David Fairey and Anelyse Weiler Discuss the Migrant Worker Piece Rate System

While reading The Tyee back in late January, a story by labour economist, David Fairey (who is also a research associate of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) and Associate Professor of Sociology at UVic, Anelyse Weiler, caught my eye… In “It’s 2023. BC Farm Workers Deserve Basic Minimum Wage Guarantees”, the authors reveal how our current piece rate system for agricultural workers is fraught with low wages, exploitation, classism, and racism. I decided to bring the duo on in order to gain a better understanding of the topic and narrative and to share their candid perspectives and insightful solutions. Do enjoy!

Mentioned:

"It’s 2023. BC Farm Workers Deserve Basic Minimum Wage Guarantees" by David Fairey and Anelyse Weiler

"Farmworkers Finally Won Overtime Pay. Now the Industry Wants to Repeal It" by Grey Moran

"Legislated Wage Suppression" by David Fairey

"Government wrong to exclude farm workers from basic minimum wage protection" by David Fairey and Anelyse Weiler

"BC Pickers: A Report on Piece Rates in Agriculture" by Mark Thompson

"Temporary Foreign Workers Hit Record Levels in BC" by Zak Vescara

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's episode of Trackin' Food is brought to you by Scout Magazine. If you're wanting to learn more about Vancouver's food and cultural sphere with regards to community news, new restaurant openings, central guides to some of the city's best offerings, as well as who's hiring, Scout is where you should go. You can find them on at scoutmagazine.ca. That's scoutmagazine.ca. You're joining me today on a beautiful early day in March. My name is Jamie Ma. I'm your host as always. It's been a minute since I've had a podcast. I don't think I did one at all in February. I was definitely on a good roll there in January, pumped up four, four consecutive ones. But in February, things kind of hit a little bit of a snag. I had some interviews lined up, but things just weren't able to fall into place. And some interviews got pushed back. So I'm happy to be back and talking to you today. I actually just finished a really interesting conversation about a topic that I might surprise you in some ways. It's about temporary foreign migrant workers in our BC interior for farms, specifically talking about workers that are working under the peace rate system. Probably a lot of stuff that you may not understand or maybe even think about. This idea and this topic came on my way basically on my radar in late January. I was reading a piece in the Tai written by a labor economist, uh David Ferry, and also his partner, well, I shouldn't say his partner, his collaborator, I guess, Annelise Weiler. They both work for the Employment Standards Coalition, and she's a professor of sociology at the University of Victoria. And he's he's a labor economist and a research associate for the Canadian Center for Policy and Alternatives. They wrote this interesting piece talking about BC farm workers deserve basic minimum wage guarantees. And so when I read it, as someone who definitely tries to keep myself on the pulse of things like that, and I definitely care. I don't know if that's the liberal side of me or just someone who grew up in an environment where that you work in hospitality and you want to make sure that people are taken care of. You know, I read the piece and it was very interesting. I didn't understand a lot of what was going on and the nuance. I never heard of the peace rate system. Essentially, what it is here at BC is there's 15 crops that are designated under our government regulations act that are garnered where employers can pay workers piece rates. Essentially, what a peace rate is is you go out into a field or whatever you're doing, you pick a certain amount, and it's it's governed by a set wage or set rates of what they're going to pay you, and then also the amount that you're going to bring in. So it's been around since 1981. It's kind of deemed classist and racist in a lot of ways because it's it kind of marginalizes certain people and it's also open to a lot of exploitation. And so David and Elise have been kind of working in this sphere for a long time, especially David has been writing about it for as I was doing a lot of research on this topic. He's been writing about this and kind of working, trying to work with labor ministers for a good couple of decades here. And he's got a lot of work on it. And so they were talking about how at the beginning of January in 2023 the BC government raised the peace rate increase 2.8%, which they felt was extremely low and not in step with what way minimum wage has actually been going up and inflation for the rest of uh British Columbians and part of our workforce since the cost of living has gone up 11.5% since 2019. They felt that you know that number was considerably low. And so as I was looking into this, what was funny is down south in Washington and Oregon, there was also another piece that came up in Civil Eats, which is a kind of a food policy magazine based down there. And they were talking about how in Washington, Oregon, they've they've kind of gone through kind of a similar thing where migrant workers and temporary foreign foreign workers who work in these fields and pick fruit down there were fighting for better protections and better labor standards and minimum wage guarantees and especially overtime. And so the Washington and Oregon governments passed legislation recently, especially in Oregon, they passed legislation recently where minimum wage and overtime were gonna be guaranteed and they're gonna be phased in. California actually did something like this back in 2016. And it's been, I think it's gonna be a slow phasing in. So they started at a certain time. So like if you work a certain amount of hours, like 50 some hours, they're gonna slowly bring it down to 40. And I think in California that it's gonna be fully implemented by 2025, I think. And so what was interesting about this is in the civil leads column that I read, there was being there was a lot of pushback from the kind of the agricultural sector and the farmers workers' groups, obviously, because this is gonna consider, well, in their minds, it's gonna considerably raise costs and make things a little bit more intensify for them. And so it was just an interesting thing to read. And then as I was talking to Annalise and David and getting them to kind of get them get them on the podcast, which it took us about a month to finally nail for me to nail them down. Zach Fascar, who writes for the Tai, I spoke with him and he wrote another piece just a couple of weeks ago, actually, talking about how in BC alone we're employing a lot more than these foreign workers. And it's grown considerably to the point where I think this past year in 2022, we have 32,000. And now that's encompassing an entire sector. That's not just farm workers, that's hospitality, which we're seeing a large number of people coming to that, and you know, contractors for labor and construction and stuff like that. So it's this sector is kind of growing. And this, I mean, obviously, those people that aren't really a part of this peace rate system. So, what today's conversation with David and Elise is more focused on that and how there's there's protections for certain workers, but then there's minimal protections for others, and that's what they're trying to advocate for, that they want a more unified system that gives basic guarantees, it doesn't work on exploitation. But the more you delve into this entire narrative from what I was seeing overall, there's there's a growing demand for cheap labor, obviously, and there's a there's a labor squeeze. And so I find it interesting when you talk about the labor squeeze. They in Zach's piece, he talks about how back in 2007, as just an example, we were using only 2,200 migrant workers in BC, but now we're up to 32,000. Yeah, our labor minister talks about how currently, right now, our unemployment rate is 4.2%. So he's saying that basically we have a low unemployment rate. So we actually need these workers. But what's ironic is back in 2007 our unemployment rate was 4%. It was actually lower than what it is right now. So it just kind of dovetails the idea that obviously because minimum wage has gone up considerably over the last couple of years, employers are looking, trying to find ways that they can keep labor cheap. But also, I mean, here's I mean the basic facts of it. I mean, Canadians don't really want to work, or I shouldn't say Canadians, just people in general, whether you come here from another country or not. I mean, it's it's hard work and difficult labor conditions, and it's not really the kind of jobs a lot of most people want to do unless you pay them. And so there's a lot going on in this in this topic. I'm I'm trying to keep my own personal opinions to the side on this one. I'm trying to kind of see it from a lot of angles. I'm not trying to bemoan anybody who works in the agricultural sector and small operators who who aren't really trying to follow policies and just and labor standards and want to pay properly, because I'm sure there's a lot of people that are doing really good jobs. And so I'm not trying to talk about that. I'm just trying to look at the overall kind of encompassing topic and and seeing what's going on. And um clearly there's some stuff that needs to be working on. And I've reached out to the labor minister, Harry Baines. And so I'm hoping to get him on the podcast to follow up this conversation. I don't know if he's gonna come on or not, but maybe he will. So I'm crossing fingers on that. But this conversation's interesting. It's not the most fun topic that I've normally done, specifically, you know, when I've done once in the past with Jimmy and James, but uh I feel like this topics like this are very interesting. Obviously, there's a lot of narrative that is going on with it right now. And so I felt it was interesting to just kind of bring it on the podcast, talk with these two people who clearly know what's going on and get some perspective from what they're seeing. And um, maybe we can, as a community, we can have a little bit more insight. I always feel that sometimes giving people the resources to understand things is the best way to kind of work with things that are maybe something we need to work on in our society. So as listeners, I just hope you guys come away from this conversation with maybe a more thorough understanding of our uh what's going on in our back in our backyard. And um, yeah, maybe we can make sure that uh the people that are picking our food and picking our fruit are given all the the labor protections that we get that we are afforded. So hopefully some of these uh recommendations that David and Elise will be implemented and uh we'll sue better standards for them moving forward. So I hope you enjoy this interview. And uh yeah, I guess post any comments you'll see on Scout magazine when this comes on if you have any questions or anything like that. And uh without further ado, uh, I'll bring on David and Annelise. David Ferry and Annalise Weiler, welcome to the podcast. How are you both doing today? Thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Thank you so much for having us. Doing well. Yeah, doing well. Thank you, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

All right. Well, I'm not gonna lie, this type of conversation is something that doesn't always come up on my podcast. I don't usually get to talk too much about labor and kind of stuff that's going on in that sector. I generally spend a lot more time on kind of the hospitality field, but there definitely is there's a lot of interjection with what you guys have been working on. And you guys have been doing this for a long time, actually, as I was doing a lot of research in this, in this sector, which is, I think, very important. And I think it's very important for people that work in this in this community, whether it's the hospitality field that I normally cover, but also just in the kind of the labor environment of BC, because what you guys are talking about that we're going to go through today involves all of us because it's about farming and the food that we eat. And so you guys both came up on my radar about a month ago, about a month and a half ago. You you posted a piece in the Tai talking about basically called, it's 2023, BC Farm Workers Deserve Basic Minimum Wage Rights. And so when I read that piece, I got really intrigued by what you brought up. Obviously, I've heard about the temporary migrant workers' issue situation here in BC and a lot of the issues that we've seen with that, but I didn't know as much in depth of the nuance and kind of the kind of the story unfolding and how it's kind of transformed. And what's funny is there's ever since I've spoken to you both and kind of gotten in negotiations to talking to you guys and getting you on the podcast, there's been more stuff that's come out, stuff that's come out from Oregon and Washington, what's going down in there with a lot of stuff about how governments and farm workers are trying to advocate and pushing back on a lot of the new laws that have been acted there. And then uh the Taiwan's actually posted a lot more stuff talking about how there's been an increase in the migrant workers and our kind of more of our dependence. So to start, I guess, Annalise, I'll start with you. Can you kind of bring up kind of what this story is about and what you, I guess, what you two were talking about in your piece and kind of give context for the listener out there who doesn't really know what this story is?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Certainly, yeah. You'd mentioned migrant agricultural workers who have been coming to BC since the early 2000s. Our piece was actually focused on a different group of workers. It was mainly focused on immigrant workers who have been in British Columbia part of the horticultural industry for even longer. And so the majority of workers who are negatively affected by this minimum wage issue that we brought up are from South Asian countries, predominantly the Punjab region of India. And many of the workers who are being paid really low wages, really unhealthy, undignified conditions are much older workers. And I guess to put it in a little bit of historical context, growers in Canada and in British Columbia have a really long history of hiring agricultural workers with very limited freedom of mobility, including British orphans, religious minorities, indentured Japanese Canadians, and more recently, recent immigrants and migrant workers. So the latest shift that we've seen in BC is really from a South Asian immigrant workforce to migrant agricultural workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, and elsewhere. But immigrant farm workers are still an important component of the workforce, especially in BC's Fraser Valley.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I mean, as I was looking into this, I mean, just this past year, it looks like that we had over 8,000 coming into the province. And I think we hit like a number of like 32,000 overall for the whole sector. But when you talk about what you're talking about here, and especially in your piece, you're talking about you specifically narrow in on the peace rate, which I think at the time I didn't understand this. So anybody listening up there, BC labor standards kind of changed a lot of things a couple of years ago. And so this part of this part, there was a like there's a recommendation that happened, I think, in 2017 where they labor standards had to kind of be framed and minimum wage minimum wage payments had to happen, but there was exemptions for the peace rate people. But peace rates have been around since 1981. David, can you can you elaborate on maybe kind of what this system, how the system has been set up and how it's been kind of been working over the last, I guess, 40 some years?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Yeah, it goes, so it goes back, I think, to 1981 when the peace rate system was established. As far as we can determine, there might have been an earlier history. But Mark Thompson, who did research on the history of the peace rate system for for the Fair Wages Commission, you'll recall back in 2017, the new government, NDP government, established the Fair Wages Commission, and they commissioned Professor Mark Thompson to do research into the peace rate system. And so the peace rate system in British Columbia is unique in Canada to the extent that to the extent that the peace rate system is the only minimum wage uh regulation for farm workers who hand harvest a wide variety of fruits and some vegetables and flowers as well. And so in a couple of provinces where the employers can pay on the basis of peace rates, such as in Quebec or Ontario, nonetheless they are required to pay the at least the hourly minimum wage. So employers, employers, farm operators uh really like the peace rate system because it it pushes workers to work uh harder so as they can earn uh something uh decent. But the reality is that the with the exception probably of some of the tree fruits in the Okanagans, cherries and apples, but cherries particularly, workers can probably earn the equivalent of the hourly minimum wage, and perhaps better, depending on the time of the season. And Annalise has got experience and personal experience in that area. In the Fraser Valley, the produce is predominantly berries, uh, whether it's uh blueberries, raspberries, uh, strawberries, and then cranberries, which are not impacted because cranberries are not hand harvested the same way in which these other berry crops are harvested. So, what a unique aspect of the harvesting of berries, fruits, and vegetables, particularly in the Fraser Valley, is that there are about 800 farm operators uh growing a variety of uh different types of berries, the largest being blueberries, is the biggest product, actually the biggest fruit product of British Columbia and the biggest in Canada, in fact, and second only to the United States. Another aspect of uh what we describe in our research and our work is that there's double discrimination in several ways, for particularly in the Fraser Valley, because predominantly in the Fraser Valley, the small to medium-sized farm operators uh utilize farm labor contractors. These are labor contractors who are middle people in between the workers. And so the farm labor contractors recruit workers who they then transport to farms. Farm labor contractors would work for a variety of uh farm operators, and so they recruit these uh uh farm hand harvesters predominantly from, as uh Annalisa said, predominantly from the South Asian community, Indo-Canadian community, and they transport them to different farms. They could be working at uh several different farms over the course of a season and picking several, you know, different kinds of crops. They could be picking blueberries or they could be picking raspberries or strawberries, depending on the time of the the year, when the fruit is coming, is ripening, and when is a good time to pick. So the farm labor contractors, there are about, I think was around 700 farm labor contractors who are employing in the order of around 7,000 hand harvesters. And the average number of hand harvesters that each farm labor contractor has is about 75. They have 75. Some of them actually have uh two or three hundred, they're big farm labor contractors. The farm labor contractors then contract with the farm operators uh for the picking of the fruit, and there's a huge margin between what the farm labor contractors pay the workers that are harvesting the fruit and what the farm labor contractors charge the farm operators anywhere between 50 and 90 percent profit margin for them in supplying these workers. And there you can have a situation where on a larger farm, you could have the situation where there are temporary farm workers hand harvesting blueberries, for example, at the same time that that workforce, uh, the temporary farm workers are are employed and brought to Canada by the farm operators. But if the farm operators have a demand for more than the number of farm labor contractors, more than the immigrant workers that he has brought in, that he will employ farm labor contractors to supplement his workforce. So while the migrant temporary foreign workers are being paid the hourly minimum wage to harvest the crop, the Indo-Canadian workers that may be working side by side or in the same field with them are only guaranteed the peace rate system. And the evidence is that particularly in blueberries, which is the again the largest harvest crop, most of them, many of them to the extent that there's been research, most of them are making significantly less than the hourly minimum wage on average.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

I mean, I mean, this whole system just sounds like it's just a system that's just a big mess in a lot of ways. I just feel like it's it's it kind of reminds me when uh when when I was reading the Mark Thompson report, because I was actually just reading it right now and go through it again, it highlights a lot of kind of like how the system kind of came about and how it kind of reminds me of what happens in the hospitality industry when we got rid of the the tipped minimum wage recently and how they're very similar. And that was based on the idea of like, okay, well, we're gonna pay you a little bit of amount, but like your goal is to, you know, we're gonna force you or kind of kind of push you to kind of um work as a salesperson and garner extra income that way through tips and generation like that. And you see a lot of the literature that I've been reading from you guys today about talking about how with peace rate, it it kind of encourages the picker to go out and work hard and work long hours and stuff like this. And then you guys are both advocating that in a lot of ways it it can lead to a lot of excess injuries or it can lead to working in standards that are maybe not probably the healthiest for them, maybe working long, long hours under the sun and stuff like this. So there's also a lot of opportunity for maybe exploitation. And that obviously happened a lot in the in the hospitality industry, and that's why they got rid of it, because it's also it also kind of seemed like it was very classist as well. So, and then you guys were both advocating in the sense of saying that you know it's better to just pay someone the basic minimum wage and then offer incentives on top of that, which I think is definitely the way we're going. I mean, David, you've been writing about this a long time. I mean, I read a lot of reports that you went back from like 2008 to like the early 90s. Why is this area growing in our economy? What are you guys seeing, Annalise? What are you seeing why this is being growing? Is it growing because minimum wage is growing up and it's just cheaper to find labor this way? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Certainly. I mean, the growth that we're seeing is really in the temporary foreign worker program. And the reason that is growing is because it allows employers to avoid providing competitive wages and working conditions that would attract domestic workers. And that means that workers who are hired through the hired through the temporary foreign worker program are, in effect, tethered to an individual employer. They don't get to choose an employer who offers really great working wages and working conditions. They simply have to work for whoever hires them, which is really attractive for employers in terms of retention of a workforce that's in a way captive. If I can go back really briefly to one of the comments that David was providing around farm labor contractors, we often get asked, well, what about cherry pickers who come to the Okanagan, often from Quebec, for example, and who make a really good minimum wage, or a really good wage rather, through peace rate? That's definitely a phenomenon. Workers who are young, able-bodied, skilled, and usually Canadian citizens who can make a really decent living doing seasonal work in cherry picking in orchards on the peace rate system, especially when they get skilled after a little while. What's different for recent immigrant women and older men in the Fraser Valley is that when they're employed through farm labor contractors, they don't get to choose what kind of farm they're working on necessarily. They don't get to choose their place of work. If they are told, hey, you've got to pick a bunch of bushes or trees that are really low yield, they just have to do it. They don't get to say, I'd rather work somewhere that actually has a good crop here where I can make a good wage. So we're seeing like if a farmer hires somebody to harvest in one of these 15 crops, like peaches, mushrooms, daffodils, it can mean that legally workers make less than minimum wage. So the key thing that we're advocating for the same thing that the government's own fair wages commission advocated for, have a baseline hourly minimum wage, and then, as you say, optional productivity incentives on top of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Have you gotten any response from the government regarding why they haven't wanted to implement that? Like obviously, have you spoken with Minister Baines?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And we have. We have. We have been meeting with Minister Baines since 2018. And we've also met with the agriculture minister during that time and some other decision makers. And And to be quite candid, it's been a really frustrating experience. And the short answer of why we're not seeing a change to this very small, very basic policy decision that would make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives is the power of the agricultural industry. And that is an old story of why there has been so much pushback against changes that would benefit working class people's lives. So we've seen that historically with pushback for agricultural workers being excluded from not only with a peace rate wage, but overtime pay, statutory holidays with pay, annual vacations with pay, and hours of work restrictions. And that again and again, this old story is about the power of the agricultural industry pushing back against workers' rights. We would like to see the government adopt a new story where it foregrounds workers' wages and healthy, dignified working conditions as part of what a sustainable food system looks like. And I think a lot of consumers want to see that too. A lot of people care deeply about the well-being of working class people and want to have that as a component of what a thriving food system looks like in BC.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah, I mean, I mean, that was actually the main reason why I wanted to bring you both on today is I wanted to, for myself, I mean, you know, you hear about things in the in the background, but I've never really looked into this topic that much. I didn't, you know, you understand that I know from my experience with the wine industry as a sommelier that, you know, migrant workers coming into the province and helping pick uh grapes during the season is is a thing and it's uh a necessary thing. And then a lot of the growers that I worked with say that they make sure that they treat their employees, the people that they bring in very well. But I mean, there is there's stories that you've heard and of uh poor living conditions. There was a lot of stuff that came out during the early part of the pandemic where there, I think there was a lot of pushback from the migrant workers system, especially in Ontario, where you heard that they were very upset about a lot of the conditions and feeling like they weren't being respected and treated properly. It was interesting that when I first brought up speaking with you both, that there was this piece in Civil Eats, which is a magazine, a labor magazine based out of the United States. And I read a piece that they were talking about with uh the stuff that's going down in Washington and Oregon, which recently, over the last couple of years, have adopted more basic rules, paid over time for migrant or for seasonal workers and stuff like this. And there was this interesting quote that I wanted to bring up because I think at the end of the day, this is kind of the crux of the issue, why the farming community pushes back against this and why this system exists in itself. This quote says we need to stop expecting farm workers to subsidize the cost of cheap food, because that's really what's at play here. The growers are saying they're getting squeezed. If that's the case, why are we trying to work farm workers harder for less pay rather than focusing on the real issue? Growers are not getting enough money to pay what they should be paying. And I just thought that was interesting in the sense of like that's kind of what the whole issue is, is that they push back because, well, we can't charge more and we need to find the cheapest labor somewhere. And so peace rate systems exist for this reason. And so, David, do you feel like this system is something that will eventually get to a point where you're gonna be able to get some of the adoptions that you're looking for? Or do you think this is just it's gonna be a slow battle? Because you've been working on this for so long, and I I commend you for all the work you've been writing. And I'm gonna try to link all the pieces that I read. And uh, yeah, this must be an interesting field for you.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

For sure, yeah. Well, the industry is diverse and not homogeneous, just taking, for example, you know, the blueberry industry, which again is the biggest in the Fraser Valley. There's a broad spectrum of size of operation and type of operation. You have everything from the small farmer who actually operates a farm on the side and it needs an and needs another job in order to earn a living, right? There are those that are small operators primarily catering to the fresh market, right? And then there are medium-sized operators that are dedicated to, but then there are some very large operations, right? Some very large farm operators who dominate the market and also dominate the growers' associations, right? I'm thinking of uh particularly uh the stick in my mind, um, operations like uh Golden Legal Farms in Pitt Meadows, which um is owned by um construction company and is owned by the the owner of the uh Vancouver Canucks hockey team, right? So, you know, the contrast is that they can afford to pay seven million dollars a year to a hockey player to entertain us, but they keep pushing to restrict and exploit workers, right, uh in the harvesting of basic commodities, right? So there's this uh what the big producers and the big operators who are doing very well, they also control the market, the marketing uh particularly they control the processing. The big market now, the big export market, for example, for blueberries is the the processed or or frozen market. The US is uh our biggest export uh market is in the United States, and these large operators have access to those markets and have marketing capacity, right? Which the small to medium growers don't have. And so the small to medium growers are are largely reliant on the large processors to process or market their product, right? And so uh you have the small to medium-sized farm operators who are taking on all of the risks for the industry, and therefore their only way in which they can control their costs is through pushing to restrict labor costs, right? They have no power over, for example, the expense that the land values are huge in British Columbia. Access to the retail market is through, you know, monopolies, right, and oligopolies. And so the small to medium-sized farm operators are being used by the big operators as a screen and advocates and the pressures that are on the Minister of Labor, right? The Minister of Labor is getting pressure, we surmise, particularly from the small to medium-sized operators, many of whom are predominantly the owners, the farm owners themselves, the operators are are predominantly uh immigrant, uh, Indo-Canadian, South Asian, and so they're being used. In our view, there there needs to be a restructuring, there needs to be support for small to medium-sized farm operators through perhaps um the establishment of government-supported nonprofit organizations, uh cooperatives, for example, uh, that would be processing and marketing cooperatives, and also a cooperative system of um labor supply, that is a labor dispatch system, which is not not based on profit, but is based on cost minimization, right, and uh non-for-profit. So there needs to be a labor market strategy. There needs to be institutions, nonprofit institutions that would support the small to medium-sized uh farmers in giving them access to markets and giving them access to a reliable labor supply without the need for to be reliant on the large processors and and the large owners, and without being reliant on uh for-profit labor contractors. So we've identified um you know the structure of the industry, the oligopoly in the processing and freezing and marketing of these products, and the exploitative nature of the farm labor contracting system.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

And it's funny you bring up the aquilinis. It's hilarious that they're they have their hands in everything.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

And the aquilinis have large farms in both Washington State and Australia as well. They're massive, and they're making money paying farm workers in Washington State the equivalent of$25 an hour Canadian, and but are uh resisting paying$15 uh an hour to the Canadian workers.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I wonder, could I build briefly on some of David's comments about the oligopoly system? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, no, I wrote that out that that's actually one of my notes I brought up. So go ahead, jump in.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Certainly. I think as in the hospitality and service sector, farm workers are frankly getting screwed, whether they work on small, medium, or large-scale businesses. And so what we really need is to have fair labor standards that are enforced effectively for workers, and that a thriving sustainable food system in British Columbia can't be built on the backs of highly exploited workers.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, that's really what the what we're all talking about here, which is kind of unfortunate. I mean, that's it's kind of I feel like in a lot of ways it's kind of the way of the world. Cheap labor is exploited wherever it is, and we find ways to get it. And, you know, I love the fact that you both are really trying hard to make sure that we work on not having that in our system and especially in our background. And I'm not to bemoan anybody out there who's a farmer or anybody who works in this in this sector. I mean, I'm sure there's a ton of people out there who are really trying hard to be good operators and want to pay living wages and treat people well. And yeah, I mean, like David, you come up with a couple of things here when you were talking about the oligarchs system, the farm operator reliance on kind of the the for-profit, I guess what is it, the labor contractors as being an issue that people maybe need to work with. I guess what I'm saying is, do you feel any optimism with Premier EB coming into power now? I interviewed him a couple years ago, and he seems like he was very lovely. I really kind of liked some of the work he did with during the downtown east side in Vancouver, and he seems like he's a pretty big advocate for kind of labor and for people. Have you had any chance to speak with him about any of this or maybe his office? And do you feel like there's going to be some good movement coming from him as well?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Uh no, we haven't had the opportunity to speak with Prime Abi. Um, I guess he's been a busy man for the last uh six months since he was chosen as leader. Our next step is uh is to meet with uh the Minister of Agriculture because uh we're finding that the Minister of Labor is deferring to the Minister of Agriculture, the problems of the industry, right? And I we think uh it's obvious to us that he's using the challenges of or and the way in which the industry is structured and operating as being an issue of agricultural in the bailiwick of the Minister of Agriculture. And so it's kind of deflecting all of the stuff. Instead of, as Ann Lee says, taking the side of labor, he is the labor minister taking the side of labor and saying, whatever it takes, uh, we're going to require every worker to get the same benefits, uh, particularly uh, you know, hardworking, precariously employed, low-paid farm workers who are producing valuable crops, right? Uh, and for the benefit of our community, whatever it takes, you know, the farm operators are going to have to adjust to this uh new regime, right? And then maybe they'll go to the Minister of Agriculture and say, look, we can't survive under this environment, right? And so perhaps the Ministry of Agriculture, you know, the Minister of Agriculture provides all kinds of support to private enterprise food producers, right? All kinds of support, right? Both federally and provincially, right? And it seems to us is that what is lacking is is a labor force strategy for agriculture, for the whole food system, the increasing reliance on temporary farm workers indicates there's a problem of labor supply and the structure of the market. You know, David Evie comes from a background of being a human rights advocate, right? His background is in human rights and civil rights. I don't know that he has very much background in labor, but I think what the next step is going to be to meet with uh the Minister of Agriculture. Then we have a new Minister of Agriculture. The previous Minister of Agriculture had a bit of a conflict of interest because she was, as you know, the owner of um a vineyard, right? Uh, I interviewed her actually.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

So I had her on my podcast. Yeah, she had her on the podcast. She talked about her vineyard.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

So yeah, so I think she was in a bit of a conflict of interest and was probably a good advocate for the industry, but um but we have a new minister of agriculture who actually has she comes from the Fraser Valley, she comes from Mission, but I don't know if she's got any background in agriculture. And what tends to happen in some of these long-established ministries is that the senior bureaucrats in the ministries really give guidance to the minister, and the senior bureaucrats are heavily influenced by industry representatives, right? And so that that's a challenge, right, in a government such as an NDP government. But so, yeah, so we'll meet with the Minister of Agriculture, and then uh perhaps uh at some point uh we need to meet with the premier as well to bring this to his attention. I'm sure he's got a lot on his plate. Labor and agriculture are not his big ministries, right? And those ministers uh don't have very much clout in the cabinet. You know, the Ministry of Labor is the smallest ministry. It's only through our persistent campaigning of our organizations uh just around the question of the funding for employment standards in order to do their job, that is to effectively enforce the act, the limited and deficient as it is, the ministry doesn't even have the resources to adequately enforce the act. And so that's an area we've been pushing on, but but it demonstrates that under previous administrations, under previous premiers, um the Minister of Labor had very little clout, it appears, within the cabinet. And so public campaigns are necessary around these issues.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

I mean, it's funny that you say that it's the smallest ministry in the government because you would think it would actually have a bigger one if you think that labor is kind of a very important thing that we'd want to look into. And I read that because I think you advocated that we need to invest like 14 million more dollars or something like this or into the labor ministry to give them the resources. And it sounds like a lot of uh a lot of times what you see with uh, you know, down in the United States or here in Canada when we defund like the CRA, we don't want people looking into all the tax stuff because if they start doing that, then they're gonna start getting at all the people's money. That's a different story for another day. But um, when you have you done the math on if you got what you're asking for implemented, have you done the math on how much it would change? The how like how much it would increase the cost for farmers? Like is it is it a marginal increase or is it actually a significant increase? If either one of you looked into that in the sense of like this would if we get these, if we get it where they're being paid minimum wage, is it like a maybe 5% increase in in cost for operators?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

We don't know. Just the short answer is that no one uh there's very limited data on the cost structure of farm operations, right? The cost structure is going to be different between a small and medium-sized farm and a large farm. The cost structure is gonna be different between uh farms that use um machine machine harvesting as opposed to hand harvesting. Machine harvesting is a lower cost, but the product is different, right? You can har you can machine harvest blueberries and raspberries, but the product is not of the same quality as that of hand picking. So machine uh harvested fruits are typically uh frozen for export, whereas it's hand harvesting is still the best way until they develop a machine which is as good as a person to pick out a good berry from a rotten berry, right? Um there was in I don't know if you've seen the article that appeared in the BC studies recently. Uh I might have come across it. It's about wage suppression in the blueberry industry, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:12

I did yeah, I read that one. Yeah, actually I was going through that actually.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

So there the only cost analysis that I could find was done by a master's student, right? Uh UBC master student, which is now dated. But um there was reasonably good data in the United States produced by the International Trade Commission when a couple of years ago they investigated the blueberry industry to see if the American blueberry industry was uh subject to uh undercutting by the BC blueberry industry. And they did some decent cost analysis. But in the end, they were based on the economic analysis of the industry done by the International Trade Commission economists, um, they demonstrated that from their national survey in the blueberry industry, that it was a profitable blueberry farming was profitable even with the significantly high hourly minimum wage that those farmers are subject to. So, but in order to it would need a rigorous and in-depth uh economic analysis of the industry. The one of the problems is that, and a couple of the researchers that the Minister of Labor has employed in the last 10 years, is that farm operators don't cooperate. You need to have, in order to determine the cost structure, you need farm operators and the industry to cooperate in uh divulging what their costs are in relation to the prices they're receiving. And in particular, um, surveys that were done, very little cooperation from farm labor contractors, for example, very limited cooperation. And so this is a it's a study that needs to be undertaken by the government, I would suggest, by the Minister of Agriculture, to determine what the impact would be of giving farm workers the hourly minimum wage. But when we were meeting with the Minister of Labor yesterday, uh Mark Thompson uh related to when he was working for the Fair Wage Commission, he went and met with farm operators, and the farm operators were complaining that they couldn't afford to pay the hourly minimum wage uh because uh it would cost more than what it costs to what it costs to harvest blueberries or produce uh in Washington state. Washington state, which was totally untrue. It uh it was a total lie. There is no basis for the claim that they couldn't afford to compete with Washington State if they were paid the hourly minimum wage. So there's a lot of misinformation happening here within the political circles of the industry.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Yeah, I mean I I kind of agree with you on that one, especially when I was reading the stuff that's going down south of us. And yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that we don't have a lot of data and analysis that we can get, look into this, and and then you know, at the end of the day, a lot of it's it really comes down to lobbying and people understanding things in government and give and giving them the right tools. And like you said, there's a lot of pushback because probably for a lot of these companies, it's it's they probably make a lot of money off all this labor. And why would they want to change things? And it's benefits them. And uh, you know, at the end of the day, consumer sticker price is very scary, a very touchy topic for a lot of consumers right now, especially with high inflation rates. If someone had to recognize the idea of like all of a sudden the government just implemented these these new rules and and followed all the all the all the guidelines and recommendations you guys are are putting forth, and then prices went up, let's say blueberries went up$2, you know, consumers would probably struggle with that, or maybe they would there would be a lot of pushback. And so, you know, there's like what I said earlier, it's kind of an interesting pragma of, I guess, of economics and consumers and how we work through things. And a lot of the operators are just doing the best they can and they're just trying to stay alive and they're just using the tools necessary and whatever they're afforded them. And this is where government needs to step in and make sure that there's the right laws and labor regulations. And like you said, it's hard for them to act on a lot of things when they're not given the resources to do them do their jobs properly. At the end of the day, my biggest question, I guess, for you, Annalise, is what would you say is it would be the best way for us to maybe get it where we can actually get local labor wanting to work and do these jobs? Is it just they just don't pay enough and local labor just sort of like, you know, we're not gonna do it because it's hard work and it's you know low pay? Is there any way that the government can find ways to maybe incentivize Canadians to want to be a part of that? You know, when I was looking at some of the stuff back in 2007, our our uh unemployment rate was 4%, and right now it's 4.2%, yet we're using almost like 10 times the amount of uh foreign workers than we were back then, 15 years ago or 16 years ago, I guess. And so there's obviously a growing trend to use more of them. So it's just like, is it just, you know, I kept thinking about it as like maybe we should just make it where, like, kind of like in other countries where they have the draft, when you're between the ages of 18 and 25, you have to go pick berries for one summer. It's kind of part of your part of your duty as a Canadian citizen. I thought that'd be kind of a nice way to do it. You know, you're young and viral and you got you know, your bones are nice and good, you can bend over and do all this stuff. But I don't know, Annalise, is there any way you think that we could find a way to grow this as a labor thing and Canadians are gonna want to be a part of picking their own food?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

I would not recommend a draft. Historically, when the government has coerced people in Canada into working in agriculture, things have not gone so well in terms of human rights and labor rights. I think from a business perspective, providing competitive wages and working conditions is what's needed. And that applies whether it's people who are born in Canada, who have immigrated to Canada recently, or who are coming through a temporary program. And as far as a lot of younger Canadians, many young Canadians really love the idea of being able to do outdoor work, especially if it's in agriculture that has an orientation towards sustainable practices, agriculture could be a good green job. However, the wages and working conditions are not adequate for many young people who might otherwise be interested in it. And in gaining skills in manual labor and in learning really valuable farming techniques. Another component that's really important when it comes to migrant agricultural workers is having what we've been advocating for through groups like who's CCF for migrant workers in Canada, status on arrival so that when workers come to Canada through the temporary foreign worker program, they aren't treated like second-class citizens who can be deported if they speak up about their labor rights. And ultimately, where the change is going to come from is through uprisings of political power from everyday people, including farm workers themselves. So the changes that we saw in Washington state, which I take a ton of inspiration from, were in many ways driven by organizations like Familias Unidas por la justicia. It's an independent farm worker union in Washington state, composed largely of indigenous families. And they were really the driving force behind many of the changes that we see there now in terms of overtime. So definitely organized working class power is a big part of whether we will see policy changes happening or not, but also solidarity from consumers. I think we understand. Underestimate the extent to which everyday people who want to be able to support workers and also have affordable food access can see their interests as linked to the interests of agricultural workers. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for cross-class solidarity, for example, between hospitality food service industry workers and agricultural workers. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Yeah, I just like to uh reiterate the point that Annalisa said is that if there is a real challenge in getting Canadian workers to work in agriculture, then the solution, one of the solutions is to provide my government workers with land and amplifier status. Allow them to bring their families in. If we're going to rely on foreign workers to supplement their labor market, then give them the same rights as everyone else. Give them the freedom. They are not free labor. They're indentured labor. It's a semi-feudal system, right? So give them the same rights as every other Canadian and they will come. They will come because uh living and working in Canada is much better than living and working in some of those South American uh countries and Caribbean countries. But the other point is that this is not the only industry, this is not the only kind of occupation which is hard work. Take, for example, tree planting. I can think that tree planting is probably is more miserable in many cases than uh than head harvesting, right? But we don't seem to have any trouble attracting young people to tree harvesting, and so uh but they can make a decent living, right? They're covered by the minimum wage, right? Um and they're in many cases they're treated, you know, they're not treated very well in some cases, but so why is it that we don't have a problem recruiting for tree harvesting, but we do for agriculture? And I think as Ann Lisa said, it's about wages and working conditions, right? And making it an attractive industry and reducing the profit element in the recruitment process. That in my in my view. There are, you know, as Annalisa said, they're working in the Okanagan is still very attractive to young people from across Canada, right? But that's not the case in the Fraser Valley. The work is precarious, it's seasonal, it's low paid, the working conditions, you know, working 12 hour days in uh a heat in a heat dome is not a fun job, right? And it's predominantly women in the Fraser Valley, women of color. And so the labor market has to address those questions, right, in an organized and institutional way.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Oh man, when you talk about tree planting, I was I was like 18, 19 years old graduating high school, and friends of mine were telling me, because I grew up in Saskatchewan, my friends of mine were telling me, like, hey, you can go tree planting out in Alberta or like in northern Saskatchewan and you can make like$10,000. And for me,$10,000 was like, that must have been a million, that would have been a million dollars to me. And they were like, Yeah, you work for three months, you make 10 grand. And I was like, oh my God, I could pay for all my school in just one summer. And so it was very attractive to want to do that. And so if someone told me right now, as an 18-year-old kid in living in Vancouver and saying, like, hey, you go work in the Fraser Valley and pick blueberries, first off, you can eat blueberries as you pick them. So it's like I can eat, I can eat blueberries, I can eat, I can't eat trees, but if I can eat blueberries all day, I mean, and still make 10 grand, I mean, that'd be amazing. So I definitely agree with you on that one. I mean, there's I think there's it needs to become more of an attractive model and probably needs to be more given awareness for a lot of young people or just, I mean, people in general. I mean, anybody out there who's health and healthy and active wants to maybe do some of this, but it's like you said, it's not really given to that. And so, yeah, I mean, this is definitely a uh not the most fun topic, my listeners out there. This is probably not the funnest topic for you to listen to, but I really hope you take from what Annalise and David have said today and kind of just think about. I wanted you to think about kind of this narrative that's sitting in our backyard about what's going on in our province and also understanding how our systems work, and especially our agricultural system. If you care about this, I'm gonna put links to a lot of their work and um what they're trying to advocate for this. And maybe if you're if you're curious and you want to talk about it, maybe write a letter to our ministers and and try to you know say that you want to talk about this. And I'm not bemoaning the industry, but I think there's, like you said, there's things in the that could be worked on. And uh I think as all human citizens, I think we want what's best for the people that are picking our food. And so I think that's a good thing. So I really think what you guys are doing is really noble and I really respect what you're trying to advocate for here. And uh any final thoughts before I let you go?

SPEAKER_01 48:17

I would say that a thriving food system can't be built on the backs of highly exploited workers, and that the story of the agribusiness industry pushing back against workers' rights is something that has been part of BC history for a long time. And additional research, I'm a researcher, is always valuable, but it's not going to make it easier for the government to do the right thing. And supporting the rights of working class immigrant people is going to be politically unpopular with some growers in the agricultural industry, but it's still the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

And David, any final thoughts for yourself before we let you go? So no, I totally agree with Annalise's comments. Can't say anything else.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

There you go. Well, I thank you both for taking the time with me today. I commend you and your work, and I hope that you get some good uh headway with our agricultural minister. Maybe one day you get to talk with Premier Eve. And uh maybe one day I'll have you uh maybe I'll try to get you guys all on together. He was great. When I had when I when I had him on a couple years ago, he was like, anytime you want to talk, I'll definitely come back on. So maybe I can get him on one day. And so, but I thank you both and uh I appreciate you coming on today.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you very much. Uh thank you for uh uh spreading this message to uh to a broader audience than that we're able to reach.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Absolutely, yeah. No, uh, we have a great audience that work in the industry and that really care about our food systems, and uh people that uh listen to Scout um are wide and they it's actually you know, we have a big audience for this stuff. So I think people are really going to take take heed of what you both have said here, and I appreciate it, and I think they will as well. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Thanks very much, Jamie. Take care of the