The first foreign workers to unionize a farm in Canada have turned around and booted out the union.
The unanimous vote of the Mexican workers at the Mayfair Farm in Portage la Prairie, Man., to decertify the United Food and Commercial Workers local 832 is being welcomed by farmer representatives as proof that Manitoba farms are good places to work.
But organized labour representatives say the decertification demonstrates the power commercial farmers have over their workers.
“When you’re living on a farm and you want to bring in a union for protection, the employer has a captive audience and can wield their displeasure on them,” said Blake Crothers of Local 832.
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But Keystone Agricultural Producers president Ian Wishart said he thinks improved worker protections and safety standards make unions unnecessary on Manitoba farms.
“I think this is somewhat indicative of how the whole situation has improved,” said Wishart.
The 26 workers on the vegetable farm voted in June to decertify, two years after Mexican workers at the farm voted to join the UFCW.
In the period between those votes accusations flew from union and farmer representatives that the other side was harassing workers.
Some farmers claimed the workers didn’t know what they were agreeing to when they signed union cards. That claim was backed by a workers’ petition to overturn the certification because they didn’t understand what they had agreed to.
But the union has claimed that farmers often intimidate workers, who have only temporary visas and rely on the farms as places to live and work.
Crothers said the UFCW was “puzzled” at the change of the workers attitude in just the past few weeks. When they arrived for work this year they were still pro-union, Crothers said, but a couple of weeks later the mood was different.
“Their tunes had really changed . . . Somebody had given them some influence, but those things are hard to prove.”
The workers’ first contract contained 15 cents per hour more than minimum wage, which they had been earning, and a 25 cent increase in 2010.
Crothers speculates that the union’s failure to immediately gain big wage increases may have helped sour the workers.
“It’s baby steps on a first contract. Maybe they expected a lot more than we were able to get them on the first collective agreement,” said Crothers.
Plus the employer banned overtime, which provided the workers with much of their earnings.
