against the grain

FEATURE Essay
Against
the Grain
In Alberta, it’s illegal
for farmworkers to form a union.
Eric Musekamp is fighting to change that.
By Eric Musekamp
Eric Musekamp outside the Alberta Legislature, asking MLAs to respect the federal Charter.
30 A L B E R TA V I E W S M AY 2 0 0 7
O
Against the Grain
p h otos c o u rtesy o f e r i c m us e kam p
On August 20, 1999, farm worker Terry Rash tipped an old
water truck into a ditch south of Taber. Damage to the truck
was minimal, and Terry and his passenger were unhurt. They
sent word back to the farm for help.
Their boss, farm owner Charles Henry Beauchamp, arrived
at the scene 45 minutes later. In the confrontation that followed,
he stabbed Rash to death.
The news spread across the hired-man community in southern Alberta, bringing shock, anger, revulsion and fear. It was a
difficult time—gallows humour on the two-way radio, tension
between workers and their bosses.
It was apparent to me that the root cause of this slaying
and many other transgressions against farm workers is in fact
systemic. The exclusion of the ag industry from many rules,
regulations and laws causes a significant power imbalance
between employer and employee. This de facto caste system
emboldens some in the rural community to act toward their
employees in a way that is not in keeping with Canadian social
norms. Alberta’s farm workers are excluded from so many
rules, it’s like living in Canada’s last lawless frontier. No Labour
Relations Code, no Occupational Health & Safety, no mandatory
Workers’ Compensation Board coverage. No logbooks or air
brake tickets or inspection reports are required for our trucks.
Even the right to join a union has been taken from us.
In 2001, I found myself at the receiving end of an angry
employer’s wrath for making a mistake similar to Terry’s. I was
completely at his mercy. When he showed none, I had very little
recourse. I did push back as best I could—took him to small
claims court, complained to the Labour Relations Board, EI,
CPP, Canada Customs & Revenue Agency, and took all other
legal avenues of recourse available to me. It was difficult, time
consuming, complicated and largely unsuccessful. As word got
around, I was met with disdain. The sentiment seemed to be,
How dare you sue your boss or file complaints against him?
So I decided that rather than go after individuals mistreating
their workers, I would go after the system. I wrote letters to our
government. They were ignored. But the local paper printed
my first letter to the editor and then joined with me in calling
for a review of Charles Henry Beauchamp’s sentence in the
death of Terry Rash. The Crown did review the sentence and
doubled it, for an effective sentence of 34 months.
I had already spent some time talking to the guys, and even
stood on a few tailgates like Jimmy Hoffa. The workers I spoke
to were not satisfied with the status quo. Clearly, we wanted
change, but no one really knew what to do. There was talk of
striking or protesting. But it all seemed kind of feeble. Any
action would no doubt result in trouble. It’s pretty hard to take
a stand when you don’t have a leg to stand on.
When you make waves in a small pond, it doesn‘t take
long before everyone gets wet. The reaction from some locals
intensified a bit—garbage thrown over my fence, brake fluid
removed from the pickup. Nothing too serious. Just enough to
keep me going. But it was hard to find work locally. So I found
work 75 miles away, hauling milk from Hutterite colonies to
a dairy. Then my partner, Darlene, and I took a job driving a
produce truck from California to Alberta once a week. It turned
out to be an excellent chance to get to know farm workers
and owners in the US. I met illegals, United Farm Workers
members, union bosses, farm owners and many others. We
spent many hours discussing the labour issue and how it was
before the union and César Chávez. Things are better now than
they were before.
After two years, Darlene and I returned to Alberta. We
worked with a local trucking firm hauling potatoes from
farms to processing plants. We were immediately struck by
the complete lack of safety standards on the various farms we
went to. It was unbelievable—young children working in very
dangerous conditions with bad electrical wiring and unguarded
machinery.
We were moved to take action. We procured safety goggles,
ear plugs and the like for the workers, and insisted that
unguarded chains and very bad high voltage wiring be fixed.
One of the farms was very unhappy with our actions and
demanded we be fired. We were promptly discharged, with
Taber’s finest brought in for effect.
The reaction intensified—garbage
thrown over my fence, brake fluid
removed from the pickup.
On September 24, 2004, the Farmworkers Union of Alberta
(FUA) stepped into the light of public display: we struck
a picket line at Chinook Carriers Ltd. in Taber and issued a
demand that the company make their workplace safe. No
one could recall ever having seen a picket line in Taber, so we
attracted quite a bit of attention. The local press gave us very
sympathetic front-page coverage. The company, on the other
hand, was unhappy with our presence on their doorstep and
brought in the police, the bylaw officer, their lawyer and others
to try to dislodge us, without success.
Darlene and I hired on with a large sugar farm to haul sugar
beets to market. We had worked for that farm during sugar
harvest for more than 20 years. We had a good relationship
with this employer and we were well received. But the trouble
started almost right away, with neighbour farmers approaching our employer advising that he get rid of us. When that failed,
the RCMP were brought in and conducted a very disruptive
investigation against us at the work site. That really got the
tongues wagging on coffee row, which was pretty upsetting to
our employer. It also was upsetting and frightening to a lot of
farm workers. The farm where we had worked over decades no
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FEATURE Essay
longer wants us. That sugar harvest is the last farm work we’ve
done. Can’t blame them, I guess—too much trouble. It sends a
pretty strong message to the workers: speak out at your peril.
In May 2005, the Alberta Federation of Labour invited me to
address its biennial convention. “I’m going to beg for the lives
of Alberta’s farm workers,” I told the Prairie Post Weekly before
I left for Edmonton. And that’s what I did. I managed to cobble
together a speech and deliver it to 450 audience members. I
stood at the podium and told them of the plight of Alberta’s
farm workers. They were appalled. I asked them to stand up
for farm workers and they leapt to their feet with thundering
applause.
Darlene and I spent the remaining three days of the convention manning our booth and meeting with labour leaders,
politicians, media and all sorts of other interesting folks. The
labour people treated us like gold. It truly was a once-in-alifetime experience. We collected a couple hundred signatures
on our petition to the Alberta government demanding equal
treatment for Alberta’s farm workers, which New Democrat
MLA David Eggen would later table in the Legislature.
Returning home from Edmonton, we saw the agriculture
minister was having a $50-a-plate fundraiser in our very small
village, so we quickly put together a 50-cents-a-dog event,
which we set up in the parking lot of the good minister’s venue.
We called it our First Occasional Under-Dog Day. It was a
great success, garnering more press for farm workers than the
minister got for his fundraiser.
Our request to the Workers’ Compensation Board for an
outreach effort by the board to encourage ag employers to sign
up for WCB was rejected. We decided to obtain board literature
and application forms and set up an information booth at the
Burdett Farm Safety Day Camp. The event was put on by the
United Farmers and the Co-operators insurance company.
Our promoting WCB coverage didn’t sit well with them and
they promptly brought in the RCMP to get rid of us.
On August 20, 2005, the AFL joined with the FUA and
the United Food & Commercial Workers Canada to declare
that day Farmworker Day. The AFL announced its “End the
Drought” campaign for farm workers’ rights, stating, “The
AFL is committed to recognizing Farmworker Day until the
government agrees to include farm workers in employment
legislation.” The Bow Island 40-Mile County Commentator ran
the headline, “Illegal Farmwork Union Gets Support.”
The local press continued to give the issue coverage, including
a front page in the Medicine Hat News. Good for the cause, but
hard on our popularity among local employers. We did manage
to get 20 days’ work harvesting corn with a transport firm. We
had to promise not to talk about the issue. Fair enough, got to
eat. We made it through harvest, but we couldn’t get any other
local farm work. So we closed up the house and went to Lotus
Land to mooch off relatives and save some money.
Next spring, we headed for Edmonton to attend
the spring session of the Legislature. Ultimately, you have
32 A L B E R TA V I E W S M AY 2 0 0 7
to talk to the guys who wiggle the levers if you want to get
anything done. So we set our travel trailer at a local truck stop
and started going to the Legislature every day. We’d go to the
public gallery, hang around at the library, eat at the cafeteria,
lurk in the rotunda and pee in the executive washrooms.
Whatever we could do to bump into the lever-wigglers. I was
able to buttonhole all kinds of MLAs, ministers, reporters, and
even cornered King Ralph in the elevator once.
This tactic brought the issue of farm workers to the complete
attention of the whole caucus. I was granted meetings with
the health minister and the agriculture minister. I got to meet
with the opposition parties and several government members.
I have accomplished one thing so far: when they see my big
square head darkening their doorstep, they know who I am
and what I want.
After five weeks of going to the Leg, meeting people, giving
speeches and going to events, it seemed we were getting
somewhere. We were also getting pretty broke. But we needed
to stay a while longer, as we had a meeting upcoming with the
agriculture minister. I did some speaking where they passed the
hat, and we went with some young supporters and panhandled
for spare change on Whyte Ave. I had never begged on the
street for money before and felt pretty uneasy about it. After
four hours we had collected over $250 and 250 signatures for
our petition.
The long periods of no income started to catch up
to us. I had decided right at the beginning that we wouldn’t take
money from farm workers, no dues or donations. Others have
donated money from time to time which kept us going, and
when we didn’t get anything we just paid for stuff ourselves.
Couldn’t seem to find a way to quit the cause. Every time we
thought we should stop, something would come along to keep
it going. It seems it’s bigger than us. But because we had run
up a pretty wicked Visa bill, we had to sell our house to pay
down the debt. That was pretty sobering. We owned our house
free and clear and kinda thought we’d live out our days there.
It was home.
The day we had to leave was pretty bleak. I watched my girl
go through her lovely yard, bidding farewell to her cherished
clematis, rose bush, Hoppy the hops vine. Then to see her hug
our beloved neighbours. It seemed pretty tough at the time.
We were really hanging a lip as we packed our kit and caboodle
and headed off to who knew where.
Then we learned of Lorna Chandler. She was the wife of Kevan
Chandler, a farm worker who was killed at work for want of a
simple safety harness. Although it must have been her darkest
hour, Lorna stepped forward to beg her government to end
the policy so that “perhaps no other family will have to walk
this path of despair we now tread.” When Lorna learned that
Kevan’s death was the result of a policy to exclude agriculture
from occupational health and safety regulations, she realized
that it will only be a matter of time before another worker dies
needlessly. Lorna has two small children to raise, so she did not
have the option of disregarding immediate material needs. Her
Against the Grain
When farm worker Kevan Chandler was killed in a farming accident, his children and his wife were left without any compensation.
effort to speak out to the government has been very beneficial
to the cause but it has done nothing for her. Kevan’s employer
did not have WCB coverage—when Kevan was killed at work,
Lorna and her family were not entitled to any benefits. By the
time we went to see Lorna some six weeks after Kevan’s death,
she was in a pretty bad way financially.
There wasn’t really any avenue of hope for this family, so we
quickly staged an emergency fundraiser to help them out a bit.
We were able to attract three MLAs. All spoke condemning the
government’s treatment of farm workers. The event generated
a lot of media attention.
Nine days later Lorna and her family accompanied us to
Edmonton, where we staged a press conference in the media
gallery of the Legislature. We were hosted by Dr. David Swann,
who spoke forcefully and eloquently on the need for immediate
reform of labour legislation in the agriculture industry.
Lorna faced the bank of cameras and reporters and calmly
made her request that the government put an end to their
discriminating policy. I again reminded the government of our
constitutionally guaranteed right to equality at law and asked
them to respect the Charter of Rights and Alberta’s own Bill
of Rights. After the press conference we attended the public
gallery. Dr. Swann introduced Lorna and her children to the
Assembly. He asked Human Resources & Employment Minister
Mike Cardinal, “In front of the widow, can you tell us what this
government is prepared to do to change this situation?”
The minister’s answer was so obscure that it prompted
the NDP to issue a press release chastising the minister for
misleading the Assembly. Premier Klein was content to ignore
the widow, her children, the Constitution, recommendations
from two of the government’s own committees and mounting
public pressure.
Now we have a new Premier and agriculture minister
and new rural cabinet ministers. We start somewhat anew. The
media continue to give us good coverage. The spring session of
the Legislature has started, and we are there, big square head
darkening doorsteps.
On March 22, the Liberal party spoke out in Legislature,
asking our premier to respect the constitutional rights of
agricultural workers by including them in labour regulations.
Premier Stelmach refused. “Just because we have regulations,”
he said, “does not mean that somebody is going to follow them.
We have many regulations. We have many laws. We have laws
that say that people should stop at a stop sign, and they don’t.”
Despite our premier’s cynicism, I have faith in the good
hearts and minds of my fellow Albertans, and so we continue.
We are not in the Promised Land yet, but I can see the beckoning glow of its lights. #
Eric Musekamp is the founder of the Farmworkers Union of
Alberta. His career as a farm worker spanned 27 years.
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