Unsafe, Underpaid and Unheard

By Mata Press Service

Charvi still remembers when there was no bathroom in her workplace.

She had immigrated to Canada three decades ago, built a life, raised three children and worked in B.C.’s cannery, packing and nursery sectors. But at work, she said, women were sometimes forced to go outside, half-squatting and watching to make sure no one was coming.

“Sometimes when we would go to the bathroom like that, men could even walk by,” she told researchers. “Then we would be embarrassed.”

Even after a toilet was eventually installed, she said it was shared by about 100 workers and cleaned so rarely that some women feared infections. At lunch, there was no proper room, no table, no microwave.

“Microwave? We didn’t even have a place to sit,” she said. “We would sit on crates or baskets, whatever we could find.”

Dishmeet saw another side of the same system.

She told researchers that when WorkSafeBC inspectors were expected, masks and handwashing stations suddenly appeared at her workplace. After the inspectors left, she said, they disappeared.

“When WorkSafe left, the owner picked up everything again,” she said.

Dishmeet also said no one had trained workers to use seatbelts on tractors. “No one got it,” she said. “Only you watch and learn.” After she raised concerns with the help of Progressive Intercultural Community Services, she said her employer retaliated by assigning her to worse tasks.

Leila’s story is darker still.

A single mother who needed flexible work while her son was in school, she told researchers she was sexually exploited by a farm labour contractor in Abbotsford. She said other women later told her they knew what was happening when the contractor took her separately in his car.

“Nobody tried to warn me,” she said. “And there were others… I think he must have done it to all the girls who needed work.”

They are not alone.

According to a new report by BC Policy Solutions, South Asian immigrant farmworker women in British Columbia continue to face wage theft, unsafe work, inadequate washrooms, sexual harassment, unpredictable hours, weak enforcement and exclusions from basic workplace protections.

The report, Growing Justice: Health, safety and dignity for South Asian farmworker women in British Columbia, is based on in-depth interviews and one focus group conducted in 2023 with 20 farmworker women in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. All had immigrated from India, and most interviews were conducted in Punjabi. The women worked in seasonal berry harvesting, mushrooms, vegetables, canneries, packing operations and ornamental nurseries. Most earned less than $25,000 a year from farm work.

“For decades, South Asian immigrant farmworker women in British Columbia have faced exploitative practices,” the report says. “These practices include wage theft, pressure to accept unsafe transportation along with excessive and unpredictable hours.”

The report says agricultural workers are excluded from several basic rights granted to other workers, including overtime pay, statutory holiday pay and annual vacation pay. It says South Asian women who are new immigrants face added barriers, including limited English, lack of formal job training, social isolation and dependence on farm labour contractors for work and transportation.

“Our findings expose how workplace inequities are entrenched in the structural organization of agricultural labour across the province,” the report says. “Despite these women’s essential contributions to the local food economy, many continue to occupy some of the most precarious and undervalued roles in agricultural production.”

The report identifies three main areas of concern: workplace health and safety risks, job insecurity and low wages, and lack of dignity and voice at work.

The report also documents workplace injuries and claims suppression. Anjali, a 54-year-old mother of two, said she slipped a disc while lifting heavy pots at a nursery. Before her workplace was unionized, she said, workers could spend 14 hours lifting without task rotation. After the injury, she was bedridden for eight months.

Another worker, Manpreet, described hazards in mushroom operations, including workers being cut by blades. “Sometimes the workers would get confused and then hurt,” she told researchers. “Then they would be given first aid and sometimes they would even call an ambulance.”

The farm labour contracting system is a central target of the report.

Contractors act as intermediaries between workers and farms. They often control access to shifts, transportation, wage records and job assignments. For women with limited English or no independent transportation, the report says that system can deepen dependency and expose them to exploitation.

“Contractors, who act as a go-between for workers and employers, often control access to work, transportation, wages and avoid responsibility for workers’ welfare,” the report says.

The report says 71 farm labour contractors were licensed and bonded in the Lower Fraser Valley as of November 2024, covering 5,229 farmworkers. Many of those workers hand harvest blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and are paid by weight or volume, rather than by the hour.

That piece-rate system is another major concern.

Workers paid by piece rate can earn more when conditions are good and picking is fast. But the report says it can also push workers to skip breaks, work through pain and carry the risk of poor crop conditions, rain, machine harvesting and fluctuating demand.

The report recommends that all farmworkers paid under piece-rate systems receive at least the minimum hourly wage for all hours worked. It also calls for B.C. to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour in 2026, eliminate farmworker exclusions from overtime and statutory holiday pay, and end the for-profit farm labour contracting system.

Language remains another barrier.

“An almost universal barrier to alternative work and opportunities that immigrant farmworker women from South Asia experience is their lack of English proficiency,” the report says.

That barrier limits access to better jobs, driver’s licences, safety training, formal complaints and basic knowledge of workplace rights.

The report also captures resistance.

Anjali said poor treatment, underpayment and pressure to work faster pushed women at one workplace toward unionization.

“They kept ripping us off so everyone got frustrated,” she said. “So, one lady said ‘you know what? Create a union, create a union.’”

The workers went to co-workers’ homes after work to get union cards signed before fear set in. When the signed papers came through the fax machine, Anjali recalled, the boss was stunned.

“When we got the union, at least we could work safely,” she said.

The authors are calling for sweeping reforms, including a non-profit hiring hall or labour exchange to replace for-profit contractors, stronger inspections, paid and language-appropriate safety training, support for community organizations, driver’s licence assistance, free English classes and accessible child care for women working in agriculture.