A researcher says that the problem is caused by language, culture, and a program that is meant to divide
Sidique Ali-Hosein says that during the nine years he worked as a migrant farm worker in Ontario, he saw a divide between workers from different cultures.
He said that Caribbean and Mexican workers often didn’t talk to each other, sometimes because they spoke different languages and sometimes because their employers put them in groups.
“When a farm worker comes, he or she is pretty much in a bubble… “Like Mexican workers, Caribbean workers don’t know what their rights are because they are kept in a bubble and not taught,” he said.
Ali-Hosein moved to Canada for the first time in 2013 from Trinidad and Tobago. Before he got an open work permit, he worked on a farm in Simcoe, Ont. He now works in Toronto at a warehouse that sells medicines.
Ali-Hosein said that, looking back, divisions sometimes led to hostile situations, such as workers cutting in front of others in line.
Researchers and advocates say that employers and the structure of the federal program make it harder for workers to work together. They want to see more deliberate efforts to bring workers together.
A divide with systemic root
Employers in Canada hire and fly in temporary foreign workers through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP).
The program is open to workers from Mexico and a few Caribbean countries (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago).
Kristin Lozanski, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, has spent the last eight years researching tourism and farm work in the Niagara Region by going there.
She said that this difference between workers from Mexico and the Caribbean has been almost a part of the program from the beginning.
Lozanski said that SAWP began in 1966 with Jamaican workers and grew to include workers from the Caribbean until 1974, when it was decided to include workers from Mexico.
She said that the change was made to take power away from Caribbean workers who wanted better working conditions in the program. This made the program “built on the idea of competition,” she said.
“There was a sense that the Caribbean was building up too much power, and they needed to balance that power,” she said.
Workers still compete, Lozanski said, and often over the jobs themselves.
Workers are aware their livelihood lies completely in the hands of employers, who can decide not to invite a worker back with no previous warning, said Lozanski. And just like that, she said, a farmer can also decide to replace their current workforce with workers from another country entirely, further emphasizing the competition between workers.
Luisa Ortíz-Garza, an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), echoed the point and said she knows of workers having been threatened with replacement.
“Let’s say it’s a farm with only Jamaican workers, and the employers are constantly saying, ‘if you don’t work faster, if you don’t produce as much as they want them to produce, we’re gonna bring Mexican workers,’ and the same happens for Mexican workers,” she said.
Ortíz-Garza said in her experience speaking with migrant workers, many think one group has it “better than the other.”
“Mexican workers would say, Jamaicans have it easier because they speak English … And then Jamaican workers would say Mexicans have it easier, because the employers like them better,” she said.
In most cases, both Ortíz-Garza and Lozanski said farms don’t usually have workers from Mexico and the Caribbean working together, citing language barriers. They often live in separate houses too, creating minimum interaction between the two groups.
The separation not only creates competition, said Ortíz-Garza, but also prevents unity and camaraderie.
“At the end of the day, they’re going through the same thing. They are in the same program,” she said.
Bringing workers together intentionall
Ortíz-Garza said the best way of ending the competition between Mexican and Caribbean farm workers is to give them the option to become permanent residents. That way, the fear of being replaced will no longer be a problem with job security.
Even when they are together, however, communication is often difficult because of language, so Lozanski said bridging the gap between Mexican and Caribbean workers must be done intentionally.
Lozanski also added that most workers are here with the sole purpose of earning a living, so going out of their way to make friends with one another is not at the top of their priorities.
However, Ortíz-Garza said creating spaces where workers can spend time together is extremely beneficial to both groups.
Although Ali-Husain is no longer a migrant worker, he volunteers with the Neighbourhood Organization, a Toronto-based group which provides services to newcomers across Ontario including migrant workers in Simcoe.
He says he volunteers to help workers get information and support he wish he had when he had first arrived.
He said he’s seen first hand how workers are trying to help each other, even when they don’t speak the same language.
“People are aware now, because the workforce is changing,” he said. “They are kind of basically helping each other to be awake and aware of what’s going on in the work environment.”