VIII.  CONCLUSION

The tree fruit industry has developed over the past 100 years in the Okanagan Valley and during this time a large part of the labour required to harvest the crops has been provided by various racial and ethnic groups. This ethnic agricultural labour has been a critical component for the tree-fruit industry in the Okanagan Valley. The point is clearly illustrated by the serious labour shortages faced by fruit growers between each wave of ethnic labour.

Lanthier (1984, p. 204) documented such a situation in the 1960s when Portuguese workers, who were available in the mid 1950s, started to buy their own farms and were becoming less available to fruit-growers. In 1963 the search for the workers was critical in Oliver ("From Our Back Files", 1983). By 1964, the situation had become "the most serious ever experienced in the district" and students were made available by the Oliver school for picking apples in October ("Apple crop dangered by picker shortage", 1964). By 1966, the shortage of labour had spread to all areas of the Okanagan and students had to be released from school in Winfield and Vernon to help harvest the crops ("Harvest Peak Passed", 1966). In 1973, the problem was described as "the worst" ever seen ("Okanagan Fruit Growers Facing," 1973). The farmers had been unsuccessful at replacing the Portuguese immigrants and were faced almost annually with a shortage of fruit pickers..

Thus the Okanagan Valley was ripe for another influx of migrant workers, and this came in the form of young Quebec workers migrating to British Columbia. A study of income tax filing by Statistics Canada showed that between 1976 and 1983, over 18,000 persons migrated from Quebec to British Columbia, many of them taking up residence in the Okanagan Valley (Mailloux, 1984, page 12).

At the Canada Farm Labour Pool offices, a government-funded job referral agency, the registrations figures for the south-Okanagan show a large influx of workers from Quebec from 1977 to 1981 as Quebecois workers became the largest component of the work-force on Okanagan farms (Canada Farm Labour Pool Office, undated). A survey of Okanagan agricultural workers conducted in 1983 showed this work force to be mostly well educated young people from out of town, moving from orchard to orchard, following the different crops. After their work here they would travel to destinations which included: northern B.C. for tree planting, Ontario for tobacco harvest, Quebec for studies, and U.S. or Mexico for holidays (Wong, 1983).

The importance of migrant ethnic labour in agriculture is not specific to the Okanagan. Wong (1988, page 204) reviewed the migrant agricultural labour literature which indicates that this phenomenon is world wide, with farm labour travelling within countries as well as across borders. In Canada, the migration of agricultural labour has occurred for many years: for example, 2000 Prairie farm workers worked on Ontario farms in 1945, and over 6,000 Canadians migrated to Maine to work the potato harvest in 1958 (Haythorne, 1960, page 74). More recently in British Columbia, many farm-workers in the Fraser Valley are immigrants from India who now reside in the greater Vancouver area.

In the United States, the migration of Mexicans into California has occurred since the turn of the century and by 1983, they constituted 71% of the farm labour force in that state (Martin, 1984, page 14). There are other important farm labour migrations in the U.S. Approximately 300,000 workers, primarily Mexicans, move annually from Texas to over twenty northern states, working on farms in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and others (Dunbar & Kravitz, 1976, page 23). On the east coast, over 50,000 workers migrate annually to work on farms, this stream consisting primarily of Blacks (Friedland & Nelkin, 1971, page 3).

In the Okanagan Valley, as in many other places around the world, the dependence on migrant agricultural workers comes from a reluctance of local workers to take up farm work. A 1991 government report on the Canadian agricultural workforce blamed the "poor image of agricultural employment" on working hours that are "demanding and unconventional", and described the sector as offering "low rates of remuneration and poor benefits" (Joint Management Committee, 1991).

To compound the problem, in British Columbia farm workers have historically been excluded from many laws that set standards for working conditions. When the Minimum Wage Act was enacted by the B.C. Legislature in 1925, the measure was advocated by government officials to "reduce the number of Orientals employed in British Columbia" ("House Divided On," 1925). The Act covered workers in all industries "except fruit- packers, fruit and vegetable canners, fruit-pickers, farm laborers and domestic servants" ("Minimum Wage Law for All B.C. Workers," 1925). The original Minimum Wage Act was advocated to drive Asians out of "better" jobs, such as the lumber industry, and into more "suitable" jobs - farm work and domestic work (Sandborn, 1982, p. 4). The exclusion of farm workers from the protection of an hourly minimum wage has remained in place to this day in British Columbia. Meanwhile, in other jurisdictions, laws have been passed to redress this historical discrimination against farm workers. For example, California and New Jersey have enacted universal hourly minimum wages for all farm workers (Sandborn, 1982, p. 11).

In a similar fashion, the Worker's Compensation Act was not mandatory on B.C. farms until 1983, leaving most farm workers without income after a work-related accident (Lanthier, 1984, p. 253). Farm workers were also specifically excluded when the Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in 1940. A reform of the legislation in 1971 meant extended coverage for many workers, but the wording excluded most fruit pickers and other harvest workers (Dingledine, 1981, p. 147). The discriminatory sections were finally removed in 1984.

As we saw earlier, in 1966, the fruit growers were facing a serious shortage of labour because Portuguese workers became less available at the time. The B.C. Federation of Labour said the solution to the farm labour shortage was through legislation to improve working conditions. The Federation suggested if employing Canadian labour would "entail financial difficulties for the employers, then the basic structure of the industry must be overhauled. It cannot continue to exist on the exploitation of its labor force" (Labor Union on Farms," 1966). This was supported by James Currie, who represented the unionized packinghouse workers in the Okanagan Valley. He said that "farm workers are the most abused form of labor in our society, and it is high time something is done about it" ("More Support for Farm Idea," 1966).

ETHNIC AGRICULTURAL LABOUR
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