Barriers to accessing health, legal and social rights

Both by virtue of working in agriculture, and because of their temporary status, migrant agricultural workers are afforded fewer rights and protections than non-agricultural and non-migrant workers. First, they are allowed entry into Canada on a temporary basis, and their ability to work in Canada is specific to one employer, effectively making labour mobility very difficult. The fear of being deported or losing their place in the program in future years is a justifiable fear for many workers (Marsden, 2019b). Return to the program is often contingent on an employer renaming process, which can contribute to a coercive workplace environment in which migrant workers may be reticent to refuse unsafe work conditions (Goldring et al., 2009). Furthermore, even though this group pays into several income and retirement benefits, these entitlements are difficult to access for many of them, in part because of their temporary status. At the provincial level, this workforce is exempt from certain protections and minimum entitlements, such as vacations, overtime, and some unemployment benefits which further contributes to their precarity (Vosko et al., 2019).

As a result, migrant agricultural workers' ability to access supports and services and assert their rights is largely determined by structural factors inherent to migrant agricultural programs (Caxaj & Cohen, 2021; Rodgers, 2018; Vosko et al., 2019). Scholars and migrants have documented problems with Canada's migrant worker programs for decades. Poor housing and living conditions are ubiquitous, and there is a lack of government monitoring or inspections. Consequently, the onus is placed upon the worker to raise concerns about these abuses (Caxaj & Cohen, 2021; Vosko et al., 2019).

This workforce also faces significant barriers and vulnerabilities in accessing and navigating legal, health, and social services. For instance, lack of English fluency, low formal literacy levels and dependence on employers to access medical services all negatively impact the medical trajectory of a migrant agricultural worker (Caxaj & Cohen, 2019, 2021; Colindres et al., 2021; Hennebry et al., 2016). Prior research also indicates that migrant workers report limited knowledge of their legal rights and entitlements, relying on informal rather than official channels to understand legal issues (Marsden, 2019a; Rodgers, 2018). Given the multi-faceted nature of barriers and conditions that shape workers' access to services and protections, further research is required to develop strategies to address this myriad of vulnerabilities.

Exclusion and efforts to address exclusion

The nature of temporary migrant worker programs and the lack of oversight that characterizes the protections and entitlements afforded to migrant workers translate into a very pervasive type of marginality. Described as perpetual liminality (Hennebry et al., 2016), relentless border walls (Caxaj & Cohen, 2021), structural violence (Robillard et al., 2018), and social quarantining (Horgan & Liinamaa, 2017), scholars have documented gaps in protections, services, and community connections for this group that are systemic in nature. In many cases, even when entitlements do exist “on paper,” they are not seen in practice. This disconnect occurs for several reasons and includes employers positioned as gatekeepers and mediators to services and protections, and provincial health systems and local service providers that are not equipped to meet the unique needs of this population (Hennebry et al., 2016). In addition, occupational health and safety standards lack meaningful measures to ensure the protection of this vulnerable workforce (McLaughlin et al., 2014). Furthermore, a lack of training and orientation to safety protocols exacerbates risks in the workplace (Colindres et al., 2021).

Migrant agricultural workers often experience exclusion from Canadian society and report experiencing alienation, feelings of non-belonging, and outright discrimination and hostility in host communities (Basok & George, 2020; Beckford, 2016; Cohen, 2019; Hjalmarson et al., 2015; Preibisch, 2004). This population has very limited opportunities to become permanent residents, meaning that many work in Canada for decades yet remain “permanently temporary” (Hennebry, 2012). Temporary status is used as a justification to deny rights and protections to migrant farmworkers who do not have full access to labour rights and protections (Faraday, 2012; Marsden, 2019a) and who have tenuous access to social rights and public space (Caxaj et al., 2020b). Basok and George (2020) found that separation from family and the lack of labour mobility in Canada were two major factors that impeded workers' sense of inclusion in host communities. Further, they found that workers reported feeling that their work was not recognized or valued, another factor contributing to their sense of non-belonging.

Few scholars have examined organized efforts to address workers' isolation and exclusion in the Canadian context. Gabriel and MacDonald (2011) carried out interviews with civil society organizations (CSOs) in order to investigate the role they play in helping workers access social rights. They found that despite differences in understanding and perceptions of migrants' rights across the groups, the efforts of CSOs had the potential to promote workers' belonging in communities, promote their access to social rights and challenge the dichotomy between citizen and non-citizen. Preibisch (2004) documented the efforts of faith-based groups, CSOs and individuals in communities to address the isolation and exclusion faced by this group. Our own previous work (Caxaj & Cohen, 2020) has examined the challenges in providing support to migrant farmworkers in British Columbia, identifying 4 key strategies to supporting this population, one of which was building trust and community, through which other aspects of more complex support provision could be enabled, including strategies of anticipating and addressing barriers, and acknowledging rights and system accountability. Through the research we report on here, we sought to build on our prior work by further exploring the elements of a partnered intervention involving several sectors to meet the needs of migrant workers.

Hierarchy of supports, basics come first towards comprehensiveness

The existence of “layers of vulnerability” or various levels of structural disadvantage has been noted by researchers studying the experiences of migrant agricultural workers (Sargeant & Tucker, 2009; Vosko et al., 2019). Likewise, both migrant agricultural workers and service providers we interviewed highlighted the complex and multi-layered nature of the support needs of this population, recognizing that in order to address the higher-level concerns (such as launching a legal complaint), workers' most immediate or basic concerns (such as housing and food) had to be addressed first.

This dynamic was illustrated by Jason's experience. An agricultural worker from Jamaica, Jason contacted intervention staff after he suffered racial discrimination by his employer and was ultimately terminated and told he must leave the country. After consulting with support model staff, Jason decided he wanted to apply for an Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, 2021) so he could continue to work in Canada and support his family in Jamaica. However, he was concerned about where he would live and how he would buy food and other necessities while he awaited a decision on his open work permit application, a process that can take up to several months. Ultimately, the intervention staff were able to coordinate short-term housing and funds to cover basic costs until a decision could be made on his application. Jason's case demonstrates that a variety of urgent material needs must be addressed before a worker can even consider undertaking a legal complaint or application to change their status in Canada. Through such accounts, migrant agricultural workers emphasized the need for the most elemental types of service provision, highlighting that many individuals are in survival mode.

Mariano's account highlights the importance of receiving support to address his most basic needs—food, clothing, and emotional support—and describes how receiving such support was linked to his ability and desire to demand protection and denounce injustice. By thinking through the various sources of precarity faced by migrant agricultural workers, service providers were able to offer more realistic and comprehensive support. Prior research with service providers in Quebec and Ontario has used the framework of structural violence to understand various intersecting factors that undermine migrant agricultural workers' freedom and access to services and protections (Robillard et al., 2018). Our research contributes to necessary elaboration of this concept within the context of service provision for this group, and by identifying the influence of a “hierarchy of need,” these findings may help service providers proactively address barriers to meaningful support.

Trust is key, face-to-face is best, towards connection

Alberto directly linked the trust and close relationship with support people with his comfort in requesting support or help when he needed it, implying that had this relationship of trust not existed, he may not have reached out.

Another worker described his experience in Canada prior to meeting the support team as “a feeling of powerlessness,” in contrast to his experience after he had established a relationship with the support team, which he described as feeling as though he “had a weapon here.” These types of reflections helped to convey both the impact of the available support for individuals, but also the perceived level of threat and vulnerability that some participants felt as a migrant agricultural worker living on a Canadian farm.

Prior empirical examination of the construct of trust between underserved populations and service providers has identified ideals of warmth, openness, working towards mutually determined goals, and appreciation of cultural differences as important components of trust-building (Valenti et al., 2020). And researchers working with migrant agricultural workers have long acknowledged the importance of spending time with this population to facilitate the research process and develop more rich and authentic findings (Caxaj & Diaz, 2018; Helps, 2020). In both of these contexts, trust must be viewed as a catalyst from which a working partnership is further developed (Cattell, 2001). Yet despite the complexity of this principle, trust may sometimes be used as a euphemism or treated as a given. Considering workers' particular interest in face-to-face communication, future research could explore the unique dimension of physical visits in establishing trust and rapport, while encouraging support persons to consider the complexity of trust-building overall.

The importance of trust and face-to-face interactions may in part reveal the structural challenges that are determining workers' quality of life. To elaborate, the historical and current-day context of isolation often faced by this group has long been documented. Lozanski and Baumgartner (2020) refer to this dynamic as a “regulated invisibility,” which is largely mediated by workers' temporary and restricted work status, as well as the limited protections they are afforded. The above quotes speak to the importance of physical proximity both for establishing trust and also for addressing the complex barriers that are exacerbated by this group's marginality. Overall, our research sheds light on the complexity of relationships/connectedness, both in terms of its implications for building trust towards comprehensive service provision, but also as a unique source of agency for a population enduring profound experiences of vulnerability.

Role clarity and communication towards coordination

The nature of the services provided required complex navigation and creative partnerships. With multiple organizational partners with different mandates and skill sets, the need for role clarity in relation to other partners became very important to the functioning of the intervention. At times, the differences in organizational mandates were a real strength because it provided complementary support that highlighted the unique organizational priorities and skill sets. Yet, these differences in emphasis and valuing of services could also be sources of confusion or friction, and some organizations (including support intervention partners) could be unaware of certain resources held by an organization that could support their work. In the case of both of these challenges, ongoing communication and proactive solutions were required to develop greater clarity in each partner organization's role.

Another service provider involved in the intervention agreed with this sentiment and suggested that in the future it would be helpful if partner organizations had opportunities “just to have a better sense of what the organizations are doing…”

Prior research has identified several strategies that can strengthen organizational partnerships, including: involving stakeholders in the process of envisioning; ongoing communication towards establishing communities of practice; concrete support towards specific tasks and; an appreciative governance style that embraces a diversity of actors and fosters parity in participation and support (Corbin et al., 2018; Pucher et al., 2015). Yet co-management of a programme can be made vulnerable by limitations in organizational resources and gaps in leadership (Kekez et al., 2018). While our academic team worked to provide both an organizational structure and resources to guide the intervention (e.g. training, mentorship and regular meetings), further financial support, especially through buy-out support for each organization's leadership and supervisory time could have enabled a more collaborative process. An implication of this research is to encourage funders and government bodies wishing to support such services to establish concrete funding for project coordination and shared leadership styles of service delivery, especially given ongoing and renewed interest in intersectoral partnerships for health and well-being (Corbin et al., 2018).

Wider constraints, towards contextual understandings

These wider constraints also had real implications for the availability, access, and use of services. Migrant agricultural workers told us it was important to be supported by someone who could accompany them throughout the justice-seeking process, for example, a legal navigator. In terms of existing services, worker participants identified many gaps and troublesome practices in service delivery that created further barriers to receive help. For instance, many shared examples where they had not been offered independent translation and had had to rely on their employer or supervisor to translate on their behalf. This created difficulties in receiving appropriate medical care or legal advice, and at times involved meddling or gatekeeping by employers or employer representatives.

In other cases, workers reported having to navigate the healthcare system alone without any support. Furthermore, clinicians we interviewed expressed confusion around migrant agricultural workers' eligibility for provincial medical coverage and workplace compensation, which posed a challenge for those who needed to access those benefits. Some clinicians admitted not knowing what benefits and protections migrant workers were eligible for or how to find out. One clinician was surprised that these workers were able to make workplace compensation claims, raising the question, how many claims had gone unreported?

Many service providers who partnered closely or staffed the intervention also discussed the learning curve for working with migrant agricultural workers, and also the need for the wider service system to gain more awareness of the unique barriers faced by this population. Support providers had many examples of ways they had to advocate for migrant workers, orient and help them adapt to health and legal systems, and overcome many obstacles because the system simply was not equipped or prepared to meet the needs of this group. For example, the outreach worker discussed mapping out options for health clinics, considering which provided direct billing for workers' private insurance rather than requiring them to pay upfront, which provided financial support with diagnostic testing, and which would send them an unexpected bill in the mail. These were often costs and considerations that migrant agricultural workers were not aware of. Continuity in care was also sometimes disrupted by workers' limited familiarity with the healthcare system.

Within the COVID-19 context, many migrant agricultural workers in Canada were placed in even more precarious positions. And despite the intervention teams' efforts to adapt, workers did feel an increase in isolation as a result of limited face-to-face time with the team. Workers understood that this was largely out of the control of the support team, expressing that “this year is impossible” and looking to the future for improvements, saying “let's hope it's not always this way.”

New legal challenges faced by workers in the COVID-19 context were also undertaken by the support intervention team. These cases were important not only for the sake of the specific individuals involved, but also because they had the potential to set a new precedent where current laws in place had not yet fully articulated protections for migrant agricultural workers. Many of the challenges outlined under this theme have been well-documented (Basok, 2002; Faraday, 2012; Hennebry, 2012; Hennebry et al., 2016) and have begun to be explored within the COVID-19 context (Caxaj & Cohen, 2021; Colindres et al., 2021; Haley et al., 2020). Yet, our focus on the experiences of both receiving and delivering services sheds light on tensions that arise amidst this context, and on the-day-to-day implications of these constraints on both the access, navigation and delivery of support services. Ultimately, the complexity of migrant agricultural workers' needs and challenges necessitate multi-pronged approaches and policy-level commitments. And in the absence of these approaches, exclusion may be normalized or a sense of powerlessness among migrant agricultural workers and their supporters may be instilled.