Migrant worker organizing and labour law in Canada

Temporary foreign worker programs, sometimes termed ‘guest worker’ programs, are a growing phenomenon in the contemporary global economy. While there is a wide scholarly literature outlining conditions of labour exploitation within guest worker programs, the dynamics of labour organizing amongst migrant workers and their allies are less widely examined. This paper explores the terrain of labour organizing amongst migrant workers in Canada, focusing specifically on recent efforts to secure freedom of association rights by migrant farmworkers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program (SAWP). The paper first presents an overview of patterns of temporary labour migration to Canada and then outlines the general conditions of employment experienced by workers in the SAWP, which include long hours and low wages, as well as exemptions from many basic labour standards. Moreover, as seasonal farmworkers they have historically been denied rights to unionization and collective bargaining. The paper then examines a legal challenge undertaken by migrant farmworkers in the SAWP and supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers in attempt to secure freedom of association rights. The paper explores the ‘limits and possibilities’ of this legal strategy, and concludes by situating this struggle within the broader context of both the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada and the global expansion of guest worker programs.