Tracking migrant farm worker productivity at centre of union campaign that aims to educate the industry

The way migrant farm workers' productivity is tracked, and possible consequences for moving too slowly, are at the centre of a campaign from a union that represents them.

Last year, the Ontario government passed legislation requiring businesses with more than 25 employees to create policies and let workers know how employers might be using their personal information.

Santiago Escobar, a national representative with the United Food and CommercialWorkers (UFCW), said for workers in agriculture, tracking information is already being used and the union wants to bring awareness to that fact.

"For instance this will impact local and migrant agricultural workers and they deserve to know exactly the type of information, the type of data that the employer is using," he said.

"So workers will learn if the employer uses this information, this personal data, to decide if the worker will be rehired the next season, for instance."

Richard Lee, executive director of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG), said the technology has been around for a while and helps farming operations find efficiencies and can be used to help track food safety issues.

"In using these labour management systems, you're able to identify the individual role that that produce was picked and the employee," he said.

"So if you ever had a … food safety issue that you had to identify potential lots of produce that were picked that day."

But Escobar said he's heard from workers that the data is used to measure progress and speed, and can result in punishments for employees who aren't working fast enough.

"We have learned that especially migrant agricultural workers in Ontario are threatened on a regular basis. So basically if they don't work fast, they will be sent back home," he said.

"It is a common practice for those working in greenhouses or mushroom facilities to be tracked with these so-called productivity software."

Escobar said there are often TVs set up displaying each workers progress, and if someone is falling behind, he's heard instances of them being docked pay, or given a few unpaid days off as punishment.

Lee said he's never heard of anything like that happening.

"They're trying to manage their labour, trying to manage, harvest and reduce costs. It's not to penalize employees or to have any kind of retribution applied to workers," he said.

"We're subject to all labour laws as are any other businesses in Ontario."

Escobar said that while the legislation won't stop the practice, it will at least force employers to tell employees what information is being tracked, and how it will be used.

He said the system leads to employees working under duress, and sometimes in an unsafe way because they want to keep up the pace.

"They feel that if they don't work fast enough, they know that they will be punished or will be sent back home. So they work under a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and workers really complain about it," he said.

"You have to work very fast and in order to achieve the set quota, you won't be able to practice and follow all the health and safety regulations."

Lee said the data is essential to making farming sustainable, and data can be used to reward employees.

But Escobar pointed out that a lot of workers are aren't paid a per-unit wage, which means they aren't rewarded, they just have to work faster for the same amount of money.

"Basically, workers are pressured to achieve the set quota even though temporary foreign workers they had to be paid according to their agreements their their contracts, they had to be paid per hour."