Slap on the wrist after farm worker’ deaths

A court ruling made in the case of two Jamaican migrant workers who died while attempting to fix a pump for a vinegar vat when they were overcome by fumesat Filsinger’s Organic Foods & Orchards, a farm at Ayton, Ontario, has been described as a slap in the face for the families of the deceased.

Ralston White 36, and Paul Roach 44 of Jamaica died in September 2010.
In the wake of an Ontario Ministry of Labour investigation into the fatalities, Debra Ann Becker, Shaun Ronald Becker and Cory Richard Becker, the operators of the farm, and Brandon Weber, a supervisor, were to stand trial facing multiple charges under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) including failing to provide training, equipment and a rescue plan for workers in a dangerous confined space like the vinegar vat at the farm.
Instead, in a deal signed off on Monday, all charges were dropped against the operators. Weber, the supervisor, pleaded guilty to just one charge and fined $22,500.
“This a tragic insult to the victims’ families and to the safety rights of all farm workers in Ontario,” said Wayne Hanley, the national president of UFCW Canada (United Food and Commercial Workers), the country’s largest private-sector union. “The message to the agricultural industry is that if you pay a few dollars, safety can be ignored when it comes to the life a farm worker.”
“Two people died and the company gets off the hook and a supervisor gets a slap on the wrist. This will not make migrants feel any safer,” says Miranda Leal, an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW).
Justicia for Migrant Workers is renewing its calls that the provincial government enact the following steps to protect workers by doing snap inspections for all workplaces and accommodations where migrant workers live and work; a coroner’s inquest into the details relating to these workplace deaths, an appeals mechanism built into the SAWP and TFW so that migrant workers cannot be arbitrarily and unilaterally repatriated to their homeland (anti-reprisal protection), industry specific regulations for the agricultural industry under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, increased labour rights and protections for all migrant workers and a criminal investigation into this workplace fatality as mandated by section 217.1 of the criminal code of Canada.
For more than two decades, UFCW Canada has led a campaign for equal labour, workplace and safety rights for agriculture workers. In association with the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA), it also operates ten agriculture worker support centres across Canada, including four in Ontario. The union called for a coroner’s inquest in the wake of the September 10, 2010 fatalities.
“Throughout its investigation, the Ministry of Labour refused our Freedom of Information requests about what happened,” said Hanley. “Ultimately, the plea bargain sweeps away the legacy of two innocent men, while the owners of the farm are free to operate in the wake of two deaths that were absolutely preventable.”
Seven of the eight charges dropped against all of the accused involved OHSA regulations regarding safety in enclosed spaces, like the vat at the Filsinger farm. While OHSA protections were extended to farm workers in 2006 – as the direct result of a UFCW Canada legal battle – the Ministry of Labour never attached the specific regulations regarding closed spaces.
“How many more farm workers must die before the specific regulations for farm safety are attached to OHSA, as they are for other industries?” asked the UFCW Canada leader. “How do you explain to the families of Paul Roach and Ralston White that here in Ontario, safety regulations for farm workers are treated by the industry like some kind of inconvenience?”