First of all, Farmpunk claims that since he works just as hard as the migrant workers, that means the working conditions are fine and do not need to be improved. He said something like, he works every day with no days off during the summer and he expects his workers to do the same.

Here's my question about that: doesn't it make a difference that a) you're the owner and therefore reap all the benefits from everyone's labour, including your own, and b) you have the health insurance you need to help you if you get sick or injured from working so hard without a break, whereas your migrant workers do not?

I worked at a bakery where the boss worked seven days a week, and was often around for 10 hours a day. That certainly would not have been any excuse for him to expect us to be around that long. The reason being, as the owner, he gets all the benefits of being the owner, including the surplus value of our labour. This is basic socialist theory - owners who choose to work under long or unsafe working conditions can not expect the people whose labour he is exploiting for profit to do the same - because while there's something in it for him to do it, there isn't anything in it for the labourers.

Now, health insurance and other benefits of being Canadian which you don't get when you're from somewhere else. One of the reasons there has to be proper labour standards on farms for workers (including rest days, etc.) is because people have a right to some leisure time. I don't care if they "expect" to not get breaks, etc. I don't know a worker anywhere who wouldn't take a break or a day off if offered one. Another reason for our labour standards is because people who work seven days a week end up exhausted and sometimes sick. It's not fair to use up migrant labourers' health in such a manner, especially since they won't be able to visit doctors the way we can, either here or back in Mexico when they return home.

As far as work, and my workers doing the same labour as me. Reaping the rewards makes it sound as if I'm pulling in record profits and the labourers don't get paid (whether they're compensated fairly is open to discussion and interpretation). My hours don't count, and I don't count them. That is investment labour, and a savings of one person. I couldn't afford to hire myself, besides. My skills are cross-boundary: mechanic, carpenter, manager, welder, and weed puller. Most farm profits are put back into the business, because it's a money hungry operation just to maintain the business. That's why ag is ripe for agri-business: it's a continual, completely necessary needy market.

I don't have health insurance. My workers are covered when they come to work here. I take them in to have their photos taken, they're issued cards and if they get sick or hurt I take them to the doctor, just like any other Canadian.

I can't remember exactly what the per hour wage rate was last year. It's set by the government and farm groups and Mexico, I believe. If memory serves, the per hour last year was aroud 7.50. But many farms, including this one, run a somewhat different piece-work style set-up, where the workers are paid for eight hours when the task may only take five or six, depending on their skill and the weather, breakdowns, and so on. Then, if they want to work more, I pay them hourly. Not all operations run like this, however. Likely most don't, and it's a straight hourly situation.

I train my workers, then let them do their job. The piece work style is nice because I allow them to control their hours. If they want to have half hour breaks and hour long lunches, fine. But certain tasks need to be completed.

I, personally, am not a big fan of the system either, for entirely personal reasons. But the fact remains that I cannot find domestic labour. I would be willing to take in Canadians under a similar work program: they live for free, if they need a flight, etc. But that's not the system we have, and the migrants want work they can't find in their home countries.

Boomer, it's a interesting idea. Unionist scoffs, being the ag expert and all, but he doesn't know much of anything about agricultural labour history, I suspect. Before the price of land skyrocketed, it was entirely possible for a labourer to work as a hired hand, a main man, and save enough money (usually this person and his family were provided with a place to live in addition to their wage) to purchase their own land while learning the multi-skills necessary to make the transition from labourer to owner. A good portion of my neighbors were displaced central Euros from the WW2 era. Some came with nothing and became into land owners themselves. Starting as labourers.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:

Boomer, it's a interesting idea. Unionist scoffs, being the ag expert and all, but he doesn't know much of anything about agricultural labour history, I suspect. Before the price of land skyrocketed, it was entirely possible for a labourer to work as a hired hand, a main man, and save enough money (usually this person and his family were provided with a place to live in addition to their wage) to purchase their own land while learning the multi-skills necessary to make the transition from labourer to owner. A good portion of my neighbors were displaced central Euros from the WW2 era. Some came with nothing and became into land owners themselves. Starting as labourers.

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Translation for Boom Boom:

Boomer, what is the land price had gone down? Would you have worked for less per hour if you'd been offered a half a percentage point share in the eventual price of the land? When the land price went up would you have wanted the farmer to sell the land to urban speculators? When it went down would you have asked for your share back in the form of cash? Sounds more like a stock market scenario to me, where the speculation drives the price, not the inherent worth of the object, in that case agricultural land.

I also find it a little presumptuous, Boomer, that you figure your five summer equate to a lifetime of land stewardship.

As Unionist said in the other thread when I asked him if he cared to take a turn at running a business: "No thanks." But I'm expected to run a business and take the risks and the stress and the hours, and give my employees, who're free to work where-ever they please, a share of the business?

No thanks.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
But I'm expected to run a business and take the risks and the stress and the hours, and give my employees, who're free to work where-ever they please, a share of the business?

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I agree with you here, Farmpunk. You're under no obligation to offer your employees a share of the business.

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I pay people for their work, which is essentially time, the most precious personal commodity we have to offer. Anyone is free to try and negotiate a different set-up. I'm also quite free to say No.

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As Unionist said in the other thread when I asked him if he cared to take a turn at running a business: "No thanks." But I'm expected to run a business and take the risks and the stress and the hours, and give my employees, who're free to work where-ever they please, a share of the business?

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Cry me a petty bourgeois river. I'm a self-employed union shop, have run several business partnerships as co-ops.

Know what? It is NOT deserving of some special status the corporate dictatorship and its media keep trying to brainwash everyone into believing.

I get so tired of hearing this crap about how bosses have the supposed "right" to be bosses because they "take the risks."

It's crap and you know it, since you yourself, as someone who works along side the people you hire, can easily see that it is the work--as in labour--and all the risks and responsibility, skills, etc. that go with it that actually creates the value and the useful goods and services.

The money aspect is little more than an oppressive bureaucratic title-based condition set on the operation of a business.

The whole problem with the system is that the bulk of the capital wealth created by working people--who also create the consumer markets that stimulate the economy--is coercively taken out of their hands and centralized into the hands of various profiteering dictatorial elites (banks, corporate bosses, elite investment houses, etc.) that we have to go and beg to in order to get some of it back to invest in the very economies we create.

The main form of investment that drives any economy is the non-profit investment of consumer spending, which comes overwhelmingly from working people—the same working people who provide the labour (and again all the risks and responsibilities that go with it) to satisfy that economic demand—and when working people’s earnings start to fall relative to the cost of living, their buying power sags, the economy slows, jobs are lost, personal debt rises and saving fall, poverty, malnutrition and homelessness rise and society generally gets poorer and more repressive.

So what in fact allows you and your farm to stay in business is fundamentally because working people, like yourself and those you hire, can still afford to buy what you’re selling. You should thank them for that instead of complaining about them.

As to changing the structure of how things work, we have discussed these here many times:

Farmer-farm workers union share/partnership agreements

Farmers unions, cooperatives and societies

Farm share agreements

agrarian socialist economic models and sustainable healthy food supply

Farmers' co-ops

Agrarian cooperatives

These all represent successful efforts to improve the horrid labour and ecological situation in our food and agricultural industries. There is no need to continue with the oppressive corporate capitalist structural model of organizing farm labour.

[ 02 July 2007: Message edited by: Steppenwolf Allende ]

I guess I didn't make my point clearly in answering.

If a worker share cropped or made a definitive investment of time in a farm, working for the land owner as a hired hand, I'm sure a negotiation could take place where the farmer sells the land to the worker at a reduced cost. This happens fairly frequently even on family farms. My parents bought this farm from my grandparents, using their labour and loans. I've never asked what the details of the arrangement were. A neighbor, a Polish man who emmigrated in the WW2 era, walked onto a farm as a labourer, worked like a demon for a farmer and eventually bought the farm. I can't believe that he ever made enough money to actually pay for what turned out to be a large parcel of land, so the arrangement must have been to his benefit. This was a man with nothing, couldn't speak english, no family, no money. He worked on that farm until he was in his late 80s, took on share croppers of his own, and now his children have basically abandoned the place, utterly forgetting where their priviledged place in society came from - the land.

As the family farm further erodes and all farmers get older and retire what happens to the land and who replaces them will become a heated topic. Sooner or later the government is going to have to show leadership on these issues, and I suspect some form of worker-apprentice-to farmer transition will have to happen.

Then again, not many young people want to farm. So where do the next generation of farmers come from? Immigrants, perhaps? The problem is, of course, land speculation and the continual problem of urban encroachment on valuable ag land, driving up the price. I'd love to buy my own place and farm like I want, but it's not realistic. Even for me.

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Both as agricultural workers and as temporary migrant workers, these employees are among the most exploited in Canada. Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program(SAWP) sets out a number of ways to establish wage rates, but in practice they tend to be at or near the provincial minimum wage plus on-farm accommodations. It also sets out a ‘normal’ work day of eight hours and work week of 40 hours. While no statistics are available, anecdotal information from both workers and employers indicates that work days are routinely 12 hours or more. Days off are irregular, and during busy times, weeks can pass without a day off. No premium rate is paid for overtime.

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Further steps need to be taken to protect the rights of these workers. In particular ...

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Unfortunately, the Mayfair workers are under a lot of pressure to drop the union. In one worrisome story, a Mexican worker indicated that the Mexican government had told them to stay out of trouble in Canada. That could be taken to mean they should not stand up for their right to unionize. They have also expressed fear that they would not be allowed to return under the program next year if they joined a union. These fears need to be addressed by all the parties. The governments of Manitoba, Canada and Mexico need to explicitly assure migrant workers that they will not be punished for exercising their rights under Canadian law. Unions, the NDP and other progressive organizations need to speak clearly in support of UFCW and the right of migrant workers to organize. Silence leaves migrant workers at risk of being intimidated into submission for fear of losing the opportunity to work in Canada.

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[ 12 July 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]