Union sounds alarm after foreign workers fired

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/549738

Jaspreet Tambar
staff reporter

Scores of foreign agriculture workers who successfully fought for the right to form a union were fired today and will be sent back home in the near future.

Although Rol-Land Farms, which employed the 70 workers from Mexico, Jamaica and Guatemala refused to discuss the development, union officials were not to reluctant.

"We cannot tolerate such treatment of workers in this country. We can't allow the expansion of programs that create second class residents and workers," says Wayne Hanley, the National President of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

The workers are in Canada on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and have been evicted from the housing provided to them by Rol-Land Farms, which produces mushrooms and has facilities across Canada and the U.S..

Hanley adds that the Temporary Foreign Workers Program has been constructed so as to allow employers to have complete power over workers.

The fired workers had only been working for Rol-Land Farms for periods ranging from four to eight months, though the Temporary Foreign Workers Program issues them work visas for two years.

FULL story at link.