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The United food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is a trade union that focuses on the well being of workers in numerous primary industries like retail, hospitality services and food, but it is particularly known in its fight for two campaigns involving agricultural workers and Wal-Mart employees. On account of its particular trade union status and its representation of workers in a wide variety of industries, the UFCWs

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engagement takes place on a number of levels and with several state, corporate, and civil actors (OBrien 136). While proponents of UFCW deem them a success story since they have accomplished a lot over the years, opponents would beg to differ, in claiming that if one where to look outside the box unto the broader picture, one would realize that UFCW have not made much progress in the fight for their workers. This essay will be contending against the United Food and Commercial Workers in terms of their success rate in achieving bargaining rights for migrant farm workers, their disappointments in the WalMart campaign and, their lack of interest in acquiring Canadian citizenship for the Livein- caregivers program. The first part of this essay will focus on the United Food and Commercial workers, their organization in general as well as their activity in Ontario and Canada, while the second will critique their success in terms of the results gained from their campaigns and projects. The UFCW was formed in 1979 by the merger of the Retail Clerks International Union and the Amalgamated Meat Cutter and Butcher Workmen of the North America (known in Canada as the Canadian Food and Allied Workers), and now, they represent 230,000 Canadian and 1.4 million U.S. workers in more than 20 sectors in the economy, including retailing, processing, manufacturing, health care, security, and other service sectors (Kumar & Schenk 191). Even though UFCW have branched out into many

! sectors of the economy, their main focus is on the food retail, service and processing

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units since most of their membership is generated from these sectors. The UFCW Canada membership is diverse and vibrant and their members work in every province in Canada, in addition to nearly half of all UFCW Canada members being under 30 (www.ufcw.ca). All members are treated on an equal footing, and this includes the temporary foreign agricultural workers in Canada that are included in the campaign created by the UFCW in order to help them fight for their collective rights as well as permanent status in Canada. Moreover, the UFCW treats all members with equal respect regardless of whether they are man or woman, part-time or full time and whether they differ in their level of service or work relationship. In Ontario, the new century has seen a major upsurge of interest and activity surrounding the interrelated questions of farm labour unionization and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SWAP), a guest worker program which brings thousands of migrant laborers to the province each year (Butovsky and Smith 69). Thus, the UFCW has been approaching as well as putting enough pressure on the government in order to challenge the Ontario Legislation and create a change involving the rights of migrant workers in Canada. Accordingly, in 2008, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a UFCW Canada challenge that the Ontario legislative prohibition of farm unions was a violation of workers rights under Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms (www.ufcw.ca). This constituted one of the major fights this union struck up for the agricultural workers in Ontario since issues involving health and safety were becoming quite dangerous as work sessions passed during this seasonal program. Even though the

! case was forwarded to the Supreme Court of Justice, the high court denied Ontario farm workers from gaining the same rights to join union bargaining. Likewise, in 2009, the United Food and Commercial Workers decided to change

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their approach by filing their Ontario complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO), asking the body to investigate the denial of collective bargaining rights to farm workers by the government of Ontario (www.nupge.ca). They decided to follow the mannerisms of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), since they have successfully won cases using the method of stating vividly how governments within Canada have violated human rights, as well as international treaties. The ILO was a suitable choice because migrants labor rights were first articulated in two ILO conventions: Convention concerning migration for employment and the Convention concerning migrations in abusive conditions and the promotion of equality of opportunity and treatment of migrant workers, which help set the principles of non-discrimination for legally admitted migrant workers (Basok and Carasco 347). Farm workers are experiencing such hard times today, and that farm owners are violating human rights conventions daily. The main purpose for this complaint is to help the UFCW put enough pressure on government to change their legislation on bargaining rights since this strongly involves the violation of human rights. In Canada however, the United Food and Commercial workers focuses on other projects like the Live-in-Caregivers program which entails people, especially women, having to live in the private homes of individuals so as to care for either children, elderly persons or persons with disabilities. These women are exploited by their employers in the most horrid manner and thus, the UFCW Canada activists lend their support to the cause

! in various ways. Hence, in 2009, this campaign was able to gain an Ontario legislation called Bill-210 (www.ontla.on.ca) that would prevent any form of discrimination from taking place during the recruitment process for the potential caregivers. Wayne Hanley,

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the national president of UFCW Canada, stated that this legislation was an important first step towards granting live-in-caregivers some of the protection that are available to other workers in this province (New provincial legislation). So, among the migrant projects in Canada, workers involved in this project are the only ones given rights fully as against the agricultural farmers that are still struggling. Basically, these migrant workers are fully protected like any Canadian citizen, and can fully exercise them under the law but this doesnt mean that they cant face discrimination from their employers. Consequently, Wal-Mart is now the worlds largest corporation by total sales (or turnover), exceeding the total sales of General Motors, the long-time leader, even before GMs recent precipitous decline, and what makes them such a target for corporate campaigners, is its cutthroat corporate culture, which, in its own words, drives every penny of excess cost out of production (Conroy 257). Here, employees are not taken into consideration and this leads to the exploitation of workers. Thus, the United Food and Commercial workers made Wal-Mart a priority within their union, in order to help the members acquire their rights as workers. UFCW feels that as Canadas largest privatesector union with a strong history of activism, they have a commitment to ensuring that the labour and human rights of Wal-Mart workers in Canada is respected (www.ufcw.ca). So, since the launch of their campaign, workers of this corporation, within different provinces, have been applying to become UFCW members so as to gain a collective agreement.

! At this point, we will now approach the main thesis of this essay, which involves the critique of the United Food and Commercial Workers success rate in dealing with their numerous campaigns and projects. Since the late 1960s, the Canadian government has granted temporary employment authorization to men and women as agricultural

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workers in the horticultural industry, first from the Caribbean and later from Mexico and thus, the number of people employed under the Caribbean and Mexican Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SWAP) became significant since in 2002, over 15,000 foreign workers were employed in agriculture in the Province of Ontario (Preibisch 1). This project generated reliable as well as enough workers for Canadian agricultural farmers and soon enough, some Canadians joined the program. This led to an increase in exploitation and discrimination since workers had no knowledge of the rights pertaining to them as workers of Canada. Hence, a comment by one worker stated, The treat us like slaves. The Mexican government sells us and the Canadian government exploits us (Dirty Work). This issue involving the Canadian Agricultural Workers Program is based solely on the UFCWs campaign for their collective rights, which were mentioned earlier. However, these migrant workers in constructive places like Ontario and Alberta still havent obtained their right to bargain or strike in the workplace over all the years UFCW used in campaigning for bargaining rights especially. This campaign has been going on since 1980, which is quite a long time, and people feel that since the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been performing an active role in the fight for the migrant workers rights through court cases, that means they are achieving something or doing their job. However, the only accomplishments they have obtained for their workers

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are legislations written by the Supreme Court after hours and hours of court sessions. For example, in 2001 the Supreme Court of Canada made a decision directed to a provincial government legislation made by the conservatives to extend the rights of association to agricultural workers but not the right to bargain or to strike (Butovsky and Smith 81). This court case was brought up when the conservative government run by Mike Harris removed the Agricultural Labour Act (ALRA) from labour reform. Thus, the UFCW felt the need to challenge this policy and the end product was a toothless association without a great deal of rights for the migrant agricultural workers. Likewise, shortly after the historic labour board ruling in Manitoba, most of Mayfair Farm workers signed a petition asking that the certification be overturned on the grounds that they didnt understand what they signed (The Canadian Press). Only a year ago, these farm workers in the west of Winnipeg voted to certify a UFCW union in order to gain employment rights through a collective agreement. However, they couldnt understand what they gained in the process so decided to decertify. This shows an obvious example of why the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been unsuccessful in their campaign for migrant farm workers in Canada. These workers felt that working long hours and gaining enough money to send home was their top priority as against gaining their employment rights but this should not be their mindset. The UFCW need to address such issues and thoroughly explain to their members the rational behind obtaining such rights as Canadian workers. This would also generally hinder them from acquiring permanent status in Canada since people without certain rights cannot be recognized as a citizen of a country.

! Additionally, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been

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attempting to unionize Wal-Mart stores for many years, but with little or no success since the only retail store in North America that was successfully unionized, in a process validated by the Canadian government was in Jonquiere, Quebec, 150 miles north of Quebec City, in October 2004 (Conroy 264). This portrays a scenario where the UFCW gave up on Ontario Wal-Mart workers and decided to focus on Quebec because their courts and government might be more lenient towards their labour laws and legislation. This was definitely an accurate assumption by them because the province has unique labour laws, so the union utilized this and gained authorization by collecting signed cards from a majority of workforce instead of having to go through a formal election (Dicker 13). Even though they obtained this victory, it was short lived because Wal-Mart announced not long after that the closing of the store due to financial reasons. With workers at other Wal-Marts elsewhere in the province preparing a similar organizing drive, along with several more in Montreal and Windsor, the sudden closing of that store caused a 74 percent and 75 percent respectively against the unionization of workplaces in these regions (Bianco Chapter 5). This was quite a disappointment for the UFCW activists since it would have been a clear win for the union otherwise. As a result, the worker of Wal-Mart in Windsor decided to avoid unionization to prevent any job insecurity after a certification of a union at their workplace. This transpired during the 1960s when the United Food and Commercial Workers Union was certified to represent the workers at Wal-Mart store in Windsor, Ontario, making it the first organized Wal-Mart in Canada due to the granted certification given by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) (Homas and Pupo 243). This was attained easily enough

! as well since there were reports on Wal-Mart stating that they practiced unfair labour in their company, and this got them the decision from the Board. Shortly, the news of the Wal-Mart store in Quebec closing after its unionization caused a bit of tension and fear

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among workers in Windsor, thus they voted to decertify. So, despite the millions spent on a massive national campaign funds provided via mysterious channels from U.S. and Canadian sources, the UFCW has yet to gain support from even on single store (Corcoran, Wal-Mart workers in Windsor). If this huge problem is not solved anytime soon, the UFCW will not gain much success in their campaign against Wal-Marts treatment of workers in Canada. Furthermore, the United Food and Commercial Workers Program has been a main supporter for the Live-in Caregivers Program (LCP). This is because they are activists that join in the rallying campaigns organized by coalition for change in Canada (www.ufcw.ca). This program exists in Canada because there is a shortage of people willing to live in anothers home in order to provide caregiving services on a 24-hour basis. Basically, the Live-in Caregivers Program is a special program whose intention is to bring workers to Canada to do live-in work as caregivers when there are not enough Canadians available to fill the positions left vacant (Pratt 41). This has undoubtedly shown the use of migrants in this program, especially migrants from Philippines and the Caribbean, since the assertion above made mention of the program being used only when there arent enough Canadians for the job. This would definitely lead to the exploitation and discrimination of these women similar to the agricultural workers in Canada. However, in the 1980s, the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) occurred owing to the effective political organizing of domestic workers, and thus led to the creation of a

! two-year probation for women in the live-in program in which after, they can apply for permanent resident status that puts them on the road to formal citizenship (Evans and

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Wekerle). The UFCW would then claim that their work has been made easier since these women will obtain citizenship after, but that is a false assumption. This is a false assumption because there are still tons of restrictions placed on these females during the probation period that leads to a rejection of their process to permanent residency. For example, Tejada, a migrant woman who served as a nanny in Alberta after her arrival in Canada IN 2003, was denied an open work permit and permanent residency in 2006 because the Alberta immigration officer indicated that she had a medical condition called the metastatic colon cancer, which would cause her further excess demand on health and social services (Simmons110). This indicates one of the reasons why the United Food and Commercial Workers should not ignore the issues of the live-in caregiver program. On the other hand, the United Food and Commercial Workers have dedicated much of their time in successfully creating initiatives and programs so as to increase the participation and involvement into their youth membership in order to inspire much commitment to their union as well as new energy within their leadership and rank and file membership (Liu and OHalloran 191). This would help in the future sustainability of their organization since much of their campaigns and projects mentioned earlier have still not seen lasting results over the years. Every local division needs to rear future leaders that are passionate enough to help build and project UFCW values and interests or the union will not survive a future crisis. An example of this would be the UFCW National Canadian Office hiring a youth coordinator to organize the youth initiatives and

! programs, which they launched in 2000 (Kainer 229) called the National Youth

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Internship Program. This program was created for an educational basis built on teaching the young members the different aspects of labour and well as the forms of duty they would take when involved seriously within the union, either in a leadership role or as a general member. Local unions agreed with this program wholeheartedly that they began promoting this initiative within their locations. The national youth and internship program is an education and training program designed specifically for young members, in addition to laying down the foundation for the UFCW Canada youth to begin building a youth agenda within the local union and due to its success, 78 members participated in the program by the end of 2005 (Liu and OHalloran 194). This is a good decision by the UFCW because the youth of today seem to be more focused on other issues and neglect the ones that may affect them in future. Also, the increasing aging population of workers would get one to be very much worried about when most of their membership decides to retire and leave only the youth in the union. In addition to this, more and more young people are entering the workforce and less of them are willing to join any unions, so this also plays a part in promoting the genuine and good aspects of UFCW Canada to the youth about to enter the labour market for the first time. This led to the situation in 2009, when the UFCW had 1.3 million members, of whom 40 percent were young workers, which is remarkable considering the general problems organizing youth (Docherty and Van der Velden 273). This initiative actually produced lasting results for the union to thrive in the future so as to fulfill some of the campaigns and projects that havent been successfully accomplished.

! In Conclusion, this essay was supposed to portray the contending argument against the United Food and Commercial Workers in terms of their success rate in

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achieving bargaining rights for migrant farm workers, their disappointments in the WalMart campaign and, their lack of interest in acquiring Canadian citizenship for the Livein- caregivers program. Therefore, in order for the UFCW to increase their success rate in accomplishing their various campaigns and initiatives, they need to first understand their workers properly in terms of their needs and wants, in addition to them educating their members so as to generate an accurate demand from them involving their need as workers, as well as their acceptance of a union in their everyday life.

! Bibliography

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Bianco, Anthony. The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Costs of Wal-Marts Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America. US: New York, 2003. Print. Butovsky, Jonah, and E. G. Smith Murray. "Beyond Social Unionism: Farm Workers in Ontario and some Lessons from Labour History." Labour.59 (2007): 69,97,78. ABI/INFORM Global; CBCA Complete; ProQuest Business Collection. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Conroy, E. Michael. Branded!: How the Certification Revolution is Transforming Global Corporations. Canada: BC, 2007. Print. Corcoran, Terence. "Wal-Mart Workers in Windsor Tell Union to Get Lost." CanWest News: 1. Mar 10 2005. CBCA Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Dirty Work. IWC Research Group (2006). CBCA Complete. Web. 17 November 2012. Dicker, John. The United States of Wal-Mart. USA: New York, 2005. Print Docherty, C. James and Van der Velden, Sjaar. United Food and Commercial Workers. Historical Dictionary of Organized Labour. 2012. Print. Evans, M. Patricia and Wekerle, R. Gerda. Women and the Canadian Welfare State: Challenges and Changes. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Print. Homas P. Mark and Pupo, J. Norene. Interrogating the New Economy: Restructuring Work in the 21st Century. Canada: Toronto, 2010. Print. Kainer, Jay. Cashing in on Pay Equity: Supermarket restructuring and Gender Equality. Canada: York University, 2002. Print. Kumar, Pradeep and Schenk Christopher. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences. New York: Broadview Press, 2006. Print.

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Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Bill 210: Employment Protection for Foreign Nationals Act (Live0in Caregivers and Others), 2009. Web. 12 November 2012. <http://www.ontla.on.ca. Liu, Anna and OHalloran, Christopher. Mobilizing Young People: A Case Study of UFCW and Young Initiatives and Programs. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences. New York: Broadview Press, 2006. 191-200. Print. National Union of Public and General Employees. UFCW Canada files Complaint with ILO. Web. 13 November 2012. <http://www.nupge.ca. "New Provincial Legislation Grants some Protection to Live-in-Caregivers but Fails to Protect Other Migrant Workers." Marketwire (2009) CBCA Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. OBrien, Robert. Solidarity First: Canadian Workers and Social Cohesion. Canada: UBC, 2008. Print. Pratt, Geraldine. Working Feminism. US: Temple University Press, 2004. Print. Russo, Robert. CASE COMMENT: Temporarily Unchained: The Drive to Unionize Foreign Seasonal Agricultural Workers in Canada - A Comment on Greenway Farms and UFCW. BC Studies.169 (2011): 131,141,176. CBCA Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Santin, Aldo, and Free, P. Winnipeg. "Manitoba Migrant Workers Vote to Decertify Union Two Years After Joining." The Canadian Press. Aug 07 2009. CBCA Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Simmons, B. Alan. Immigration and Canada: Global and Transnational Perspectives. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2010. Print.

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United Food and Commercial Workers. Canadas Largest Private Sector Union. Web. 15 November 2012. <http:// www.ufcw.ca.