Labour watchdog slams Ontario’s ag worker act

by KRISTIAN PARTINGTON and BETTER FARMING STAFF

The head of Ontario’s agriculture labour issues coordinating committee is surprised that an international labour organization has ruled “that Canada and Ontario, through Ontario’s ban on farm unions, violate the human rights of the more than 100,000 migrant and domestic agriculture workers in that province.”

“I can’t believe the ILO (International Labour Organization) would come out with a ruling with only hearing half the story,” said Ken Forth, Chair of the agricultural industry’s Labour Issues Coordinating Committee.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, the country’s largest private-sector union, issued a news release about the decision Nov. 18. The union had filed a complaint with the ILO March 2009.
 
“When you get the largest international body for labour organizations in the world commenting on the lack of protection for agricultural workers in this province, I think it speaks volumes,” says Stan Raper, National Coordinator with the union’s Agriculture Worker’s Alliance.

The union says Ontario’s Agriculture Employee’s Act, violates the rights of Ontario farm workers in Ontario to bargain collectively. The legislation permits farm workers to form associations but not to bargain collectively nor go out on strike.

A November, 2008, Ontario Court of Appeal ruling upheld the union's claim and the Ontario government subsequently appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, which heard the case in December 2009. A decision is still pending.

Forth says any ruling or decision by any body other than the Supreme Court of Canada is premature. “This is a complex case” he said. “It’s before the highest court in the land and we have a process. What else is there?”

The ILO’s governing body accepted recommendations made in a report presented at a meeting earlier this month.

The report says a communication from the Ontario government described the Act as “an alternative labour policy that suits the circumstances of farm labour and the sector’s unique characteristics.” It also says the province asserted that nothing in the Act “impairs any collective bargaining between employees’ associations, including trade unions, and farm employers. Parties in the agricultural sector in the Province of Ontario are free to collectively negotiate terms and conditions of employment without interference.”

The province reserved the right to make a comprehensive response to the international committee following the Supreme Court decision.

The committee on freedom of association that the produced the report observed that neither the union nor the provincial government had referred to any successfully negotiated agreement since the Act was adopted in 2002. It also noted a mechanism to promote collective bargaining was lacking and called the absence an “impediment to one of the principal objectives of the guarantee of freedom of association: the forming of independent organizations capable of concluding collective agreements.”

The committee recommended that the federal government “take the necessary measures to ensure that the Provincial Government puts in place appropriate machinery and procedures for the promotion of collective bargaining in the agricultural sector.” It also requested a copy of the Supreme Court decision once it was released for further review. BF