These former farm workers won a standards case in B.C. They told CBC about their working conditions

CBC

02-05-2025

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Stephanie Ramirez says she worked 15-hour shifts and drank up to three Monster Energy drinks a day to keep herself going. Until one day, her body gave out and she collapsed on the job.
Ramirez is a Guatemalan farm worker whose story Canadians might not ordinarily hear. But CBC News has learned she is one of five workers who were collectively awarded nearly $80,000 in a B.C. Employment Standards Branch decision involving a Fraser Valley employer.
Yet when the federal department that oversees the temporary foreign worker program conducted an investigation into the workers' complaints, it found no problems and gave the same employer a clean audit.
"Quite often, these kinds of things just get swept under the rug," said Jenna Hennebry, a professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and International Migration Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.
"This.… is one of a few cases that have produced results for workers. But it's still a sign that things are not working."
The B.C. decisions, issued in January 2025, refer to events that occurred at Abbotsford-based Sahota Farms, Valley Select Foods and Triple S Greenhouses — which the Employment Standards Branch considered to be a single employer — in the spring and summer of 2021.
The B.C. investigation found the companies underpaid the workers with respect to wages, overtime and vacation pay, and misrepresented the jobs of some of the workers to the federal government.
In some cases, the B.C. decision found the company misrepresented the length of employment, terminating workers without notice months before their contracts were up. Workers such as Ramirez were also required to regularly work 15- to 17-hour shifts, for multiple days at a time.
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Muller Ojeda, the human resources representative for Triple S Greenhouses — which he says is a separate legal and operational entity from Sahota Farms and Valley Select Foods — said the companies passed a federal audit in June 2023.
"We acknowledge the decisions made by the (B.C.) Employment Standards Branch and are currently reviewing the findings in detail. We reserve the right to appeal against the decision," he said in an emailed statement.
Three of the workers involved in the decision agreed to speak to CBC News. They said Service Canada never interviewed them about their experiences working in the Fraser Valley.
'A better life'
Daniel Concha-Hernandez worked on farms all his life in Chile and earned a degree in agronomic engineering. He jumped at the chance to work in Canada.
"I leave my job [in Chile] because I think here I have a really good opportunity, a better job, a better house, a better life," he said in an interview with CBC.
He came to Canada in June 2021 with his partner, Francisca Reyes. Both had offers of employment with Sahota Farms. Almost immediately, however, the couple noticed something was off.
They had been hired to do quality control work. According to the Employment Standards decision, that included grading produce based on its size and weight; putting it through metal detectors and X-ray machines; preparing and administering chemicals to clean the produce; and reporting on the quantity and quality of the fruit processed. Both Concha-Hernandez and Reyes have professional expertise in this area.
However, when they received their contracts, Concha-Hernandez and Reyes didn't understand why their jobs were described as farm workers, primarily concerned with field work such as weeding, pruning, irrigation and harvesting.
Their Labour Market Impact Assessments — the federal authorization required by employers who hire foreign workers — similarly described their jobs as farm workers.
The distinction is important, because B.C. law does not require employers to pay farm workers overtime or statutory holiday pay. The rate of pay for quality control workers is also typically higher than that of farm workers.
When Concha-Hernandez and Reyes arrived at their farm accommodation, Reyes described it as "horrible."
"The house where we live there was very dirty, in very poor condition. I remember that my bed was dirty. The sheets [were] dirty, too," she recalled. "It was looking like someone was sleeping there before I arrived."
Reyes also said no one told them that food scraps were supposed to be separated from garbage. All the garbage from her accommodation and the nearby house where the Mexican workers lived went into one big bin, which she says was not emptied during the months she was there. As a result, she says her accommodation was infested with rats.
"The smell was horrible," she said.
Ojeda did not answer a question about the workers' accommodations, but pointed to the clean audit from Service Canada.
Service Canada launched the audit in November 2021, according to correspondence obtained by CBC. This was two months after Concha-Hernandez and Reyes were let go.
As part of the audit, the employers submitted reports from inspections conducted by the Western Agriculture Labour Initiative, which represents farm employers, showing the housing met all criteria. The reports were dated December 2020 and January 2021 — months before the workers in question arrived.
This kind of timeframe is typical because the federal government requires a housing inspection in order for an employer to get permission to hire a foreign worker, Hennebry, the Wilfred Laurier professor, says.
"Once workers arrive, the place that was shown to be for four workers to live in suddenly has 20 in it," she said, adding that there is rarely any follow-up.
"The housing regulations around the temporary foreign worker program as it stands now, they're extremely vague. They say things like 'adequate,' but no criteria for what that looks like. And the norm is overcrowded, not clean, not private, not secure."
Employment and Social Development Canada declined an interview request, but noted in a written statement that the establishment and enforcement of accommodation standards is usually done by provinces. Inspections could be conducted by provincial or municipal officials, or private contractors, depending on the jurisdiction.
Concha-Hernandez and Reyes started work for the farm in June 2021, and despite the "farm worker" designation, they worked in the quality control roles they had been hired for. The work was done in two Abbotsford processing plants, which sometimes meant being in the frozen food area in sub-zero temperatures.
Concha-Hernandez and Reyes said they told their employers they weren't happy with their wages and working conditions.
Their contracts stated they would have eight months of work — until roughly the end of January. But Concha-Hernandez says that in mid-September, he, Reyes and three others were told there was no more work and that they would be going back to Chile in a matter of days.
The company said this was because the time period coincides with the end of the growing season and therefore a slowdown in work, according to the Employment Standards Branch decision.
That was when Concha-Hernandez contacted Dignidad Migrante, a migrant worker advocacy organization based in Surrey, B.C., at the time.
Reyes said she and the other workers weren't sure if what they experienced was consistent with labour laws until they contacted Dignidad.
"When you think about Canada, you think it's a First World country, so you don't think that you're going to … experience that," she said. "So when Daniel was in contact with Dignidad Migrante, and then he explained all the rules … we had to do something."
Dignidad's Raul Gatica helped them get open work permits, allowing them to stay in Canada working for other employers, and file complaints with Service Canada, WorkSafeBC and B.C. Employment Standards.
'My body couldn't withstand any more'
Ramirez, from Guatemala, was 21 when she came to B.C. in the spring of 2021 on a contract with Triple S Greenhouses.
When she arrived at her Abbotsford accommodation, Ramirez said she was shocked to find she would be sharing a room with 25 other women. The house also lacked basic household supplies, such as pans, utensils and small appliances, which Ramirez said she had to purchase herself.
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Triple S spokesman Ojeda said the occupancy of the residence was below the maximum set by the province.
The B.C. Employment Standards complaint found no evidence the employers had misrepresented housing conditions to Ramirez.
Unlike Concha-Hernandez and Reyes, Ramirez picked fruit and beans and also separated out bad fruit, assembled boxes and worked in the frozen food area in the processing plant. She often did harvesting and processing on the same day, moving from one facility to another, which she told B.C. investigators resulted in very long days.
In an interview with CBC conducted in Spanish through a translator, Ramirez said that in practice, this meant working from 5 or 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. She also had household chores to do when she got home. Ramirez said she consumed two or three Monster Energy drinks a day. One day, she collapsed while assembling boxes, foaming at the mouth.
"My body couldn't withstand any more because I wasn't eating well, because they didn't leave us time," she said in Spanish.
A co-worker ended up bringing her to the emergency department.
In her Employment Standards complaint, Ramirez said her employers told her the hospital visit had cost $700 and was not covered by insurance, which meant she had to pay the money back. Because she could not produce a receipt, the amount was not included in her Employment Standards award.
Ojeda, the human resources representative for Triple S Greenhouses, did not respond to a question about whether the company had required Ramirez to pay the money back.
Ramirez should have had either provincial or private health coverage under the temporary foreign worker program, Hennebry says. "Legally speaking, workers should never have to pay out of pocket to access health care."
Ramirez said she left the farm in July 2021, with the help of Dignidad Migrante.
'Go to the farm and check'
Service Canada's audit, which was concluded in June 2023, found Sahota Farms fully in compliance with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, Ojeda said.
"This included a thorough examination of the same complaints the Temporary Foreign Workers referenced in the Employment Standards decision. Service Canada has found our organization to be compliant across key areas, including wages, occupational duties, working conditions, accommodations, and ensuring a safe and abuse-free workplace.
"Additionally, we have consistently passed all housing inspections and prior integrity audits without any issues."
Concha-Hernandez says he can't understand how Service Canada came to that conclusion, especially without interviewing the workers involved.
"No one from Service Canada called us, never," he said. "They say the house condition and the work condition were really good for the worker, but we know that is false, that it's not true."
It is unclear whether anyone from Service Canada even visited the farm over the course of this inspection. Employment and Social Development Canada, which oversees Service Canada, told CBC in a written statement it could not answer questions about compliance activities due to privacy and program integrity considerations.
The majority of Service Canada's 2,122 inspections related to the temporary foreign worker program in 2023-24 were conducted off-site, the ESDC statement said. Even when they were on-site, the employer was usually informed in advance.
Of the 650 on-site inspections in 2023-24, the employer was given advance notice in a majority of cases (460), the statement said.
Having inspectors show up more often, unannounced, is something that would help vulnerable workers, Reyes says.
"Go to the farm and check — [don't send] a letter for the employer in advance of that. Just appear in the company and check if everything is OK for the workers, or in the houses."
'Creates conditions for exploitation'
A year and a half after Service Canada's audit, B.C.'s Employment Standards Branch — which did interview the workers — came to a different conclusion.
Concha-Hernandez, Reyes and two of their Chilean co-workers did not meet the B.C. definition of farm worker, the decision said, and as such were entitled to overtime, vacation and statutory holiday pay. And while B.C. investigators found no evidence the employers misrepresented the positions or the wages to the workers themselves, they noted the job descriptions used to apply for federal permission to hire foreign workers were inaccurate.
Ojeda said the job descriptions listed for the Chileans used 2019 national occupation classifications, which were changed the following year, after their submission.
In ruling that the companies misrepresented the length of employment, Employment Standards awarded Concha-Hernandez and Reyes what they would have earned had they been employed until the end of their contracts in January 2022. Because Ramirez did not provide a copy of her employment agreement, there was no record of the length of her contract.
The companies were collectively fined $500 for each of the six violations of the B.C. Employment Standards Act.
The companies remain eligible to apply for the temporary foreign worker program, the ESDC statement said, adding that the department would evaluate future applications "against mandatory criteria, including past non-compliance with federal or provincial laws that regulate employment or recruitment of employees."
The fact that these companies can still apply to bring in foreign workers is evidence the system is broken, Hennebry said.
"I think that this case points to the continued longstanding set of challenges we have with a program that is designed to bring in people to work in a temporary context and who do not have the same level of access to protection of their rights," she said.
She added that under the temporary foreign worker program, workers' residency in Canada is often contingent upon them working for one employer.
"It creates conditions for exploitation, for abuse and for health risks that are absolutely not acceptable."
Canada's temporary foreign worker program has been criticized by groups such as Amnesty International for facilitating widespread and systematic abuse of migrant workers. A January 2025 report noted"most are unable to access effective remedies for the abuses they endured."
Ramirez has since found work as a cleaner and applied to stay in Canada as a refugee. Concha-Hernandez found work as a landscaper while Reyes stays at home to care for their son, who was born in 2023. They are also hoping to stay in Canada.
The three workers are sharing their stories because they want future migrants to know about their rights in Canada, Reyes says.