As a collective that organizes around migrant workers’ rights – organizing that transcends so-called borders and is inherently transnational in its scope – we stand firmly in solidarity with Palestine. We denounce the settler-colonial violence enacted by the state of Israel in every form it takes, and condemn the loss of civilian lives through the 75 year-long occupation. We strongly support Palestinians in their struggle for liberation.

Palestinians have been subject to over 75 years of occupation and apartheid at the hands of the state of Israel, with the colonial theft of their lands, the monitoring and policing of Palestinians’ movement, and limited access to basic human rights. Over the past three weeks, we have witnessed an active campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide happening in Gaza, with state violence being enacted in unthinkable ways – through the denial of humanitarian aid, deprivation of food and water, and mass forced displacement. 

Over the past two weeks, we have witnessed Palestinians being framed in ways that conjure up images of barbarism and less-than-humanness. The settler-colonial state uses every possible tactic to strip the oppressed of their humanity in order to justify its own violence.  

Moreover, much like Canada, Israel relies on exploitative state structures that extract labor from “developing” countries, bringing in temporary foreign workers to prop up an agricultural industry built on stolen land to further displace and povertize Palestnians. At least 30,000 migrant farm workers from countries like Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal live and work on farms across Israel — including many adjacent to the Gaza Strip. Over the past two weeks, at least 50 migrant workers have been killed. We condemn the deaths of these workers at the hands of a settler-colonial state, because by virtue of its foreign worker program, the Israeli state alone bears responsibility for the workers’ lives and livelihoods. 

One in four hostages are foreign workers. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza endangering their lives is further evidence of the callousness of this settler-colonial state towards these racialised, vulnerable, and invisibilized workers – workers whose labour is deemed essential to the Israeli economy, but whose lives are seen as disposable. We call for the protection of migrant workers everywhere — a community of people consistently pushed to the margins through these inherently violent processes of colonial and imperial dominion. 

These are the same structures of settler-colonial violence that form the very foundation of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). As a collective that strives to advance the rights of migrant workers in this program, we recognize that colonialism is not a relic of the past. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program functions as an extension of the colonial project, with the Canadian settler-colonial state actively exploiting and profiting off of the labour of Black, Brown, and Indigenous workers from the so-called “Global South.” Within the structures of the TFWP, these bodies are brutalized, dehumanized, and devalued.

As a collective of organizers who believe in transforming our food system into one rooted in food justice, we would be remiss to not draw the connections between Israel’s state violence enacted on migrant farm workers and the state’s continued attacks on Palestinian food sovereignty. For over 75 years, Israel has controlled Palestine’s food systems — uprooting olive trees, banning traditional farming practices, and denying residents access to clean drinking water. Food sovereignty is deeply linked to land sovereignty, and we affirm Palestinians in their fight for power over their own food system, and their struggle for Indigenous land and water rights. 

We believe that all struggles for liberation in the face of oppression are deeply intertwined. To continue building meaningful movements, it is critical that we understand how systems of power here are directly connected to the structures that oppress across seas. The same government that dehumanizes and exploits migrant farm workers here in Canada is complicit in the ongoing violence in Palestine. 

We strongly condemn the retributive, McCarthyist tactics we’ve seen in response to public support for Palestinian liberation. We call for an end to the ongoing aggressive censorship of voices supporting Palestinian liberation, particularly the voices of marginalized workers and students, whose precarious status in Canada makes them vulnerable to deportation and repatriation at the will of the federal government. 

Echoing the demands from our comrades in Palestine, we call for a ceasefire, and an end to all settler-colonial occupation and violence. We implore our networks of folks who have spoken up about migrant workers’ rights here in Canada to take action for Palestinian liberation. Writing to your elected representatives to call for a ceasefire, showing up at actions, and donating to emergency response initiatives on the ground are just a few ways you can support the struggle against settler-colonial violence in Palestine. Additionally, we urge our networks to show continued solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle against Zionist colonialism, including supporting boycott, divest, and sanctions campaigns and actions.

Follow Palestinian voices and supporters of Palestinian liberation here:

@PalestinianYouthMovement
@MohammedElKurd
@PalestinianFeministCollective
@Eye.On.Palestine
@JewishVoiceForPeace
@WorldBeyondWar

As leaders of CARICOM meet with Canadian officials in Ottawa during their annual summit, J4MW strongly critiques the absences of labour discussions at this week’s summit. 

Collectively, CARICOM leaders send thousands of workers to work on Canadian farms and other industries. These workers have been raising concerns about their working conditions for decades and yet little has changed. 

J4MW takes this opportunity to share the following open letter from a group of Caribbean migrant farm workers employed under the Commonwealth Seasonal Agricultural Workers program. 

From the workers:

We are a group of workers from a farm near Brantford, Ontario. We are the ones growing the food that Canadians eat, and the food that is shipped outside of Canada to make profits for farmers. We worked Thanksgiving, like we do every other day, and we were not paid extra money. We have left our children, spouses, parents, siblings, friends and other loved ones to come here. The money we make supports their lives, education, and well-being. We are here working in Canada so they can have better lives. 

We want to share what we have experienced at this farm during our time working in Canada. We are all workers who are trying to make a better life, but it’s like we are doing worse in Canada because it’s no better than what we left back home. You have to work very hard to get the money. We feel bad because of the way we are being treated. We are supposed to work like animals, like we don’t have enough time to work. We have to go to the extreme. If all of us clock out, it’s going to be a problem. 

It’s not fair that we come here on a tied permit. We want a better system, not a closed permit. It’s not fair that we sign a contract to work but our employer can decide to send us home at any time. Some of us have already been sent home and new people have been brought up instead.

Housing

We have complained many times about the housing. It is not just one bunkhouse that has problems. One of our bunkhouses had waste water overflowing and going through the bunkhouse, even into the kitchen. Our employer did nothing about it for several days, and even came into our bunkhouse and yelled at us for causing the problem. He said that we must have poured grease down the drain for this to happen. 

He only did something when we decided not to go to work. But even after that problem was fixed, it came back again. It is very disrespectful to expect us to live like this and go to work without any complaint.

There has recently been a bedbug infestation at another bunkhouse. Bedbugs are not new at this farm and we know they have been infesting bunkhouses here for many years. Even though the liaison got involved, they cannot do anything if our employer doesn’t want to do anything. The employer only gave us some traps and sprays. We know this does not help the problem because there was an infestation when we first came to the farm earlier this year, and he did the same thing. We were getting bitten regularly. There were bumps on our skin and we felt itchy. We were worried that we could get sick, and that the bedbugs could spread to other bunkhouses since we are all working together in the fields. 

Finally the employer brought someone to treat the bedbugs, but the day after that Service Canada came to the farm. We think that this is why the employer brought someone. The bedbugs came back after that.

Working at this Farm

If we get sick at work, it’s like it doesn’t matter to them. They don’t pay us any sick days and don’t help us if we are sick. They have not given us a health card yet and they have taken away our work permits and employment contracts. 

The boss is very disrespectful. He wants us to do whatever he says. When he says to jump, he wants us to jump. Our words don’t matter to him. He has a very rude attitude and does not respect us or the work that we do.

We have been prevented from using the bathroom because it is “company policy” to go only on breaks. But sometimes we are not able to go to the bathroom even on our breaks because we are being moved from field to field. 

The drinking water and bathing water at the farm is not safe. Sometimes it smells bad, like wastewater. 

It has been very hot to work in the fields. But this employer still makes us work the same long shifts without any extra breaks, no water, no shade or cool areas. They don’t care that we are getting dizzy, or fainting, or ill. They just want us to work.

We feel very bad about the guys who have been sent home because they would like to make money, just like those of us who are here on the farm. The fact that they have been sent home, and replaced with other workers, is really rough. This farm, the boss, they don’t really care about us. They just care about making money. We just have to sit like animals and listen to what they say, and just do it. 

It is not easy but if us workers see a chance for things to get better, we have to come together and unite. It can’t just be one person. We should come and talk about it, not just leave it aside and go home. We have to stand together as one, so we can unite and get better. 

We are all one nation. We have different skin but we are brothers in our own image and colour. We want the same for everyone. We have to be there for one another. If there is a problem we have to come together and talk about it, and go on a strike. If we are not getting good pay, we can strike out and it can maybe get better. 

We came to this country to get better – we came for more than this low-paying job. We should have the ability to work in a place that treats us with respect. We are no different than the generations of migrant workers that came before us. 

Demands

1. We want to have better housing. We want housing where we have enough bedrooms for everyone, enough bathrooms so that everyone has privacy. We want housing where we do not have bedbugs or any other pests. We want clean bunkhouses with functioning appliances – stoves, fridges, microwaves, washers and dryers. We do not want to live in barns with concrete floors. We want to live in proper houses.
2. We want to be treated with respect at work. We do not want to be yelled at, sworn at, or to get in trouble for using the bathroom. We are not children.
3. We want the ability to choose where we work and our working conditions. Some of us have been working the night shift for weeks and cannot speak with our families. Some of us want to stay and work at other farms when our contracts end. We want the ability to move to other employers and stay if we want to. It is not fair that we have to work for one employer alone in Canada.
4. We want to be able to speak up for our rights without getting in trouble and without being sent home. Some of our brothers have already been sent home after we refused to work, when our bunkhouse was flooded with waste water. All workers who have spoken out should not be removed from the program and should not get in trouble in any way.

Sincerely,

A group of workers