Some of the 200 delegates gathered for the founding convention of the Canadian Farmworkers' Union on April 6, 1980.
"It is indeed incredible that in this day and age and in a country like Canada, a whole section of workers should be compelled to earn their living in such deplorable and discriminatory conditions as farmworkers face. It is clear that farm workers are not considered to be like other workers, that they are denied the status of workers in Canadian society. The law says that workers should not be expected to work more than a certain number of hours a day, and if they do, they should be entitled to overtime rates of pay. The law says that all workers should be entitled to certain holidays, that the conditions of work should be such that the workers do not face undue hazards and risks to their lives. The law says that if a worker gets injured while on work, he or she should be entitled to compensation. The law lays down the method of periodical payment of wages. All these and other similar laws are there to protect the working people from the unbridled and pernicious exploitation by the owners. None of this applies to farm workers in B.C. They have simply been left at the mercy of the contractors and the farmers. And we can well imagine the consequences that follow.
"Long hours of back-breaking work, exposed to not only such natural hazards as roasting heat and freezing rain but also to seriously injurious pesticides and other chemicals. Wages that often do not amount to more than a dollar or two an hour, if you add up all the hours expended in travelling and the cuts taken by the contractors. Wages that do not even get paid on time. Farm workers, victims of the archaic contract labour system, earn not only for themselves, but out of their earnings they have been fattening the middlemen, the labour contractor.
"The thousands of working men, women and children who provide the hard labour to produce the necessary food for the society have, in fact, been excluded from the category of working people." - Union President Raj Chouhan at a CFU celebration, April 26, 1980