Repeated studies have identified a high percentage of farmworkers' children accompanying their parents into the fields, sometimes to work, sometimes to play. Child labour, exposure to pesticides and the lack of accessible daycare have been prime targets of the CFU.
"These kids want all the protection of a working man - the compensation and the Unemployment Insurance. When I was a kid picking berries, I never got no gas allowance, no compensation, or anything like that. You don't need compensation to pick berries. I've never heard of anybody yet straining their back picking berries. It's not the best job in the world, but it's a good job for kids to learn how to work for somebody else." - Farmer Martin Smith in the 1982 documentary A Time to Rise.
"Why is it that immigrants end up in low paying jobs on farms or in sweatshops? It is no accident. Why is it that many times these workers are excluded from even basic labour standards legislation? Why is it that even if they are covered with some legislation, it is not enforced? This is no accident. This is what I would call institutionalized forms of racism." - CFU Organizer Sarwan Boal in a speech to the Montreal Farmworkers' Support Committee, December 1981