Covid-19 makes a bad situation worse for agricultural migrant workers in Canada
A migrant farm worker picks grapes in Canada’s Niagara region. Migrant agricultural workers in Canada face poor working and living conditions, and risk of deportation. This situation has worsened over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
(UFCW
)
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A migrant farm worker picks grapes in Canada’s Niagara region. Migrant agricultural workers in Canada face poor working and living conditions, and risk of deportation. This situation has worsened over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
(UFCW
)
Maria Lopez begged to get time off to go to church for Christmas. She had worked for months as a packer in a greenhouse in Ontario, Canada without a single day off, living in vermin-infested bunk beds in a shed with seven other workers. At night she was too exhausted to even Skype her children back home in the Philippines. All she wanted to do was go to church, and to send money back to her fami
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Adelmo, a Guatemalan migrant worker about to head home for Christmas after a two-year stint at a Leamington greenhouse, hopes to return some day to Canada to work again, but not if it’s with the same employer.
Half of the more than two weeks he spent this month at hotels in Leamington and then Windsor in COVID-19 quarantine was spent in isolation and fear.
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Try refreshing your browser. I was crying: fear, anger, disappointment as area farms hit again by COVID-19 Back to video
For the first week after he tested positive, Adelmo said he was ignored and completely on his own, with no communication from his employer or health authorities. Three times a day, a meal was dropped off outside his door, and he was told not to leave the room.
Article content
Adelmo, a Guatemalan migrant worker about to head home in time for Christmas after a two-year stint at a Leamington greenhouse, hopes to return someday to Canada to work again, but not if itâs with the same employer.
Half of the more than two weeks he spent this month at hotels in Leamington and then Windsor in COVID-19 quarantine was spent in isolation and fear.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or I was crying â anger, disappointment as local farms hit again by COVID-19 Back to video
For the first week after he tested positive, Adelmo said he was ignored and completely on his own, with no communication from his employer or health authorities. Three times a day, a meal was dropped off outside his door, and he was told not to leave the room.
UFCW Canada is joined by Mexican officials in calling for increased protections for migrant farm workers
TORONTO and MEXICO CITY, Dec. 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW Canada) held a virtual press conference on Thursday, December 10 to present Mexican officials, policy leaders, and members of the media with the union’s
a report, and to call for urgent reforms to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).
At the conference, UFCW Canada National President Paul Meinema outlined recommendations from the 46-page report that could help improve the TFWP, reduce the vulnerability of migrant farm workers labouring in Canada, and provide migrant workers with pathways to permanent residency. President Meinema explained that the report’s 14 recommendations are based on direct input from migrant agricultural workers, as well as UFCW’s thirty years of advocacy on behalf of these workers.