**2. Occupational health and safety standards, guidelines, and policies**

Foreign workers' legal residence status is tied to their employment contractual obligations, which stipulates access to healthcare, occupational health insurance, working and living conditions. Thus, individual workers lack full control over maintaining their own health and safety conditions, even if the guidelines are stipulated by the inter-governmental authorities of sending and receiving countries. The FSFWs' legal residence status in Canada is entirely based on their employment contractual stipulations that results in lack of control in determining their own health and safe working and living circumstances, since they are fully dependent on the conditions set by their employers [15–17]. The situation of lack of policies and regulations to protect foreign worker conditions is not unique to Canada. In Norway, though they have established different regulations for foreign seasonal workers, called transitional rules, the Norwegian researchers found these statelevel formal labour regulations were not sufficiently implemented at the farm level resulting in structurally disempowered Polish farm workers, who had to accept the unhealthy working conditions provided by their Norwegian employers [18]. In Thailand, the existing regulations for local farm workers' protection from; labour, health, housing and sanitary conditions and health insurance, do not apply to migrant workers [19]. More so the existing policies, regulations and standards are not translated into accessible information. Canadian researchers have identified lack of information resources as a barrier to the maintenance of FSFWs health in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia [15–17]. The situations of lack of proper labour regulations to protect migrant farm workers and evidence of non-compliance to existing guidelines were universal and were not unique to one country.

In the first scoping review, we reviewed 27 online documents including FSFW recruitment documents, contracts, and information provided by relevant nongovernmental and governmental agencies, pertaining to occupational health and safety of migrant farm workers in Canada. Inductive analysis of the text data collected from the documents revealed (a) lack of clear identification of parties responsible for implementing and monitoring health and safety guidelines and (b) there were no mechanisms of facilitating existing health and safety information dissemination to FSFWs. Upon further review, it became clear that documents were not targeted specifically towards FSFWs and several documents were written at very high reading levels, at collage level and none of the FSFWs has reached that level. This "*passing the buck*" practice of evading the responsibility to keep FSFWs occupationally healthy and free from injuries needs to be fully explored.

#### **2.1 Parties responsible for monitoring health and safety guidelines**

The scoping review of the documents revealed that the health and safety of Canadian FSFWs is the joint effort of three parties: a) workers, b) employers, and/or c) third parties including federal health agencies, Canadian police, workers' home government organizations and agents, farm owners (where not the employer), and local, provincial, and Canadian labour and social development departments. Workers are responsible for helping employers to make the workplace safe by ensuring they obtain sufficient training to safely carry out their assigned

*Occupational Wellbeing*

**1.2 Vulnerability**

exposure to COVID-19.

revealed contradictions to the written obligations, that are clearly stated in the contract documents. Wherein the employers' agreement states "*That according to the approved guidelines and regulations in the province/territory where the WORKER is employed the EMPLOYER shall take the WORKER to obtain health coverage in a timely manner*." [13], which never becomes a reality since provincial regulations requires minimum of 12-month residency in the province of Nova Scotia and SAWP workers who comes for an eight-month contract never becomes eligible. New provisions have been added to the contract due to COVID-19, whereby the employer is required to submit a Housing Inspection Report prior to or during the time of application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada to obtain farm permits under SAWP (12). Workplace safety insurance in Canada is provided by provincial insurance provider Workers Compensations Board of Canada and the SAWP contract indicates that the employers must ensure that the workers are covered by provincial workplace safety insurance at no cost to them and in a situation that private insurance plan is preferred

employers, must ensure the coverage is the same as the provincial plan [12].

Only a few studies have examined the health and safety of SAWP in Canada and how the contractual obligations were met was understudied. The limited research has revealed significant barriers for healthcare accessibility, lack of proper occupational health and safety standards and noncompliance to existing guidelines. Recent global pandemic of COVID-19 has claimed three FSFW deaths and thousands of other FSFWs have been tested positive in Canada. There is an outcry from activist groups representing FSFWs, demanding actions on justice on migrant workers' health. This population falls under vulnerable populations based on Canadian public health guidelines. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, vulnerable communities of COVID-19 includes those with; difficulties in communication, difficulties in accessing healthcare and engaging in preventive activities such as frequent hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, difficulties in accessing transportation, unstable employment and working conditions, living in geographically isolated remote areas and insecure and inadequate housing conditions [14]. Albeit FSFWs have all of the above conditions that categorize them as vulnerable to COVID-19, there were no proper health safety measures taken to prevent their

This chapter comprise findings from three studies. Author led research team carried out a scoping reviews of the documents from non-governmental and governmental agencies, specifically aiming at the health and safety of FSFWs, followed by individual interviews with FSFWs and farmers (their employers). Third scoping review was carried out on COVID-19 related public health measures and extent to which these measures were applied to FSFWs in Canada using gray literature, pertaining to pandemic related health and safety concerns of the FSFWs. In this chapter, attention will be paid to contractual obligations of FSFWs through the documents available to them and the status of implementation of occupational health and safety guidelines will be examined through. Resurrection of occupational health and safety is a joint effort of the workers and employers. I have presented an exploration of present working conditions, individual and systemic barriers and incentives that prevent/promote hazardous working environments. Finally, existing guidelines and policies and the research-based evidence on individual and systemic factors that impede or promote occupational health and safety of FSFWs will be applied and evaluated to COVID-19 pandemic case scenario using the findings from the third scoping review. Given the limited geographical scope of the authors interview data, comparisons will be made to research findings that

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tasks and refusing to carry out tasks they deem unsafe. Employers (farmers) are responsible for ensuring safety in the workplace by following provincial labour regulations and occupational health and safety guidelines. Third parties are responsible for monitoring the necessary guidelines and policies are followed by the two parties, workers and employers. None of the documents indicated, how the multi-partied responsibilities are imposed, implemented, monitored and assessed to ensure health and safety of FSSFWs. According to the government of Canada, Temporary Foreign workers your rights are protected document stated ""*All workers in Canada have the right to a safe workplace. Canada has laws to protect workers from unsafe working conditions. While some jobs may have more risk than others, no one should feel that the work they are doing is unsafe*." [13]. In reality, the protection of the rights are not facilitated, and the laws of protection are not conveyed. Even when they feel that the work is unsafe, there is no way out of the situation due to the fear of losing their job and denial of rehiring again. The international literature suggests two models of responsibilities related to Occupational Safety and Health of workers: (a) introspective model, the one which directs resources to the worker's need and (b) extrospective model is the one, which ensures safety standards prior to seeing the effect on workers [3, 4]. Given that FSFWs work in hazardous work environments, their risk of occupational injuries is high and the need to follow safety protocols should be made mandatory prior to seeing the need. Therefore, the extrospective model would be more appropriate.
