Support Migrant Farm Workers!
Jun. 14th, 2020 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterToday, June 14, has been designated as national day of action for full immigration status for migrant workers. Every year, migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica and other places come to work on Canadian farms for as much as 8 months a year but are not accorded permanent residency status and hence are largely excluded from the employment and health care standards and protections set forth in provincial and federal law. This is shameful and inhumane treatment at any time but even more so during a pandemic. Here is a link to some background information:
https://migrantrights.ca/statusforall/
A more detailed exposé of the situation may be found in the report Unheeded Warnings: COVID-19 and Migrant Workers in Canada, produced by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. It makes for some interesting and disturbing reading. It's dedicated to two Mexican migrant farm workers, Bonifacio Eugenio Romero and Rogelio Muños Santos, who recently died of COVID-19 in Windsor. You can access the report here:
https://migrantworkersalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Unheeded-Warnings-COVID19-and-Migrant-Workers.pdf
I'll conclude this entry by pointing out that even aside from all the humanitarian considerations involved, migrant farm workers are of crucial importance to food security in this country. Without their work, crops would die off for want of the people-power required to harvest them. We simply don't have a large enough domestic workforce to reap what we sow at the busiest times of the year.
What about pick-your own berry farms? Not an option this year. Due to health and safety concerns, they are not operating because of the pandemic.
So let's champion the rights of the farm workers because without them, we'll all be stranded in a food desert, with nary an oasis in sight. Bread and Roses and Strawberry Fields and Solidarity Forever!
https://migrantrights.ca/statusforall/
A more detailed exposé of the situation may be found in the report Unheeded Warnings: COVID-19 and Migrant Workers in Canada, produced by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. It makes for some interesting and disturbing reading. It's dedicated to two Mexican migrant farm workers, Bonifacio Eugenio Romero and Rogelio Muños Santos, who recently died of COVID-19 in Windsor. You can access the report here:
https://migrantworkersalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Unheeded-Warnings-COVID19-and-Migrant-Workers.pdf
I'll conclude this entry by pointing out that even aside from all the humanitarian considerations involved, migrant farm workers are of crucial importance to food security in this country. Without their work, crops would die off for want of the people-power required to harvest them. We simply don't have a large enough domestic workforce to reap what we sow at the busiest times of the year.
What about pick-your own berry farms? Not an option this year. Due to health and safety concerns, they are not operating because of the pandemic.
So let's champion the rights of the farm workers because without them, we'll all be stranded in a food desert, with nary an oasis in sight. Bread and Roses and Strawberry Fields and Solidarity Forever!
