Document Details

Abstract: In April 2020, when the Canadian border had just closed due to the pandemic, seasonal migrant workers from the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), particularly those from Mexico, were declared essential and allowed into Canada. A month later, despite the lockdown, Mexican maquiladoras (off-shore assembly plants) for auto parts were told by the government to reopen as essential. The proposed article addresses both of these issues. Methodologically, it is based on a documentary follow-up of ethnographic research on them carried out in recent years. From a political economy perspective, the structural links of seasonal work in the Canadian agri-food sector and work in Mexican maquiladoras with the global economy will be highlighted. It will then be proceeded to show how and for whom this work is indeed essential, while precariousness remains the lot of workers in both sectors. It will also be demonstrated how, in times of pandemic, this precariousness is exacerbated at a structural level and is reflected in the deterioration of working and living conditions for all. This article therefore invites a reconsideration not of the essential character of workers in these two sectors and many others but of the use made of the term itself