Small family farms at risk of disappearing: Farmer’s association
After a battle at the labour board, seasonal agricultural workers in Quebec have won the right to join a union.
Last year, the Quebec Labour Relations Board (QLRB) struck down a 40-year-old article in the labour code as unconstitutional, ruling that, whether seasonal or year-round, all employees at all farming operations should be able to organize under a union banner.
The QLRB gave the provincial government one year to change the law and, as of March 11, it became officially legal for seasonal agricultural workers to negotiate a collective agreement.
That Quebec farms won’t be able to remain competitive is one of the producers’ biggest fears.
"Our big competitor is Ontario, more and more we see fruits and vegetables coming from Ontario on our shelves," said Andre Plante, managing director of the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec (APMQ), the province’s vegetable producer’s group. "We’ll have to import vegetables instead of eating Quebec vegetables."
Previously, agricultural workers in Quebec were only able to unionize if their farms were up and running year-round. Given this season’s seemingly never-ending winter, the need to organize seasonal operations has never been more clear, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (known as TUAC in Quebec).
"Agriculture in Quebec has survived because of the union. How can they be unfair like this? The boss is allowed to be in the union, but the workers, no?" said Marie-Jeanne Vandoorne, Quebec’s co-ordinator of TUAC Local 501, the chapter that took the case to the labour board.
Of particular concern for the APMQ is that the small family farm will not be able to keep its head above water.
"Sometimes, it’s only the husband and wife and they don’t have the structure to negotiation a collective convention, a collective agreement. Their office is in the house," Plante said.
Those fears were dismissed by Vandoorne, who said it is only fair all agricultural workers enjoy the same rights.
"They’re not being rational. They’re afraid that the big mighty union will come and shut down their farms," Vandoorne explained. "We don’t want to go hunt down all the little family farms, that’s not the idea. If there is one situation in one farm in particular where the conditions are horrible, well obviously they need to unionize to make the conditions change. That is the option they (to) have that they didn’t have before."
Labour groups are aware of the economic pressures facing the agricultural industry and, despite stereotypical fears employers tend to have regarding certification, it is not the intention of the unions to bleed farmers dry, said Vandoorne.
"The objective is only to give better work conditions while (seasonal farmers) are there," Vandoorne explained. "We don’t want to cause any bankruptcy of the farm. We have to adapt our conventions to the reality of the farms, no?"
That covers basic rights under labour codes, such as a cap on hours worked per week and minimum wages. Leading the list of demands for seasonal agricultural workers is recall.
In Quebec, the majority of staff hail from Mexico and Guatemala. Without an individual collective agreement, all employment terms are dictated by cross-country contracts between the federal government and the government from the workers’ home country. There is no guarantee a seasonal farmer who worked on a farm one summer will be able to return to the same farm the next summer.
"Right now, they have absolutely no protection for the recall or for seniority. Those two things are very important to them, very important to personal familial economics. It’s important to say, ‘Next year, I’ll be going back to this farm,’" Vandoorne explained.
While salary increases and other common clauses are certainly on TUAC’s radar, recall and seniority provisions would take priority. But it’s negotiating the former, such as overtime, that has employers on the defensive.
That will spike labour costs, Plante fears. He cited the hourly cap, currently sitting at 50 hours per week, as one example. Should a collective agreement dictate seasonal agricultural workers get paid overtime rates in excess of 50 per week, labour costs will rise about eight per cent, translating to a dramatic drop in profits.
Further complicating the matter is that both seasonal farmers and their farms will be treading uncharted territory when negotiating a collective agreement, especially because of the volatile nature of the job and short term of employment.
While Vandoorne cites other seasonal occupations, such as ski operations, from which to draw precedence, employers foresee a rocky road ahead at the bargaining table, particularly in terms of work stoppages. Should seasonal agricultural workers decide to walk off the job during negotiations, small family farms would not have any bargaining chips — essentially, according to Plante, they would be subject to the mercy of the union.
"They are not in strong positions to negotiate because we grow vegetables, and if the workers put pressure and stop the harvest in the field — we’ve lost the product. That’s why we don’t have any power of negotiation," Plante said. "That’s why we cannot understand how we can work with a collective agreement — it would put pressure to get the advantage where we don’t have any control… It’s a very bizarre situation."
As both management and union groups opine the state of agricultural labour in Quebec, perhaps what gets lost is the workers themselves, who call the labour board’s decision a victory.
"Workers will be happy to know that they have gained some rights in Canada, because they are not at home anywhere," Vandoorne said. "If they can grab some new rights and have some stronger — I don’t want to say roots, they don’t have roots in Canada because they fly back every year. But they will have a certain stability here, a link with the employer. This is very important for the wellness of the whole family, not only the worker."
