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Vol. 80/No. 5 February 8, 2016
Alberta farm and ranch workers law stirs debate
BY MICHEL DUGRÉ
AND JOE YOUNG
CALGARY, Alberta — After weeks of contention the Alberta provincial
legislature adopted the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers
Act Dec. 10. The new law requires farmers who employ laborers to provide
Alberta Workers’ Compensation Board coverage for their employees and
abide by Occupational Health and Safety regulations. The act extends
labor standards to farmworkers, including the minimum wage, the right to
set up a union, paid vacation and protection from reprisal for refusing
to do dangerous work.
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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