Two activist groups are going to the Supreme Court over unionizing rights for migrant workers.
Justicia for Migrant Workers and the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario presented oral arguments on Dec. 17. The arguments were presented as a part of the ongoing case Fraser vs. Attorney General of Ontario to give Ontario’s 100,000 agricultural workers the right to bargain collectively.
Ontario’s Agricultural Employees Protection Act gives agricultural workers who come to Canada yearly with temporary visas the right to form associations but not to bargain collectively. The Fraser case is a legal challenge to that exclusion.
Justicia’s main organizers are Tzazna Miranda Leal, an undergrad at U of T, and Chris Ramsaroop, a former president of the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students at U of T.
Supporters, including 15 U of T students and alumni, travelled to Ottawa to attend the trial. They also demonstrated at the house of Stephen Harper and held a vigil at the Chinese Railroad Monument.
“We were interveners in the case, meaning we were a party to the proceedings. We brought forth arguments relating to the particular experiences of migrant workers,” Ramsaroop stated in an e-mail to The Varsity. Ramsaroop was present for the court proceedings.
Intervention is a legal procedure that allows outside parties to join and contribute to ongoing litigation. Justicia was included in the intervention because of the organization’s affiliation with migrant workers.
After being awarded intervener status, Justicia and IAVGO jointly raised nearly $5,000 to cover the cost of buses, food, and demonstration materials. Legal representation was pro bono.
Justicia argued that uncertain employment compounded by the lack of immigration status denies migrant workers the ability to exercise their rights.
Arguments that Justicia and IAVGO developed were delivered by Selwyn Pieters, who told the court that the current model of labor relations in Ontario is insufficient to protect workers and results in systematic discrimination.
Ramsaroop said arguments also sought to capitalize on the history of discrimination in Canada. “We wanted to show how history has repeated itself through the exploitation faced by migrant workers,” he said.
Full proceedings of the Fraser case are expected take between six months and a year.
A public vigil will be held for four migrant construction workers on Thursday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m, at 2757 Kipling Avenue. They died on Christmas Eve when the swing scaffolding they were working on broke in two pieces, plummeting them over 13 stories to the street below. With files from Naushad Ali Husein.
