Abstract

This research study is an introduction to the understanding of how labour rights are socially organized in Ontario. It uses a combined method of Institutional Ethnography and Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis to locate the historical, social, economic and political events that shape how the labour rights of migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are governed. Migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are not protected under formal labour relations legislation. Their employment relationship is currently governed through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (2002) (AEPA). This study examines the legal structures of the AEPA and the provincial parliamentary debates leading to the legislation of Bill 187- The Agricultural Employees Protection Act. This investigation points to the discovery that the AEPA provides no adequate protection to migrant workers and sustains the current practices that exist in Ontario’s agricultural industry.

Highlights

  • The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them. (Foucault, 1971)With the introduction of Bill 187, the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, in October of 2002, the Ontario government took steps to provide migrant agricultural workers with labour rights

  • I critically analyze the legal structures of the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (AEPA) and conduct a discourse analysis of the political debates for Bill 187 held in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

  • We told them that all services that we provide are free, that union pays for the staff and the centre to be there, that were networking with the community to make the lives better for foreign migrant workers who go into the Leamington4 area, that we’re not there to collect money, and that they can say and do whatever they want. (Preibisch, 2007b, p. 117)

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Summary

Introduction

The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them. (Foucault, 1971)With the introduction of Bill 187, the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, in October of 2002, the Ontario government took steps to provide migrant agricultural workers with labour rights. As will be discussed in this research, migrant agricultural workers are not passive about their working conditions, their claims to labour rights are largely ignored by the Ontario government. This research study uses institutional ethnography and Foucauldian critical discourse analysis to reveal how the labour rights of migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are governed through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (2002) (AEPA).

Results
Conclusion

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