The play is adapted from John Steinbech's acclaimed 1939 American novel of the same name, which went on to win both a Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature for its portrayal of the abuse and hardship faced by migrant farm workers during the Great Depression.

Read more here.

Migrant workers rally for human rights on Father’s Day

Migrant workers from Mexico and the Caribbean gathered under the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) banner on June 19 in Toronto and Kelowna, B.C., to rally for their rights and to “celebrate” another Father’s Day apart from their families.

To read the full story and see pictures of the event click here.

Migrant Scholarship Winners Announced

Five extraordinary students from across the globe are the first-ever recipients of the UFCW Canada Migrant Workers Scholarships.

Launched in May 2010, the UFCW Canada’s Migrant Workers Scholarships program generated over 4,000 applications from temporary foreign workers in Canada, who under the unique scholarship program can nominate their children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, or nieces, and nephews as scholarship applicants.

Read the full story here.

SUPREME COURT OF CANADA -- JUDGMENTS TO BE RENDERED IN APPEALS

OTTAWA,  2011-04-26.  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  CANADA  ANNOUNCED  TODAY  THAT  JUDGMENT  IN  THE  FOLLOWING  APPEAL  WILL  BE  DELIVERED  AT 

9:45  A.M.  EDT  ON  FRIDAY,  APRIL  29,  2011.

FROM:  SUPREME  COURT  OF  CANADA  (613) 995-4330

OTTAWA,  2011-04-26.  LA  COUR  SUPRÊME  DU  CANADA  A  ANNONCÉ  AUJOURD’HUI  QUE  JUGEMENT  SERA  RENDU  DANS  L’APPEL  SUIVANT 

LE  VENDREDI  29  AVRIL  2011,  À  9h45  HAE.

SOURCE:  COUR  SUPRÊME  DU  CANADA  (613) 995-4330

Attorney General of Ontario v. Michael J. Fraser on his own behalf and on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada et al. (Ont.) (32968)

Read the London Free Press Article on this story.

Another transportation accident, another worker dead

A minibus transporting migrant workers had a road accident April 18 afternoon on Highway 20 near Montmagny in Quebec killing one Guatemalan agricultural worker and leaving 7 others seriously injured.

Read more about this story here: The Gazette, Montreal or CBC News