Canadian Farmworkers Union - Local No.1.
Organization profile published 1981
http://www.connexions.org/Groups/Subscribers/CxG2245.htm
Year Published: 1981
Pages: 16pp Resource Type: Organization
Cx Number: CX2343
The Canadian Farmworkers Union (CFU) was initiated in 1979 by fruitpickers dissatisfied with working conditions in British Columbia's Okanagan and Fraser Valleys.
Abstract:
Connexions has published multiple abstracts on the Canadian Farmworkers Union.
- - -
This abstract was published in Connexions Digest in 1981:
The Canadian Farmworkers Union (CFU) was initiated in 1979 by fruitpickers dissatisfied with working conditions in British Columbia's Okanagan and Fraser Valleys. There are 13 000 farmworkers in B.C. Within the last 18 months, the 1200 member CFU (British Columbia) has won 6 certifications, 2 collective agreements and 2 voluntary agreements.
In June of 1981, delegates at a special CFU convention in New Westminster, B.C. voted to affiliate with the Canadian Labour Congress. While the CFU has been successful in laying groundwork to win contracts and improve working conditions, it claims that the growers in B.C. are banding together to stop the CFU and its organizing drives.
Within the last year, the CFU has begun organizing efforts in Saskatchewan and Ontario: in Ontario, farmworkers do not have the legal right to unionize. The CFU claims that Ontario growers are using scare tactics to block "outside agitators" (i.e. organizers from B.C.) from trying to organize "their" farmworkers. The CFU also publishes a newspaper entitled "The Farmworker" (16 pages, $4/yr.).
- - -
This abstract was published in Connexions Digest in 1983:
The CANADIAN FARMWORKERS UNION (CFU) was founded in the spring of 1980. In the three years since its founding, the CFU has won several victories, including changes in labour legislation, several collective agreements, and has raised consciousness among both farmwokers and the public. Since the inability of immigrant workers to speak English is one basis of their exploitation, the CFU has recently started a program in English as a Second Language.
An example of the improvement in federal and provincial codes that the CFU has helped win for Canada's more than 200,000 farmworkers came in January of this year when the federal government dropped Section 16 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. This regulation helped create the labour contract system in British Columbia - a system under which contractors took anywhere from 25-40 per cent of workers' wages in return for "continuity" of employment - by requiring farmworkers to work more thatn 25 days for the same employer to be eligible for UIC (while other workers had to work only 15 hours).
The CANADIAN FARMWOKERS UNION points out that organizing the organized is a long, diffcult process. It has won some contracts and the organizing efforts have planted the seeds of future contracts by raising the consciousness of farmworkers and beginning to overcome intimidation by growers. To harvest the crop-growing from these seeds, the CFU needs addtional support.
Subject Headings
