Vol. 80/No. 5 February 8, 2016
Alberta farm and ranch workers law stirs debate
AND JOE YOUNG
Before the bill’s passage Alberta was the only province without any labor standards for farm and ranch workers and one of only four where workers’ compensation coverage for on-the-job injuries doesn’t apply to them.
Agriculture is the economic sector with the highest number of deaths on the job in Canada. There were 937 agricultural fatalities nationwide from 2002 to 2012, including 190 in Alberta.
The bill was passed along straight party lines, with New Democratic Party legislators voting in favor and the opposition Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties voting against.
Thousands of farmers and ranchers organized protest rallies and convoys against the measure outside government-organized hearings in rural areas leading up to the vote. The fact that the NDP government led by Premier Rachel Notley didn’t consult with farmers before introducing the bill contributed to the anger of many of them. So did the fact that in its initial form the legislation required small farmers who get help from their children and neighbors to pay costly insurance. The government Dec. 7 backtracked, introduced amendments requiring farmers to purchase insurance only for farmworkers who earn a wage and only for the duration of their employment.
Unions backed the legislation. The Alberta Federation of Labour held a press conference Dec. 7 where unionists brought 112 pairs of work gloves to represent workers killed on the job on farms in Alberta since 2009.
“This debate should be about a group of workers who have been denied their basic rights for far too long,” Federation President Gil McGowan said at the event, “workers who put in long hours at greenhouses and aren’t entitled to overtime, and those who get injured on factory farms and who have no recourse.”
Few farmworkers’ voices could be heard in the weeks leading to the adoption the bill. “Farmworkers are afraid to speak because of pressure from their bosses,” said Philippa Thomas, an agricultural worker disabled by an on-the-job injury in 2006. “I got zero help from my employer,” she said in a radio interview. “Farmworkers should be protected.”
The nearly 40,000 farmworkers in Alberta have no organization, in part because there are on average fewer workers per farm here than in other provinces. There are several groups that advocate for farmworkers, including the labor federation and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Many farmworkers from Mexico and the Caribbean work during the warmer months on “temporary foreign worker” visas under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. They were not present while the bill was being debated.
Some farmworkers opposed the legislation. “The government is just trying to take control and tell us what to do,” Jordie Nash, 30, told the Militant. Nash is one of 30 workers at a big feedlot tending 30,000 to 60,000 cattle at a time. “Big government doesn’t work. The NDP is not listening. They are urban.”
Some farmers spoke out in support of the bill. “As an operator of a true family farm, where my family does all the work, I do not appreciate it when my challenges are invoked as justification for multimillion-dollar farming operations, with full-time employees, to not have to use the same practices as other businesses,” said Mark Olson, from Carstairs, in a Dec. 7 letter to the Calgary Herald.
National Farmers Union Women’s Vice President Toby Malloy said in a Dec. 4 release that Alberta farmers, ranchers and farmworkers “deserve the safety net of insurance coverage that is already legislated in other provinces.”
Related articles:
On the Picket Line
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