Migrant workers were not for-gotten by a Vancouver human rights group that held a “vigil for the silenced” on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, 2010.
The group, dubbed the Coalition for Migrant Workers’ Justice, was born with the support of the local Kairos committee, and is backed by a number of churches and other associations devoted to workers’ rights.
Janette McIntosh, a member of West Point Grey, Vancouver, Kairos Vancouver and the coalition, called attention to a November 2010 report from the UN International Labour Organization, which ruled that Canada and Ontario violated the rights of more than 100,000 farm workers when it barred them from forming unions. According to the United Nations, Ontario’s Agricultural Employees Act of 2002 violates two UN conventions – convention 87, which calls for freedom of association and protection of the right to organize, and convention 98, which guarantees a right to organize and collectively bargain.
The vigil brought together members from Kairos Vancouver, as well as churches and numerous human rights and labour groups. – C.Purvis
