Editorial | Listen to plight of farm workers Mr Samuda

An anonymous tip from customer or employee has been identified as the number one way that companies maintain ethics in their operations. Additionally, it is widely felt that employees can be the best police system for ensuring that businesses abide by established codes of conduct and exhibit transparency.

So, when a group of Jamaican farm workers in Canada recently wrote an anonymous letter to the labour and social security ministry about poor conditions, which they say mimic slavery, they may not have expected their complaint to be given short shrift.

But that is exactly what happened. Minister of Labour Karl Samuda dismissed the workers concerns in his stout defence of their employers. After visiting nine farms in the Ontario area earlier this month, the minister reported excellent working conditions. “I did not find anything that jumped out at me in terms of ill-treatment.”

He went on to describe an excellent, strong and pleasant relationship between employers and farmworkers. He cited an instance when an employer had refurbished a building for the workers, and, in another case, where permission was given for a bar to be established to serve Jamaican food and drink.

Mr Samuda should know that, when organisations want to find out areas of weakness in their delivery of service, they employ secret or mystery shoppers. A savvy business owner uses covert services to keep tabs, because he knows that he will never get a true picture, if he relies solely on what he sees and how he is treated in his own shop.

Mr Samuda, arriving on a farm clothed in his officialdom, cannot expect to see what has been swept under the carpet. Everything would have been cleaned, primed and dusted for his official visit.

THREATS

The Jamaican workers, who are employed through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Programme (SAWP), described the threats to their physical and economic well-being: “We are treated like mules and punished for not working fast enough. We are exposed to dangerous pesticides without proper protection, and our bosses are verbally abusive, swearing at us. They physically intimidate us, destroy our personal property and threaten to send us home,” read the letter.

Rights groups have long documented the challenges faced by temporary farm workers, which include pesticide exposure, infectious diseases, respiratory ailments, as well as hearing and vision problems, overcrowding and a lack of clean drinking water.

So, what is the response expected of a minister when faced with such scathing criticisms? Certainly not a rose-tinted assessment like the one presented by Mr Samuda. The farm workers turned to their Government for protection and support, this is why their letter was sent prior to the minister’s visit to the farms. They appealed to Mr Samuda to urge Canada to implement national housing standards and create an anonymous system to report abuse without the threat of reprisal. They also asked that the Canadian government grant them permanent residency upon arrival in the country.

But Mr Samuda seems to have concluded that none of these matters warranted his time, for these are great employers being maligned by ungrateful workers.

The least they would have expected to hear from the minister is that he would investigate these complaints.

The minister observed that some of the workers have been participating in the programme for more than 30 years, so how bad could it be? Because poor Jamaicans depend on the strength of the Canadian dollar to provide a livelihood for their families cannot mean that they are not supposed to complain or that their complaints ought not to be investigated. Should they continue to be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse?

In the name of the Jamaican worker, we are compelled to ask: Whose side are you on Minister Samuda?