Migrant workers in Quebec face risky work conditions: rights group

Migrant farm workers are more numerous than ever in Quebec, according to the province's workplace health and safety board, and a local rights group says that means more people are being exposed to dangerous and unfair work conditions.

A release from the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec (CSST) says the province has about 7,000 migrant farm workers, mostly from Mexico, Guatemala and the West Indies. Heat, pesticides and repetitive strain from picking crops makes their jobs risky, the release says. The commission produced a video in Spanish this year to inform seasonal workers. “It will inform seasonal workers they have the same rights and the same responsibilities as all Quebec workers,” the release says. It says about 600 farms hired Spanish-speaking workers last year, eight times higher than in 1995.

Noé Ricardo Arteaga Santos, from Guatemala, said he worked on a Quebec farm in St. Étienne des Grès for the company Savoura during the summer of 2008. Santos said he filed a formal complaint with the provincial government against the company for firing and deporting him and another worker. Jorge Frozzini, from Montreal’s Immigrant Workers Centre, translated his story from Spanish. Santos said the company was not paying his overtime and he discovered he was paying dues for a union he didn’t know existed. Then he said a colleague fell ill after applying pesticide to tomatoes without protective gear on. Santos said he and his colleagues went on strike, but their protesting did not help. “They sent them back to Guatemala,” Frozzini said.

Marie Gosselin, president and general director of Savoura, said Santos' story is completely untrue. She said the company has never refused to pay overtime and its practices are strictly regulated. "We respect the laws and rules," she said.

Santos is back in Canada waiting for an answer to his complaint. On Sunday, he helped hand out fliers about temporary workers’ rights during a religious service for seasonal agricultural workers from Latin America at St. Joseph’s Oratory.

But Sam Bick, from the Immigrant Workers Centre, said Santos’s story is part of a bigger picture. “Savoura is one of many corporations that is profiting off of the cheap labour of people from the global south,” he said. While companies hire the workers, the government regulates the conditions of their employment.

In April, the federal government made changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program. The changes include sanctions on employers for failing to meet wage requirements and a limit on how long each type of worker can stay in Canada before returning home.

Amy Darwish, also from the centre, said some workers are afraid to stand up for their rights because they can only stay in Canada if they are working. “This puts in people in a position where they feel like they can’t refuse unsafe work,” she said. She said this translates into employers cutting rights such as overtime pay and days off. The minimum wage for agricultural labour working with produce and plants in Quebec is $9.65 an hour this year.

Source: Montreal Gazette