Mitigating Transnational Employment Strain Among Migrant Farmworkers: Principles and Practical Strategies

Attending to the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic deepened structural vulnerabilities previously and routinely experienced by migrant farm workers, this chapter emphasizes how working and living conditions described in Chapter 4 flowed from those established prior to the pandemic. In revealing the excessive levels of employment strain among this essential transnational workforce, this chapter argues that revelations of the pandemic open space for mounting immigration reforms that automatically grant permanent residency status to migrant farmworkers who desire it combined with other structural changes that would improve working conditions for agricultural workers. As such changes in policy require long-term advocacy, consultations, and planning, in the interim this chapter reports on other recommendations articulated by the migrant farmworkers participating in our study. Emanating from the voices of workers themselves, such proposals include: protecting workers from arbitrary dismissal, permanent residency status for injured workers, the implementation of regular unannounced labour inspections on farms with mechanisms to secure worker voice without fear of reprisal, the creation of national housing standards, improvements in wages and thoroughgoing access to income support in periods of unemployment, and opportunities for full access to a wide range of jobs and public services facilitating transitions.