CRITICISMS OF FARM WORKERS STUDY COME ACROSS AS THIN
OSOYOOS TIMES-July 2, 2008
One of the major criticisms that arose regarding a study released last month which looked at immigrant and migrant farm employees in British Columbia was that it was biased and made generalized conclusions about a large system based on interviews with only 53 workers.
While many farm employers, immigrant advocates and workers agree that the poor conditions outlined in the Cultivating Farmworker Rights study” including low wages, long hours and unclean living conditions” are only happening in a handful of situations under the eyes of a few bad apples, to outright dismiss the findings and recommendations of the study because only a few workers spoke up is ignorant.
Many of the workers interviewed in the study mentioned a widespread fear among immigrant and migrant farm employees to complain about the problems they were facing.
Just finding a worker to interview for the news story on the study which appeared in last week's issue of the Osoyoos Times was nearly an impossible task because no one wanted to risk punishment from their employer or lose their job.
It may be that the small sampling of workers interviewed for the study is an indication of the scope of the problems within agricultural worker programs in this province.
Yes, it seems clear that incidents of worker exploitation and abuse are isolated.
But the fact so many are silent about the injustices they face makes it clear that the systems that bring immigrant and migrant workers to this province need to be reevaluated and refined.
Dismissing such claims using the argument that the study was not wide enough in its scope or didn't do enough to let farm employers point out a lack of complaints from their workers is a poor excuse.
