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Report/Press release

Agriculture Workers Alliance now 10,000 members strong – and growing

Date

2011-09-13

Authors

UFCW Canada

Abstract

The Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) celebrated a major milestone at this year’s Labour Day Parade in Toronto. After four years of community outreach and non-stop organizing, the AWA recently surpassed the 10,000 member mark – confirming its role as the largest and most dynamic farm worker organization in Canada.

Series title

UFCW Media and News

Full text

The Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) celebrated a major milestone at this year’s Labour Day Parade in Toronto. After four years of community outreach and non-stop organizing, the AWA recently surpassed the 10,000 member mark – confirming its role as the largest and most dynamic farm worker organization in Canada.
“This is a great achievement for agriculture workers, the labour movement and all social justice activists,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley. “The AWA’s success confirms that farm workers are looking to improve their working conditions through collective action, and that a growing number of agriculture workers are seeing the AWA as the leading voice for justice, decency and fairness in one of Canada’s most important industries.”
Each year, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) brings over 30,000 farm workers into Canada to grow and harvest the fruit, vegetables and flowers that make the multi-billion dollar agriculture industry possible.
Agriculture workers from different regions of Ontario came out in force for this year’s Labour Day Parade in Toronto, where they gathered with over 600 UFCW Canada activists to celebrate the achievements of workers and the AWA’s milestone. Other AWA members participated in Labour Day events in Windsor and Vancouver.
In association with UFCW Canada – Canada’s largest private-sector union – the AWA operates ten agriculture worker support centres across the country.

Links

Economic sectors

Agriculture and horticulture workers

Content types

Support initiatives

Target groups

Public awareness

Regulation domains

Right to change employer, Right to choose place of residence, Right to unionize, Labour standards, Health and safety at work, Newcomers integration programs, Health care & social services, Access to permanent status, Free employment services, Family reunification, Legal aid, Employment insurance, Social security, Remittances and co-development programs, Trips abroad and re-entries, Recrutement / placement agencies, Housing standards, Migration expenses reimbursement mechanisms, Impartial hearing before deportation, Status regularization procedures, Determination fair wages and labour shortage, (Im)migrant workers selection criteria, Right to equality (gender), Right to equality (national origin), Right to equality (social status), Right to liberty, Right to dignity, Right to privacy, and Right to proper information

Geographical focuses

Canada, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia, Other provinces, Federal, and Nova Scotia

Languages

French and English