NUPGE and UFCW sign agricultural workers protocol

Fighting for migrant farm workers Ottawa - The National Union of Public and General Employees has signed a formal protocol with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada to organize long-exploited migrant farm workers in Canada. The UFCW-NUPGE protocol joins together two of the biggest unions in Canada in a unique public sector/private sector agreement in the fight for full rights on behalf of these workers.

James Clancy and Michael Fraser

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is a family of 15 component unions with more than 337,000 members delivering provincial public services of every kind to citizens across Canada. A growing number of NUPGE members also work for private businesses.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada) is one of Canada's largest and most respected private sector unions with more than 230,000 members across the country, working in every aspect of the food industry, as well as other service, commercial, processing, manufacturing, technical and professional occupations. Over the past decade UFCW Canada has also led the movement to bring justice to agricultural workers in Canada.

"We recognize that agricultural workers are one of the most disadvantaged groups of workers in Canada," says NUPGE national president James Clancy, "including the thousands of migrant farm workers who come here each season."

11 hours a day, minimum wage

An estimated 18,000 agricultural workers migrate north each year, mostly from Mexico and the Caribbean, to work on Canadian farms for periods of four to nine months.

They enter the country through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAW) signed by Canada and their home country. But they are not protected by health and safety regulations, overtime and holiday legislation or basic freedom of association or collective bargaining rights.

At peak season migrant workers spend up to 11 hours a day, six days a week, and often half a day on Sunday, in the fields and orchards of Canada, toiling for minimum wage.

Successive attempts to win basic rights for these employees have been consistently thwarted, especially in recent years by Conservative governments in Ontario.

"There is no moral, economic, or legal justification for excluding any group of workers from basic health, safety and employment insurance coverage, and the right to bargain collectively" says Michael J. Fraser, national director of UFCW Canada.

"Agricultural workers deserve the same rights as other workers. So we welcome NUPGE's solidarity in the battle for justice for Canada's farm workers."

NUPGE national president James Clancy says his union "recognizes that UFCW Canada is the union that has led the struggle over the last decade to achieve justice and fairness for migrant workers, and all workers in the agribusiness industry across the country."

"The National Union commends UFCW Canada for its strong advocacy and representation on behalf of agricultural workers right across Canada. We are proud to join them in a new protocol to protect, promote and extend the rights of Canada's farm workers."

Protocol and Boycott

The protocol joins the resources of the two unions together in the following manner:

• Both parties recognize UFCW Canada as the union with the primary jurisdiction for organizing workers employed in farming and related agricultural processing industries.

• When requested by UFCW Canada, the National Union and its Components will help establish and encourage its members to participate in community support and advocacy groups in those communities where UFCW Canada is actively organizing agricultural workers.

• The National Union will support UFCW Canada's continuing efforts to achieve representation rights and other worker rights for agricultural workers and will promote a greater awareness amongst its members of the legal struggles faced by agricultural workers in Canada.

• UFCW Canada will provide the National Union with background material on the union's various struggles and campaigns in support of agricultural workers that the National Union can use to promote greater awareness and education of its members.

• The National Union will support and promote UFCW Canada's national boycott of Rol-Land Farms Inc.'s products - mushrooms sold under the name of Essex Kent Mushroom, Essex Continental Distributors Inc. and/or Unionville Farms. The protocol is signed by James Clancy on behalf of the National Union and Michael Fraser, national director of the UFCW Canada
	Boycott Rol-Land Farms Inc.

For more information or interviews, please call:
• Michael Fraser, UFCW Canada (416) 675-1104, mforman@ufcw.ca
• Michael Luff, NUPGE (613) 228-9800, mluff@nupge.ca
• NUPGE-UFCW Canada Protocol Documents (Migrant Agricultural Workers)

Web posted by NUPGE: 17 February 2004

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