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"The exception that proves the rule": Structural vulnerability, health risks, and consequences for temporary migrant farm workers in Canada
... The resulting entrenchment of "temporary foreign worker" programs in agriculture, among other industries, has had significant impacts on the ability of workers to effectively advocate for and protect their rights, as worker vulnerability has proven to be intrinsic to the employment relationship structured into these guest worker programs (McLaughlin and Hennebry 2013;Sargeant and Tucker 2009). This vulnerability is compounded by a variety of factors, such as language differences, social exclusion, lack of information and understanding of local labour rights, lack of union protection, placement in dangerous industries, and pressure to work long hours (Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012b;Sargeant and Tucker 2009). ...
... Due in part to the late introduction of the OHSA in agriculture, many operations have become accustomed to functioning with few safeguards in place, and it is a long and arduous process to change the culture of the industry, for both farm operators and workers, towards one which emphasizes health and safety protections over, for example, worker productivity, convenience and comfort. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, with the increased consolidation of operations into large industrial complexes, the image of small family farms which initially justified exclusions from labour and OHS rights can no longer be sustained (Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012b). ...
... L'enchâssement en conséquence de programmes sans flexibilité visant les « travailleurs/travailleuses étrangers/étrangères temporaires » dans le domaine agricole, entre autres secteurs industriels, a eu un impact significatif sur la capacité de ces ouvriers/ouvrières de défendre et de protéger leurs droits ; la vulnérabilité de la main-d'oeuvre migrante s'est révélée un élément central de la relation d'emploi faisant partie intégrante de ces programmes de travailleurs/travailleuses invité (e)s(McLaughlin et Hennebry, 2013 ; Sargeant et Tucker, 2009). Leur vulnérabilité est aggravée par ailleurs par une variété de facteurs, tels les différences de langue, l'exclusion sociale, leurs lacunes en termes d'information et de connaissance des droits du travail qui s'appliquent localement, l'absence de protection syndicale, leur placement dans des industries dangereuses et l'obligation de travailler de longues heures(Hennebry et McLaughlin, 2012b ; Sargeant et Tucker, 2009). 3. La stratégie ontarienne de santé et de sécurité au travail et les conséquences pour les travailleurs/travailleuses agricoles migrant(e)s 15 Tous les travailleurs/travailleuses agricoles en Ontario ont été soumis(es) à de nombreuses restrictions et limitations par rapport aux droits considérés comme étant fondamentaux pour des travailleurs/travailleuses dans d'autres industries Si les travailleurs/ travailleuses agricoles ont été exclus de ces droits consentis aux travailleurs, c'est que les entreprises agricoles sont encore perçues comme un petit projet familial ne devant pas être assujetti aux mêmes lois du travail s'appliquant en milieu industriel (voirPreibisch, 2012 ;Tucker, 2006). ...
... Transformer la culture antérieure de l'industrie axée sur la productivité des travailleurs/travailleuses, et la facilité et le confort du côté des employeurs, en une nouvelle culture qui donne plus d'importance à la santé et la sécurité au travail, devient un processus long et ardu, à la fois pour les entrepreneurs concernés et également pour les travailleurs/travailleuses qu'ils emploient. Par ailleurs, comme on l'explique plus haut, avec la consolidation grandissante des entreprises agricoles en d'énormes complexes industriels, l'image des modestes fermes familiales qui avait au départ justifié leur exclusion du droit à la a syndicalisation et à la protection en santé et sécurité au travail ne correspond plus à la réalité actuelle(Hennebry et McLaughlin, 2012b).Un facteur de complication supplémentaire dans le cas des travailleurs/ travailleuses migrant(e)s est que les employeurs ont peu de raisons de se préoccuper de leur santé à long terme. L'employeur peut facilement faire appel à d'autres travailleurs/travailleuses plus jeunes, plus en forme et en meilleure santé au début de chaque saison. ...
Over 20,000 temporary foreign agricultural workers come to Ontario each year, primarily from Mexico and the Caribbean. Agricultural workers are exposed to a number of occupational health and safety (OHS) risks. This article discusses the various OHS protections available to workers and their limitations, and analyzes the specific challenges that temporary foreign workers face in accessing rights, such as language and cultural barriers, information gaps, and precarious employment and immigration status. It also analyzes the limitations with respect to OHS training and the provision and use of personal protective equipment, arguing that these protections are under-regulated and inconsistent. The article concludes with recommendations to improve shortcomings, including standardized and specific OHS training, random OHS inspections, and full inclusion of agricultural workers in provincial legislations. Findings are based primarily on interviews with 100 migrant farmworkers who reported injuries or illness, as well as with key stakeholders such as employers and government officials.
... The insistence that Canadian agriculture can only survive with continued access to unfree migrant farm labour appeals to a much older ideology of "agrarian exceptionalism", which proposes that agriculture is a special industry because it meets the vital human need for food (Hennebry and McLaughlin, 2012). Lobby groups in Canada, the United States and the European Union have successfully mobilized this idea to ensure public support for crop subsidies to support the industry's economic viability, along with legislative exemptions such as environmental and labour standards (Skogstad, 1998). ...
... Although initially characterized as a stopgap measure required under a 'state of exception', temporary labour migration has now become the norm (Agamben, 2005;CIC, 2015;Hennebry and McLaughlin, 2012;McLaughlin, 2009). Many of the farm employers we interviewed assert their businesses and the Canadian agriculture industry at large could not survive without migrant farm workers. ...
Temporary farm labour migration schemes in Canada have been justified on the premise that they bolster food security for Canadians by addressing agricultural labour shortages, while tempering food insecurity in the Global South via remittances. Such appeals hinge on an ideology defining migrants as racialized outsiders to Canada. Drawing on qualitative interviews and participant observation in Mexico, Jamaica and Canada, we critically analyse how Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is tied to ideological claims about national food security and agrarianism, and how it purports to address migrant workers’ own food insecurity. We argue remittances only partially, temporarily mitigate food insecurity and fail to strengthen migrant food sovereignty. Data from our clinical encounters with farm workers illustrate structural barriers to healthy food access and negative health consequences. We propose an agenda for further research, along with policies to advance food security and food sovereignty for both migrants and residents of Canada.
... Despite attempts to protect migrant workers and extend their rights, the temporariness of this form of labour migration sets limits in both countries and prevents migrants from exercising certain rights. Although all workers are eligible to receive workers' compensation when injured, many migrants underreport accidents for fear of employers' reprisals (Basok 2004;McLaughlin 2009a, b;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012). Temporary migrants pay premiums to the employment insurance plan. ...
... While in theory, it is possible for migrant workers in Canada and Spain to request a transfer to another employer, in practice, such requests are rarely approved: the approval process is too lengthy, and/or it occurs only when a current employer requests it (Hennebry and Preibisch 2010;Nakache 2013: 78). As widely documented, the lack of mobility in the labour force and the dependence on employers' approval for future participation shape migrants' vulnerability to overexploitation and exposure to occupational hazards (Basok 2002;Preibisch 2007a;Binford 2013;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012;Mannon et al. 2012;Hellio 2014;Moreno 2009;FIDH 2012). Under these conditions, migrants are unwilling to claim even the rights that they have. ...
In the last two decades, temporary worker programs have experienced an unprecedented expansion as instruments of what is defined as the migration management approach. Various migrant rights activists have voiced concerns about the treatment of temporary migrants in these programs and taken initiative to advance their rights. For some migrant rights advocates, it is the temporary nature of migration that is primarily responsible for the rights deficit. Yet, other migrant rights activists accept the temporariness of labour migration while trying to ensure that migrants receive legal protections for their work rights and that these protections are enforced. Trade unions are among the actors who try to protect and advance temporary migrants’ labour rights, but their role in supporting or challenging the principles of temporary migration governance has been neglected in the scholarly literature. The article addresses this gap by highlighting the divergent position of Canadian and Spanish Unions on temporariness of this type of migration. As the article argues, the difference is related to the following four factors: (1) the degree to which the unions in question are institutionally embedded in immigration policy-making, (2) the social environment (that is, discourses on temporariness advanced by other unions and grassroots organizations), (3) the degree of protectionism unions express vis-à-vis new immigrant flows and (4) whether regulated temporary migration is contrasted with permanent or unauthorized migration.
... The logic of liminality is embedded into managed temporary labour migration programs, in spaces where mobility is at once both "paused, slowed or stopped" (Sheller, 2012), but also required under tightly controlled parameters. Meanwhile, permanent protections remain out of reach for this vulnerable population F o r P e e r R e v i e w (Hennebry & McLaughlin, 2012) and liminality further enables governmentality, whilst significantly restricting their ability to access social protection systems designed for citizen workers. Indeed, the relationship between liminality and control is a recursive one -in which the restrictive management of managed temporary worker programs set the conditions for this perpetual liminality, and in turn their liminality enables greater control of this group, and limits their ability to access health care and other protections. ...
... The normative acceptance of the "necessary evil" of exceptional precarity for migrant workers is built into guest worker programs. Programs such as Canada's SAWP have been fortified with logic of what theorist Gorgio Agamben would refer to as a "state of exception" (Agamben, 1998 McLaughlin, 2012). As these programs become further entrenched in sectors with concentrations of lower-skilled jobs, such as agriculture, food services and manufacturing, the ability of workers to effectively advocate for and protect their rights has been drastically undermined (McLaughlin and Hennebry 2013;Sargeant and Tucker 2009;Goldring and Landolt, 2012). ...
Growing numbers of migrant workers worldwide face human rights violations, exploitation and mistreatment, and lack broader social protections granted to permanent residents in countries where they work. Protecting migrant labour was an objective at the founding of the International Labour Organization (ILO), documented within the Declaration of Philadelphia in 1944. Yet, more than 60 years on, despite numerous United Nations (UN) conventions, declarations and frameworks aimed at protecting their rights, migrant workers remain marginalized. In the context of globalizing labour markets and economic crises, migrant workers are a particularly vulnerable group. This article will discuss the extent to which the Global Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF) has addressed this group, and will assess how well existing international, bilateral and national frameworks for social protection extend to migrant workers.
... dans des travaux de recherche effectués en Ontario (Basok, 2002;Hennebry, 2008Hennebry, , 2012Preibisch, 2007Preibisch, , 2010, aucun changement structurel n'a été apporté aux programmes, et les portes d'entrée pour le travail et la résidence temporaires se multiplient. Il semble donc que chercheurs, activistes, représentants syndicaux et intervenants n'ont, jusqu'à ce jour, pas réussi à renverser une tendance lourde au Canada et au Québec. ...
... La plupart des travaux portent d'ailleurs sur la vulnérabilité et la précarité produites par ces programmes eux-mêmes, qui créent une main-d'oeuvre captive n'ayant aucune mobilité sur le marché du travail pour deux raisons principales : le lien fixe avec un employeur et le fait que tous les paramètres de la mobilité sont gérés par les acteurs qui mettent les programmes en question en oeuvre. La constante menace d'être expulsé du pays ou exclu de ces programmes, sans possibilité de contester une telle décision, s'avère une véritable épée de Damoclès suspendue au-dessus de la tête de chaque travailleur (Basok, 2002;Basok et al., 2012;Hennebry et McLaughlin, 2012;Preibisch, 2010). ...
Au Québec, le nombre de travailleurs étrangers temporaires a connu une croissance d’environ 40 % de 2000 à 2010, avec 30 307 entrées en 2010. Les travailleurs étrangers saisonniers employés dans le secteur agricole, dont la plupart viennent du Mexique et du Guatemala, contribuent à cette augmentation. Les travaux de recherche portant sur la situation au Québec, ailleurs au Canada et dans d’autres pays montrent la précarité et la vulnérabilité liées au statut de travailleur temporaire peu qualifié. Dans le présent article, nous analysons le point de vue des communautés locales concernant les travailleurs migrants temporaires agricoles sous l’angle des représentations sociales. L’analyse repose sur vingt entretiens menés en 2012, dans une région rurale située près de Québec, auprès d’acteurs clés appartenant à l’une ou l’autre des catégories suivantes : élus municipaux, propriétaires de commerce, prestataires de services (publics ou privés) et les résidents actifs en tant que citoyens sur la scène locale. Les résultats montrent que les migrants sont perçus comme une main-d’œuvre indispensable et essentielle, comme des travailleurs idéaux et de qualité supérieure aux autres travailleurs agricoles, et comme une population «invisible». Les entretiens révèlent que la construction sociale de ces migrants relève d’un processus de racisation positive, de la différentiation culturelle ainsi que de l’exclusion sociale et spatiale. Nous montrons la relation étroite entre la structure des programmes qui régit l’emploi et le séjour de ces migrants, d’une part, et les façons dont les acteurs locaux se représentent ces mêmes migrants, d’autre part.
In the province of Québec, the number of foreign temporary workers has increased by 40% between 2000 and 2010, with 30,307 entries in 2010.The foreign seasonal workers employed in the agricultural sector, most of them coming from Mexico and Guatemala, contribute towards this increase. The research on the situation in Quebec, and anywhere else in Canada and in other countries, show the precarious and vulnerable situation connected with the status of the temporary low skill worker. In this article, we analyse the standpoint of local communities on the migrant temporary farm workers in terms of social representations. We base our analysis on twenty interviews conducted in 2012, in a rural area close to Quebec City, with key actors belonging to one or the other of the following categories: municipal elected officials, business owners, service providers (public or private) and residents locally active as citizens. The results show that migrants are seen as vital and essential labour, as ideal workers of higher quality than other farm workers, and as an “invisible” population. The interviews indicate that the social construction of these migrants stem from a process of positive racialization, from cultural differentiation, as well as from social and spatial exclusion. We discuss the close relation between the programs’ structure that manages the employment and the residence of these migrants, on the one hand, and on the other hand, how the local actors view those same migrants.
... That is, vulnerability is 'made real' by policy discourse and practice (see also Brown and Wincup 2019). Advocates have long pointed to problematic housing and work conditions and challenges accessing health care experienced by MAWs in Canada (for example, Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012;Preibisch and Ortero 2014). Many MAWs reside in shared, dormitory style living quarters with shared bathrooms and kitchens and poor ventilation (Hennebry et al. 2020;Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group 2020). ...
In this paper, we use the Empathic Policy Framework to explore the concept of vulnerability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that vulnerability is not a state of being, but rather an effect produced by emotional policy discourse. As a result, people are not inherently ‘vulnerable’, but rather ‘vulnerabilized’. We make this claim by exploring the potential of the EPF to illuminate the process of vulnerabilization in the context of migrant agricultural workers in Canada, exposing the emotional policy discourses that constitute vulnerability and enabling policy analysts to engage empathically with policy subjects. We aim to show that, when viewed this way, following philosopher Shelley Tremain, vulnerability is an ‘apparatus of power that differentially produces subjects, materially, socially, politically, and relationally’. The EPF can help attune policy analysts to these processes and the effects produced by them.
... In any proposed reforms, it is crucial to critically analyze how changes affect labor rights, human rights, and the power disparity between employers and workers; agricultural workers cannot be an afterthought to industry interests. Moreover, the SAWP must not be viewed as an "exception" in such reforms, which has been the norm (Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012), and as some agricultural lobbyists are calling for (Pinto 2019). 2 In 2018, the government launched a pilot Migrant Worker Support Network in British Columbia (ESDC 2018a). Such government-funded initiatives remain controversial. ...
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... More specifically, the program favoured the recruitment of low-skilled male migrants who were married and had families -which they had to leave behind -thus ensuring their return to their home country. Extensive research has been conducted on the SAWP's harsh working conditions (NFB 2003;Basok 2004;Hennebry 2012;Hennebry & McLaughlin 2012;McLaughlin 2013;McLaughlin & Hennebry 2013). More recently, however, the program has become increasingly attractive to Latin American migrant women as well. ...
... All of the migrant-receiving countries make similar arguments about the necessity of imported migrant labour to support the unique demands of 'local' agriculture, and yet all of these countries undervalue, fail to properly support and even overtly discriminate against these needed workers. In all circumstances, labour protections and access to social services are inadequate, and workers are vulnerable to abuse, poor living and dangerous working conditions (Griffith 2006;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012). Many endure long-term health consequences, yet when they need support the most, their countries of employment abandon them (Horton 2016;McLaughlin et al. 2014). ...
Four books published between 2013 and 2014 make a vital contribution towards understanding the political and ideological tools by which states and employers construct hyper-exploitable agricultural workers. In this review essay, we provide an assessment of how these books have advanced our understandings of migrant farm labour regimes in local and international perspectives. After presenting a synopsis of each text, we critically reflect on key lessons learned, offer questions that merit further attention, and suggest directions for future research. Our review finds that despite wide differences in geopolitical and legal contexts in which migrant agricultural workers cross borders , live and work, there are remarkable resemblances in the ways in which states use (and abuse) migrant labour. Likewise, there are glaring similarities in the consequent vulnerabilities migrants experience. While each author provides compelling and empirically rich observations based on local fields of study, generally lacking are broader global connections and policy discussions about how the problems raised can be meaningfully addressed. Given the seeming ubiquity of exploit-ative migrant agricultural worker regimes, the fundamental question left largely unanswered is: Must 'local' agricultural systems depend on vulnerable imported workers in order to provide affordable food for consumers, or are there workable alternatives to this arrangement?
... Los trabajadores, por miedo a perder la posición tan codiciada de empleo, raramente objetan sobre las prácticas inseguras o peligrosas, y mucho menos dejan de laborar si se lastiman o se enferman (Basok, 2002;McLaughlin, 2009b;Hennebry y McLaughlin, 2012;Preibisch y Otero, 2014). Esta disponibilidad sumisa para trabajar sin reclamos ante las condiciones laborales que los canadienses no aceptarían, incluyendo largas jornadas y actividades que causan en fermedades o lesiones, es parte de lo que otorga a la fuerza laboral migrante un valor particular a los ojos de los productores canadienses, lo cual Basok (2002) identifica como una necesidad estructural para la agricultura en Ontario. ...
Structural Vulnerability and HealtH among SeaSonal agri cultural WorkerS in canada. this article explains how migrant Mexican agricultural workers experience situations of risk that make them structurally vulnerable in the area of health. Although managed systems of migration, such as the canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (Programa de Trabajadores Agrícolas Temporales) have diverse advantages – legality , benefits, formal wages and safer travel conditions – it is argued that the controlling nature of these programs also generates vulnerabilities. Resumen Se explica cómo los trabajadores agrícolas migrantes mexicanos experimentan situaciones de riesgo que los hacen estructuralmente vulnerables en el ámbito de la salud. Aunque los sistemas de gestión de la inmigración, como el Programa de trabajadores Agrícolas tempo-rales (ptat) de canadá, tienen distintas ventajas –lega-lidad, prestaciones, salario formal y condiciones de viaje más seguras–, se argumenta que la naturaleza controladora de estos programas también genera vul-nerabilidades. Palabras clave: migración laboral, programas trans-nacionales, trabajo precario, agroindustria canadiense Las violaciones a los derechos humanos no son accidentales, no son aleatorias en su distribución o efecto. Las violaciones a los derechos son más bien síntomas de enfermedades profundas de poder y están vinculadas íntimamente con condiciones sociales que, frecuentemente, determinan quién sufrirá del abuso y quién será protegido del daño. Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power La industria agrícola en el marco de la globalización L a industria agrícola, sobre todo en los países económicamente desarrollados, ha creado estrategias de distinta índole para incrementar sus ganancias y competir en el mercado global. Una de ellas ha sido la importación temporal de hombres y mujeres provenientes de naciones en vías de desarrollo, lo que les brinda * Artículo recibido el 20/02/15 y aceptado el 15/06/15.
... The SAWP was initiated and is still justified based on the view that agriculture is a unique industry necessitating exceptional employment circumstances, requiring a "captive," just-in-time labour force that is not only paid the minimum wage, but is also flexible, productive and dependable (Basok 2002;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012). Because there is little decently paid work available to them in Mexico and Jamaica where wages are a fraction of those in Canada-also largely due to inequitable global economic relations far beyond their control-most SAWP workers and spouses have little access to additional income to compensate for lower remittances. ...
Accelerating flows of remittances are dwarfing global development aid. Thisstudy deepens our understanding of remittance impacts on the families ofworkers who come to Canada annually for several months under the SeasonalAgricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Interviews with SAWP workers, theirspouses, adult children and teachers in Mexico deepen our understanding of theimpacts of these remittances. They demonstrate thatthe remittances are oftenliterally a lifeline to transnational family survival, allowing them to pay for basicneeds such as shelter, food, and medical care. Yet,at the same time, theraemittances do not allow most of these workers andtheir families to escape deeppoverty and significant precarity, including new forms of precarity generated bythe SAWP. Instead, SAWP remittances help reduce poverty, at least temporarily,to more moderate levels while precarious poverty expands through globalneoliberal underdevelopmen
... More specifically, the program favoured the recruitment of low-skilled male migrants who were married and had families -which they had to leave behind -thus ensuring their return to their home country. Extensive research has been conducted on the SAWP's harsh working conditions (NFB 2003;Basok 2004;Hennebry 2012;Hennebry & McLaughlin 2012;McLaughlin 2013;McLaughlin & Hennebry 2013). More recently, however, the program has become increasingly attractive to Latin American migrant women as well. ...
As the myth of the Eldorado evokes, international migration is partly shaped by the perceptions and imaginaries of migrants themselves. Beyond such cliché, however, there is little knowledge regarding the nature and influence of myths and imaginaries on migration dynamics. As symbolic collective representations of individuals’ aspirations, hopes and dreams, myths and imaginaries constitute an important part of migrants’ experiences and have concrete implications for the study of migration. This policy brief examines how migrants’ myths and imaginaries influence the relationship between migration policies and migration movements. This policy brief focuses on four myths and imaginaries that, after close analysis, shed new light on the dynamic interactions between migration policies and migration patterns. We have identified four myths based on discussions held among researchers and practitioners during a one-day symposium that we organized at the University of Ottawa in May 2014: (1) the myth of the “migrant-as-hero”; (2) the myth of freedom of geographical mobility; (3) the myths and imaginaries related to (im)migration categories; and (4) the myths and imaginaries related to the country of destination as a country of human rights and better life. Based on a detailed analysis of these four myths, this policy brief reveals how myths and imaginaries intervene as an additional element in the relationships between migration policies and migrants’ projects and strategies, and thus serves to move beyond simplified “dual” interactions between policies and migratory movements. We advance three policy-relevant recommendations: (1) more research is required to document the existence of a diversity of myths and to improve understanding of multiple influences migrants’ myths and imaginaries have on the dynamics between migration policies and migrants’ projects; (2) because they have concrete implications at multiple levels, policy-makers should pay closer attention to migrants’ myths and imaginaries; and (3) policy-making should adopt a more sensible approach to the particular context in which myths and imaginaries are (re)produced.
... There is evidence from Canada and elsewhere that migrant and immigrant workers are subject to higher rates of workplace injury (Ahonen and Benavides 2006;Walter and Bourgois 2002;Orrenius and Zavodny 2009;Preibisch and Hennebry 2011). There is also evidence that immigrant and migrant workers face difficulty enforcing their workplace rights and gaining compensation for their injuries (Guthrie and Quinlan 2005;Sargeant and Tucker 2009;Gravel et al. 2010;Mondragon 2011;Fudge 2011;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012). Public policy around occupational injury could be usefully informed by confirmation of whether international and interprovincial migrant workers in Alberta have a similar experience. ...
Considering a series of oil-driven economic booms, the use of inter-provincial and international migrant labour has become an important part of labour market policy in the Canadian province of Alberta. The increased use of temporary foreign workers is controversial. Narrative analysis of legislators’ statements in the legislature and the press between 2000 and 2011 reveals the government using three narratives to justify policies encouraging greater use of foreign migrant workers: (1) labour shortages require migrant workers, (2) migrants do not threaten Canadian jobs and (3) migrants are not being exploited. Close scrutiny of each narrative demonstrates them to be largely invalid. This suggests a significant disconnect between the real and espoused reasons for the significant changes to labour market policy, changes that advantage employers and disadvantage both Canadian and foreign workers. The findings are relevant to understand the political dynamics of economically related migration.
Introduction:
The intersecting vulnerabilities of migrant agricultural workers (MAWs) impact both their health and their access to health care in rural areas, yet rural clinicians' voices are rarely documented. The purpose of this study was to explore health professionals' perspectives on health care for MAWs in sending countries and rural Ontario, Canada.
Methods:
Qualitative research design occurred over three distinct projects, using a multi-methodological approach including semi-structured interviews in Mexico, Jamaica and rural Ontario (n=43), and session field notes and questionnaires administered to healthcare providers (n=65) during knowledge exchange sessions in rural Ontario. A systematic analysis of these data was done to identify common themes, using NVivo software initially and then Microsoft Excel for application of a framework approach.
Results:
Structural challenges posed by migrant workers' context included difficulties preventing and managing work-related conditions, employers or supervisors compromising confidentiality, and MAWs' fears of loss of employment and return to countries of origin prior to completing treatments. Structural challenges related to health services included lack of adequate translation/interpretation services and information about insurance coverage and MAWs' work and living situations; scheduling conflicts between clinic hours and MAWs' availability; and difficulties in arranging follow-up tests, treatments and examinations. Intercultural challenges included language/communication barriers; cultural barriers /perceptions; and limited professional knowledge of MAWs' migration and work contexts and MAWs' knowledge of the healthcare system. Transnational challenges arose around continuity of care, MAWs leaving Canada during/prior to receiving care, and dealing with health problems acquired in Canada. A range of responses were suggested, some in place and others requiring additional organization, testing and funding.
Conclusion:
Funding to strengthen responses to structural and intercultural challenges, including research assessing improved supports to rural health professionals serving MAWs, are needed in rural Canada and rural Mexico and Jamaica, in order to better address the structural and intersecting vulnerabilities and the care needs of this specific population.
This chapter deals with the issue of how policies and policy makers account for the integration of migrants whose stay is expected to be temporary. Temporary migration policies target those whose labour is wanted but whose integration is not. According to the international conventions regarding migrant workers, they should have the same access to social and economic rights as native workers. However, rights advocates point to the gaps between rights in theory and their implementation on the ground. This research is based on 53 semi-structured and in-depth interviews with policy-makers, migrant organisations, migrant lawyers, unions and migration research centres, conducted in Canada and the UK. The two countries have both implemented temporary migration programmes for seasonal and low-skilled workers. My analysis shows that, in both countries, temporary migration policies and temporariness hinder the integration of migrant workers. However, the two countries differ in their rhetoric regarding temporary migrant workers: Canadian policy-makers seem to be more self-critical and more inclined to have further solutions to temporariness, whilst UK policy-makers focus on a more functional perspective where temporariness is easily justified. I argue that this difference is at least partly due to the differential immigration histories of the two countries. Canada has a long history of welcoming immigrants, who are now part of the imagined community of nationals, whereas the UK is a post-colonial country where immigration policy has fluctuated in its liberalisation and restriction via temporary routes, visas and its five-tier points-based system.
Under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), migrant workers come to Canada for up to eight months each year, without their families, to work as temporary foreign workers in agriculture. Using a ‘whole worker’ industrial relations approach, which emphasizes intersections among work, family and community relations, this article assesses the impacts of these repeated separations on the wellbeing and cohesion of Mexican workers’ transnational families. The analysis is based primarily on 74 in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted in Spanish with male workers, their spouses and children, and with the children’s teachers. Assessment criteria include effects on children’s health and educational success, children’s behaviour, mothers’ abilities to cope with added roles and work, and emotional relations among workers, children and spouses.
The study findings suggest that families are often negatively impacted by these repeated separations, with particular consequences for the mental and physical health of children. Children’s behavioural challenges often include poor school performance, involvement in crime, drug and alcohol abuse (especially among sons), and early pregnancies among daughters. As temporary ‘single moms,’ wives often have difficulty coping with extra functions and burdens, and lack of support when their husbands are working in Canada. Typically, there are profound emotional consequences for workers and, frequently, strained family relations. The article concludes by offering practical policy recommendations to lessen negative impacts on SAWP workers and their families, including higher remittances; improved access to labour rights and standards; and new options for family reunification.
This article explores how model temporary migrant worker programs (TMWPs) that permit seasonal return can institutionalize deportability or the possibility of removal among participants with legal status. It draws on the cases of two groups of workers who participated in the British Columbia–Mexico Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and who managed to unionize and secure collective agreements (CAs). The author argues that the design and operation of SAWP constrains workers’ capacity to see out fixed-term contracts and to realize the promise of seasonal return. These inherent constraints lead to a form of institutionalized deportability, even among participants covered by CAs crafted to mitigate the possibility of unjust termination and premature repatriation and to address workers’ precarious transnational situation. Focusing on how deportability operates, the article analyzes immigration and labor laws and policies, CAs, key informant interviews, and testimony before British Columbia’s labor relations tribunal along with the decisions of that tribunal.
La littérature sur les programmes pour la main-d’oeuvre agricole temporaire au Canada a plutôt analysé le cadre juridico-légal et ses répercussions sur le travail, montrant des conditions de vie et de travail comparables dans certains cas à une forme de servitude contemporaine. Dans cet article, à partir de nos terrains de recherche respectifs au Québec, nous approfondissons la dimension personnelle de la relation dans ces contextes caractérisés par plusieurs sources de vulnérabilité. La dimension personnelle de la relation capital-travail s’articule ainsi dans un cadre juridico-légal et demeure fondamentale dans l’organisation et le contrôle de la main-d’oeuvre dans le contexte de production actuel. Explorant le croisement d’évaluations morales et de compétences professionnelles, nous proposons quatre variantes de la relation entre employeur et main-d’oeuvre, fonctionnelles pour l’organisation du travail dans les fermes.
This report is produced by UN Women’s Economic Empowerment Section for the ‘Promoting and Protecting Women Migrant Workers’ Labour and Human Rights’ Project, supported by the European Union. This report is the first of three designed to build on the growing body of scholarship pertaining to gender and migration, and is a resource for the creation of gender-sensitive policies and practices aimed at empowering women migrant workers. This report draws from the cases of Moldova, Philippines and Mexico to provide a comprehensive analysis that accounts for differences and similarities between migration systems. Specifically, through the use of legal reviews and legislative comparison, the report provides an analysis of existing mechanisms, frameworks, legislation and policies vis-à-vis women migrant workers, with particular attention paid to the alignment of national legislation with international frameworks, like CEDAW. Finally, the report concludes by providing a set of recommendations aimed at global and regional actors, including the ratification of international treaties, enforcement of CEDAW and the creation of a new international instrument to promote and protect the rights of women migrant workers.
Low-wage migrant workers in wealthy nations occupy an ambiguous social and legal status that is inseparable from global economics and politics. This article adds to the growing and diverse literature on temporariness in labour and citizenship by reviewing Canada’s internationally recognised ‘model’ programme, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). Specifically, we present research on a small but rapidly growing peripheral pocket of workers in Nova Scotia, a less populated and more economically depressed province. Interview with former SAWP participants demonstrate how the uncertainty characterising the legal, immigration, and employment status of seasonal agricultural workers is socially practised and individually experienced. In particular, we show how specific elements of current migrant labour regulation have everyday effects in organising and delimiting non-work dimensions of migrant workers’ lives. In attending to the spatio-temporal dimensions of migrant workers’ lives we develop the concept social quarantining as a characteristic feature of former workers’ experiences ‘on the contract’.
Cet article presente une analyse de l’experience d’un groupe de travailleurs migrants dans le secteur agricole au Quebec. A partir d’un travail ethnographique realise en 2011 et en 2012 aupres de travailleurs agricoles et d’acteurs-cles de l’ile d’Orleans (region de Quebec), nous montrons comment le territoire, en tant que lieu social et geographique, faconne le quotidien des migrants qui participent aux programmes canadiens de travail temporaire. A partir du concept de la precarite, nous analysons les mecanismes et les sources de cette precarite ancres dans un territoire. Notre analyse se centre sur le paternalisme comme mode de relations entre travailleurs et employeurs sur les fermes familiales de l’ile d’Orleans. Par ailleurs, nous analysons les strategies mises en oeuvre par les migrants pour reduire leur precarite. L’article porte un regard conjoint sur les notions geographiques et sociologiques des relations entre le territoire et la precarite.
Temporary migrant workers provide vital labour to the Canadian agricultural industry. Although these workers are entitled to basic social rights while in Canada, such as employment standards and occupational health and safety (OHS) laws, these rights are regularly violated. These workers also have few avenues for political participation in Canada. The author argues that the framework of citizenship provides a powerful way to advance a social justice agenda for temporary migrant farm workers because of the implications of labour migration for the democratic citizenship of the domestic population. To ensure the social rights of local workers and the democratic character of the Canadian state, migrant workers, while in Canada, must be able to realize their social rights and also play some role in determining the laws to which they are subject. By examining two case studies from Canada, the author finds that civil society actors can act as agents to help migrant farm workers achieve citizenship. I lavoratori temporanei migranti in Canada sono una risorsa essenziale per l'industria agricola del paese. Nonostante questi lavoratori siano titolari dei comuni diritti sociali in Canada, come le norme sull'impiego e le leggi sulla salute e la sicurezza sul lavoro (OHS - Occupational Health and Safety), questi diritti vengono regolarmente violati. L'autore dell'articolo sostiene che la nozione di cittadinanza offre una prospettiva efficace per promuovere un programma di giustizia sociale per i lavoratori migranti temporanei occupati in agricoltura, a causa delle gravi conseguenze che l’immigrazione di manodopera ha sulla cittadinanza democratica della popolazione locale. Per proteggere i diritti sociali dei lavoratori locali e il carattere democratico dello stato Canadese, i lavoratori migranti mentre si trovano in Canada devono essere in grado di poter rivendicare i loro diritti sociali e di prender parte al processo di determinazione delle leggi a cui sono soggetti. Esaminando due studi di casi in Canada, l'autore trova che la societa civile puo svolgere un ruolo trasformativo nell'aiutare i lavoratori migranti temporanei del settore agricolo a conseguire una cittadinanza attiva.
The UK has had a Temporary Migrant Worker Programme (TMWP) for agricultural ‘guestworkers’ since 1943. Most recently referred to as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS), SAWS accommodated 25,000 workers per annum by its 2004 peak. However, the UK government then announced the scheme's closure (initially for 2011, but then delayed until 2014). This paper examines employers' response to this closure and, specifically, juxtaposes the academic critiques of TMWPs with the very strong employer preference for them. This preference, the paper concludes, is about the way in which TMWPs allow labour to be more readily and more extensively controlled, and, also allow employers access to ‘better quality’ workers. Considering these benefits of quality and control, alongside the academic critiques, the paper concludes that SAWS should be retained, but with major changes and safeguards.
Drawing on a survey of nearly 600 migrant farm workers in Ontario, Canada, we investigate the ways in which the liminality of temporary migrants is both conditioning and consequential in terms of health for these migrants. In particular, we demonstrate how the liminality inherent in managed temporary migration programmes creates the conditions for heightened vulnerability, which also have consequences for the health of migrant workers and their access to care. We discuss common barriers to health care access experienced by migrant workers, including employer mediation, language differences, and hours of work.
This article analyses the experience of recently unionised Mexican seasonal agricultural workers in British Columbia, Canada, whose visa reapplications were blocked by Mexico and a concomitant complaint to the province's labour board. Illustrating the significance of this sending state's actions, it reveals the growing disjuncture between nationally based labour relations systems and transnational labour.
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