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| Backgrounder(s) & FactSheet(s): | Backgrounder |
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| Backgrounder(s) & FactSheet(s): | Backgrounder |
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VICTORIA – Farm workers in British Columbia and most other provinces have different employment standards that reflect the needs of the industry and its employees to maximize employment and earnings opportunities during peak harvest seasons.
Farm work is defined in the Employment Standards Regulation. The current definition has not been updated in many years, however, many changes have taken place in agriculture, including increased mechanization and the growing importance of farm based sales.
Under the previous definition, direct on-farm sales, for example from a farm stand, would not be considered farm work, even if employees who harvested the crops sold them. As well, during the harvest cycle, those workers who cleaned, sorted, graded and packed products of that farm or processed similar raw products from a nearby farm were not considered to be farm workers.
Effective immediately, the revised definition specifies a range of activities involved in agricultural production. These include:
· Hands on work with the raising, nurture and harvest of crops and livestock. · Cleaning, grading, sorting or packing the farm’s products or similar products purchased from another farm when done during the normal harvest cycle. · Selling the farm’s products on the farm during the normal harvest cycle.
In May, the government returned regulations covering hours of work, overtime and statutory holidays for farm workers to where they had been before 1995. The ministries of skills development and labour, and agriculture food and fisheries have signed a memorandum of understanding with the B.C. Agriculture Council to improve employment standards compliance by promoting greater awareness and education of employer responsibilities and employee rights.
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