j4mw-fresh from Simcoe…



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages: Employer responds with deportation



November 23, 2010



(Simcoe, Ontario) Over a 100 migrant farm workers employed at Ghesquiere Plants Ltd. are facing imminent repatriation (deportation) after staging a wildcat strike to demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.



The migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados came together across racial, linguistic and ethnic lines to organize this wild cat strike and strengthen their collective power. The workers employed by this farm described numerous rights violations and complaints about their living conditions including the following:



• Workers are each owed from $1000 to $6000 in unpaid wages

• Workers are to be evicted and will be homeless as of Thursday, November 25th, 2010

• Most of the Mexican and Trinidadian workers will be repatriated by this Thursday. All Jamaican

workers have been repatriated.

• Electricity and heat has been cut off in one bunk

• Deplorable and very crowed living conditions



Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a grassroots advocacy migrant rights organization, calls for the immediate payment of all wages owing to workers. Migrant workers employed at Ghesquiere Plant Ltd. are being forced to return home and cannot provide for their families. Repatriation denies them access to pursue legal avenues under federal and provincial laws, basic protections accorded to permanent residents in Canada thus J4MW calls on both levels of government to intervene to protect migrants and prosecute employers who denied these workers basic rights. J4MW stresses that Temporary Foreign Worker Programs such as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program denies migrant workers the ability to exert their rights and are in need of an urgent and complete overhaul.



J4MW Contacts



Chris Ramsaroop 1-647-834-4932 or ramsaroopchris@gmail.com

Carolina Alvarado Zuniga 1-647-296-6753



Justicia for Migrant Workers

c/o Workers’ Action Centre

720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223

Toronto ON M5S 2T9

www.justicia4migrantworkers.org

www.twitter.com/j4mw



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