**3.3 Occupational Health and safety issues of FSFWs: employers perspectives**

Two different opinions about occupational health of FSFWs were uncovered, when compared with FSFWs ideas about issues and Canadian farmers (employers) sentiments about their foreign employees' health issues. Some farmers mentioned the workers as "whinny", those who take minor illnesses, like muscle sore, cuts and bruises that general Canadians would ignore, as serious. Farmers further explained the reason for being concerned about minor illnesses as major, because "*their physical health is their bread and butter*". Following two quotes from two farmers supports these perspectives.

**43**

follows.

*Occupational Health and Safety Standards of Foreign Seasonal Farm Workers…*

*"We always do incident reports. But there's never anything serious. It just seemed like one might've had like uh tingling in his foot or something just really odd [minor complain]. And something that that the typical Canadian would ignore. Like they say the typical North American man acts like he's dying when he just has a cold, but then if he's really dying, he ignores it and then it's always too late. But those guys would complain, where a lot of Canadian guys will just shrug that off. One of our guys, one of our local people had a stroke here at work and he ignored it and he* 

Farmers were also under the impression that "*they* [*FSFWs] are thinking oh you know well there's a health care system here that's free and everything and then I want to take advantage of it. Healthcare is not free* [in their country]*,*" and when in Canada, a portion of insurance cost is deducted from their hourly wages. It is mandatory for them to have private health insurance and a portion is also paid by the employer. The notion of FSFWs as complainants of minor illness that the Canadians would shrug off was consistent with all of the farmers that we interviewed. One of the facts that sprung out of farmer's description of workers' occupational injuries, was farmers never paid attention to the fact that those injuries would have been avoided if the workers were wearing protective equipment or if they were given training on correct posture and maneuvering. For example, one farmers explained an eye injury that could have been avoided if the worker was wearing goggles or safety glasses as

*"He was picking roots and he was tugging on a root like that, and the root let go and went up here and hit him in the corner of the eye. So you know, he got some dirt in his eye and stuff and the farmer's wife took him out patients clinic and they flushed his eye out and stuff, put a little patch over it and they [healthcare provid-*

However, serious incidents such of breaking two ribs after falling from a moving wagon was reported by the farmer as the fault of the worker since he was sitting on a pole, something he was not supposed to do. There was no other safe sitting arrangement (seat with a belt to have buckled up) in the wagon. Had the worker have received proper training and safety instructions, on riding on a wagon safely, the injury would have been avoided. However, the following description indicates that the fault was always on the worker and farmer took this serious debilitating injury very lightly. Safety instructions should have been given prior to assigning the tasks.

*"Another fella he was actually doing what he wasn't supposed to be doing and he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing it but. He was standing on the pole of the wagon when they were gathering up irrigation pipes, he slipped off the pole and hit the arm on the tractor, kind of caught him underneath the rib here, and I think it cracked two ribs or something. And they taped him all up and you know and he I* 

There were serious incidents of diagnosis of encephalitis, exacerbation of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure among FSFWs, diabetes, ulcers, and hernia that the farmers reported. Chronic conditions such as diabetes and ulcers may not have direct links farm work related occupational health issues. But work-related stress and poor eating habits can have indirect impacts on diabetes and ulcers. There is literature suggesting high prevalence of hernia in males engaged in manual labour. Encephalitis is known to be associated with tick bites and one worker, who contacted encephalitis was left with a lifetime disability of memory

*think he was off a week or something."*

*ers] told him he would he definitely gonna live and go back home fine."*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94056*

*thought he hurt his arm trimming cabbage."*

*Occupational Health and Safety Standards of Foreign Seasonal Farm Workers… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94056*

*"We always do incident reports. But there's never anything serious. It just seemed like one might've had like uh tingling in his foot or something just really odd [minor complain]. And something that that the typical Canadian would ignore. Like they say the typical North American man acts like he's dying when he just has a cold, but then if he's really dying, he ignores it and then it's always too late. But those guys would complain, where a lot of Canadian guys will just shrug that off. One of our guys, one of our local people had a stroke here at work and he ignored it and he thought he hurt his arm trimming cabbage."*

Farmers were also under the impression that "*they* [*FSFWs] are thinking oh you know well there's a health care system here that's free and everything and then I want to take advantage of it. Healthcare is not free* [in their country]*,*" and when in Canada, a portion of insurance cost is deducted from their hourly wages. It is mandatory for them to have private health insurance and a portion is also paid by the employer. The notion of FSFWs as complainants of minor illness that the Canadians would shrug off was consistent with all of the farmers that we interviewed. One of the facts that sprung out of farmer's description of workers' occupational injuries, was farmers never paid attention to the fact that those injuries would have been avoided if the workers were wearing protective equipment or if they were given training on correct posture and maneuvering. For example, one farmers explained an eye injury that could have been avoided if the worker was wearing goggles or safety glasses as follows.

*"He was picking roots and he was tugging on a root like that, and the root let go and went up here and hit him in the corner of the eye. So you know, he got some dirt in his eye and stuff and the farmer's wife took him out patients clinic and they flushed his eye out and stuff, put a little patch over it and they [healthcare providers] told him he would he definitely gonna live and go back home fine."*

However, serious incidents such of breaking two ribs after falling from a moving wagon was reported by the farmer as the fault of the worker since he was sitting on a pole, something he was not supposed to do. There was no other safe sitting arrangement (seat with a belt to have buckled up) in the wagon. Had the worker have received proper training and safety instructions, on riding on a wagon safely, the injury would have been avoided. However, the following description indicates that the fault was always on the worker and farmer took this serious debilitating injury very lightly. Safety instructions should have been given prior to assigning the tasks.

*"Another fella he was actually doing what he wasn't supposed to be doing and he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing it but. He was standing on the pole of the wagon when they were gathering up irrigation pipes, he slipped off the pole and hit the arm on the tractor, kind of caught him underneath the rib here, and I think it cracked two ribs or something. And they taped him all up and you know and he I think he was off a week or something."*

There were serious incidents of diagnosis of encephalitis, exacerbation of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure among FSFWs, diabetes, ulcers, and hernia that the farmers reported. Chronic conditions such as diabetes and ulcers may not have direct links farm work related occupational health issues. But work-related stress and poor eating habits can have indirect impacts on diabetes and ulcers. There is literature suggesting high prevalence of hernia in males engaged in manual labour. Encephalitis is known to be associated with tick bites and one worker, who contacted encephalitis was left with a lifetime disability of memory

*Occupational Wellbeing*

or mood disorders as "nerves" without medicalizing into a disease category [22]. Those research particiapnts explanation of feelings of missing home and loneliness is similar that we have observed among our study participants. When considering occupational health of FSFWs it is vital to pay attention to the symptoms of mental and emotional health without labelling since these conditions go undiagnosed or the workers try to hide to show them as able bodied or try to be "toughen up". There was a case of a memory loss of one of his bunk mates as reported by a study participant, presumably, due to an accident of hard object hitting his head or encephalitis. Wearing helmets was a foreign concept for these workers. He noted that his coworkers stayed in the hospital for a month and when he returned, he was unable to remember, where he was and what his friends' names were. The employer sent the worker home (back to the country of origin) upon returning from hospital. This type of injuries can be considered as permanent damages with lifelong disabilities and impairments. Apparently, the practice of sending the workers, who are ill and unable to carry out the work as per contract, called medical repatriation is a common practice and a study conducted in Ontario found there were 4.62% respirations due to medical reasons. Of those 41.3% were surgical related and 25.5% external injuries including poisoning reported during the study period 2001–2011 [25].

**3.2 Occupational Health and safety issues of Canadian farm workers**

tive gear such as sun protectors, goggles, kneecaps and gloves.

**3.3 Occupational Health and safety issues of FSFWs: employers perspectives**

Two different opinions about occupational health of FSFWs were uncovered, when compared with FSFWs ideas about issues and Canadian farmers (employers) sentiments about their foreign employees' health issues. Some farmers mentioned the workers as "whinny", those who take minor illnesses, like muscle sore, cuts and bruises that general Canadians would ignore, as serious. Farmers further explained the reason for being concerned about minor illnesses as major, because "*their physical health is their bread and butter*". Following two quotes from two farmers supports

All of the four (two females and two males) Canadian seasonal farm workers, who participated in the research lived outside of the farm and one worked part-time two days a week and the others work 6 days a week. They noted that their work hours are negotiated with the employer and they often get a 15-minute break before lunch, one-hour lunch break, another fifteen-minute break in the afternoon and "*leave home to make supper*". They have the negotiating power with the employer since they are protected by the Canadian labour regulations. FSFWs never mentioned about taking fifteen-minute breaks but taking half an hour for lunch. FSFWs intention was to put as many as hours possible during their short stay in Canada with the sole aim of "working for home", for feeding their family and for educating their children and they do not have the option of having unemployment insurance for the rest of the year that they are not working, like Canadian farm workers do. A scoping review conducted on published research among Canadian temporary foreign workers concluded that their health issues are resulting from precarious immigrant status [26]. This precarious immigrant status is a real threat to their occupational health. Though repetitive injuries, aches and pains may be common to all farm workers, inevitably Canadian farm workers are more educated on health and safety regulations and PPE use than FSFWs, who face language and accessibility barriers. It was also revealed in our research that Canadian farmers are accustomed to take over the counter medications, pain killers and personal protec-

**42**

these perspectives.

loss. As one farmer indicated the worker who contacted encephalitis was young, tall healthy looking Mexican and he was confused in the first week of arrival. Upon admission to the hospital his condition deteriorated so fast he was in a medically induced coma. Mexican government flew his wife over and he was in the hospital for the whole season. The employer washed his hands off by saying "*well that as soon as he was in the accident [*ward]*, we didn't see him anymore and we didn't deal with it at all. It was just it was all the governments [*Mexican and Canadian*] and the medical system, the ambulances and then and right away his liaison service had to get involved. We did go down to visit him a couple times and so*." No investigation was carried out how he contacted encephalitis and how his family survived without him sending money and how they are surviving with a permanent debilitating condition afterwards.

Interview data revealed that the employers treated FSFWs seeking treatment for occupational related injuries as "*whinny*", "*those who take advantage of the healthcare system*" and "*seeking treatment for minor ailments that Canadians would shrug off*", within which even serious injuries were considered as the fault of the worker. There is an outcry of mass media in the past about medical repatriation, that seriously ill workers are sent back to their country without treating in Canada. Canadian researchers indicated that the employers lack of empathy lead to vision loss of a worker who sprayed pesticide accidently on his eyes and he was not allowed to have a shower and ultimately the worker was medically repatriated. He was not given any compensation since he did not know how to maneuver the governance system [27]. Some NGO representing workers' rights have questioned lack of bargaining power to represent FSFWs rights and privileges. A systematic review conducted among studies on Canadian temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector included the similar health issues reported by our study participants, mental health, poor housing and sanitation and they also noted language barriers in accessing healthcare all shaped by the precarious immigrant status in Canada [24].

Our research revealed one farm that is out of ordinary, farmers cared about the occupational health and safety of workers. This farm is run by a young university educated couple. According to the male owner as a rule, the workers break off around lunch time and then rest until the sun set, at 4:00 pm, to avoid sun burns and heat strokes. He mentioned about two people dying of heat stroke in the past. Another farmer said if a FSFW is sick he tried to give them time off or assign light duties to him and "*if they can't work there is no expectation from the farmer they should work*." He further iterated they have developed a culture that they do not want anybody to get hurt. The second farmer further iterated that the FSFWs are well experienced and some of them come for many years to the same farm and they do understand what is safe and what is unsafe.
