A militant Canadian group representing migrant workers has taken offence at the T&T Government agreeing to a Can $2 a day deduction from the wages of this country's seasonal workers on the Canadian farm programme. The deduction is described as being made to offset costs of boarding and lodging workers at the respective farms, and starts from 2010. T&T, since the 1960s, usually has a contingent of some 1,000 workers in the programme, each contracted for a six-month period a year. But it is described as a retrograde step, and can be more accurately described as a "clawback in wages..."
Chris Ramsaroop, an executive of Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW), e-mailed the Sunday Guardian in response to an exclusive report carried last month that the agreement was forged with Canadian farmers at a meeting in St Lucia with Caricom Governments connected with the seasonal programme. Ramsaroop noted that the workers should have had a say before the deal was consummated and advised checking the group's Web site... justicia4migrant workers.org. "The issue about the annual negotiations between the Government of Canada and the Caribbean countries has been a great concern for us here.
"Justice for Migrant Workers believes that workers should be at the table to represent their concerns and have a chance to participate in the decision making process. "While the employers are saying they need the deductions for costs in response to the economic downturn I would beg to differ. "Housing workers is simply a cost of business.
"Instead of seeing this as a deduction for housing I would classify this as a clawback in wages. "Furthermore, agricultural workers in general, but migrant farm workers in particular, are denied many basic rights and entitlements that are provided to workers in other industries," Ramsaroop noted.
The Sunday Guardian report also noted that from 2009 T&T seasonal workers who had children born while on the programme would be entitled to parental benefits. The figure quoted was 70 per cent wages, but according to Ramsaroop the correct figure is 55 per cent of wages. And he stressed that the T&T Government has been lapsing because those benefits have been available tobe claimed since 1990.