Farm workers get days off in Manitoba

Friday, February 8, 2008

By MARY BAXTER

Doug Connery, who farms asparagus, carrots, green onions and broccoli on about 800 acres in Manitoba, said he’s concerned about how the changes might affect agriculture in his province.

“It’s going to get harder and harder (to compete),” he said, adding if the government really pushes the legislation, they may see “quite a few” farmers breaking the law. “Any new costs that come up right now is an extra expense because our prices are going down,” he said, adding the rise in value of the Canadian dollar “is killing us” and expenses “have gone crazy.”

He also suggests the law is unclear because it provides different sets of rules for indoor and outdoor workers but doesn’t adequately define categories.

Connery is chair of the Canadian Horticultural Council’s human resources committee. He explained labour standards are all established on a provincial level. What’s legislated in Manitoba only affects Manitoba agriculture.

So far, no other provinces have followed suit. But Connery did say that the political climates in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario and to a lesser degree Quebec might support similar changes.

Ken Forth, chair of the Labour Issues Coordinating Committee, a coalition of Ontario agricultural commodity and producer groups, said he doesn’t know if Ontario would follow its neighbouring province’s lead.

He questioned the wisdom of introducing legislation that would mandate items such as a certain amount of time off in a week for farm workers.

“We deal with something very particular that others (other business sectors) don’t deal with,” he said, referring to the weather. “My crop has to come off when it has to come off. Everyone in the industry, workers and farmers alike, understand that.”

Moreover, in the international horticulture market, the cheapest costs of production drive commodity pricing, he said. He estimated the current average daily wage for farm workers in Ontario to be $125 -- far higher than the $5 a day paid in other locations within North America.

With plans to incrementally raise Ontario’s hourly minimum wage from $8 to $10.25 by 2010 and the recent rise in value of the Canadian dollar, it’s getting more difficult for producers to compete in international markets and also at home, Forth said.

“We’ve never seen costs that are so wildly different to our competition,” he said.

Connery doesn’t know how much the changes will cost the industry. BF