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'They Are Treated as Cattle'

In 2007 three farm workers died in a crash, now the focus of an inquest some hope will expose wider abuses.

By Geoff Dembicki, 8 Dec 2009, TheTyee.ca

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The overcrowded farm van flipped in the rain.

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The 1998 Dodge van rests upside down on a gray concrete divider that matches the colour of the sky. Its body is crumpled and torn like a piece of paper. Four wheels point into the falling rain. Human belongings lay scattered near bodies covered in yellow tarp. White running shoes. Fabric lunchboxes. A red thermos. Three East Indian farm women died on March 7, 2007. Thirteen plus the driver were seriously injured.


As video taken after the crash was played in a Burnaby coroners courtroom, Harsharan Bal put his turbaned head close to his knees. His mother's life ended that day, in darkness and pouring rain, on a concrete overpass between Abbotsford and Chilliwack. "I feel so low," he told reporters later. "My mother is never going to come back."


Today was the first session of a coroners inquest into one of the deadliest farm worker crashes of recent years. During the next two weeks, a five person jury will hear testimony from over a dozen people intimately connected to the accident -- everyone from family members to crash experts.


The ultimate goal is to issue recommendations that will improve driving safety across the province. But many participants want the inquest to stand for more. They see the crash as a potent flashpoint, symbolic of the wide-scale mistreatment of  B.C.'s immigrant farm workers.


"They are not considered as human beings," said Charan Gill of the Canadian Farmworkers Union. "They are treated as cattle."

'It was an awful sight'

For years, Harwinder Gill and her husband Ranjit ran a modest transport company. It was under contract to bring workers to Rainbow Greenhouses in Chilliwack. At 5:30 a.m. on the day of the crash, Harwinder picked up the first woman of the day.

Manjinder Kaur Dhillon climbed into the front and buckled her seat belt. Ranjit had bought the van from an RCMP auction two years earlier. It had been used to transport prisoners in northern Alberta. Police removed all the rear seatbelts to keep convicts from strangling each other. Ranjit and Harwinder never replaced them. They also left metal prisoner bars on one of the windows. 


By 6:00 a.m., 17 women were squeezed into a 15-passenger van. Several were squished on makeshift plywood seats. They sat on bare wood, with nails protruding. The smallest signs of dawn were appearing on the horizon as the van sped east down Highway 1. Near-torrential rain covered the road in puddles and made it extremely hard to see. All the weight piled in the back lightened the front of the vehicle, a problem exacerbated by low tire pressure. It's unclear exactly how Harwinder lost control. Suddenly, the driver's side of the van struck the front corner of a red tandem truck. A giant salvage hauler rammed into the back of the van.

The farm workers barely had time to think. They hit the divider and flipped. The collision flung several of them onto the road. Metres behind, Jessie Van Rikxoort saw a flash of headlights, then slammed on his brakes. He screeched to a halt one car length in front of the van. He got out to see what had happened. "It was an awful sight," the carpenter told the inquest. "Others couldn't even bear to look at it."

'I hope people start accepting responsibility'


Last year, van driver Harwinder was fined $2,000 after pleading guilty to unqualified driving with an improper licence. An investigation by WorkSafe B.C. led to a nearly $70,000 fine for the Gills' company, RHA Enterprises Ltd. Harwinder admitted under questioning today she wasn't trained to operate a 15-passenger van under adverse weather conditions. She denied purposely overcrowding the vehicle. It was hard to keep track of who was getting in and out, she argued. Harwinder also deflected previous witness statements that suggested earlier trips to the Fraser Valley were so crowded people had to stand or sit on the floor. She told the court she began taking medicine for depression after the crash. 


New Democratic Party MLA Raj Chouhan accused Harwinder of deflecting blame during a break in the proceedings.
"We have heard these kinds of statements before," he said. "I hope people start accepting responsibility rather than denying these farm workers produce food for everybody but they are sent to work in very unsafe conditions."


About a week before the accident, a WorkSafe B.C. inspector visited Rainbow Greenhouses and spoke with a driver employed by the Gills. Every passenger needs a seatbelt, vans must not be overcrowded and drivers must do regular inspections, the safety rep ordered. Reports were given to the greenhouse and the driver. Harwinder denied ever receiving one.


Later on, testimony from RCMP Cst. Vince Chand revealed the Gills had obtained what was in effect a fabricated commercial vehicle inspection from a metro Vancouver auto shop. The owner of that business has since had his license revoked, but no criminal charges were laid.  


Such negligence is widespread across B.C.'s agriculture industry, where unscrupulous transport companies cash in by disregarding the rules, Charan Gill said. 


"Contractors like this work on a commission basis," he told The Tyee. "That's why they crowd the vans. More workers means more pay for them."


Harsharan Bal wasn't looking for blame today. With a quivering upper lip, he told reporters he's got nothing against the Gills, even in light of Harwinder's testimony. He just wants some good to come from his mother's death. "We hope labour workers should be treated as human beings," he said in halting English. "We are here for the future." [Tyee]

Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.

11 Comments:

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  • cboo44

    2 years ago

    Taking Responsibility?

    Dream on. NOBODY will take any responsibility. RHA buys a fake commercial inspection on the vehicle. During the inquest Gill tries to lay the blame on the RCMP for the vehicle they bought at auction! "Modest transport company" ??? Excuse me? They run a labour pool, supplying farm workers for the whole valley. HE RIDES AROUND THE VALLEY IN A LIMOUSINE LIKE A MAHARAJAH ! The entire Gill business is based on money under the table. To properly investigate ALL the Gill's operations for safety violations, vehicle safety etc would be far too "politically incorrect". Nothing will change. People die for nothing.

  • Jerry Munro

    2 years ago

    the feudal relations at the heart of capitalist agriculture...

    It is too much true, unfortunately, that for farm and ranch workers especially, and many a small operator, agriculture is a rogue industry outside the normal (and the norm is bad enough) labour standards laws etc. Which leaves many at the end of their working lives of hard work, with broken bodies and no pensions, save their pittance CP.

    And many of these, especially large operations, are subsidiaries or the quasi feudal properties of large corporations and the wealthy, who live out their fantasy to be farmers by owning one, or/and as a tax write-off, on the backs of their peasantry. And don't try to shit me, because I did it for many years as a lad, a small ranch operator, and an adult. (Though finally I did better by getting the hell out of it and taking a union job eventually, securing a union pension.)

    And it's going to remain this way, as it always has been through the history of capitalism, as much as it was on the big estates of the landed gentry feudal system, until agricultural workers are organized as an industry wide union, instead of operation by operation. Even then, as union workers themselves are discovering everywhere, being "unionized" is not enough, in and of itself. You are still vulnerable to the predations of Big Capital and the Capitalist State, and the vagaries of the so-called "free market". (The latter which I can't say without adding the expletive, "Bullshit!", as in bullshit free market.)

    The reality is, as the current times are helping to make clear, in addition to workers being organized, including farm and ranch workers, on any basis and along any lines that make sense to them, including forming working co-operatives, the entire economy of which agriculture is the foundation part, is going to have to be "democratized". And this neither in a "bullshit" way, but top to bottom, giving working people and their larger communities operational, management, and strategic direction power over enterprises and the entire economy.

    The problems of farm and ranch workers in this modern economy sector, yet still so much echoing the ancient world in its class relations, is only going to be resolved in the context of a larger resolution of the class struggle that always goes on within capitalism... resolved in favour of the working class, and the creation of a democratic working class power.

    Until then, agricultural workers, many of whom are Natives or vulnerable immigrants, it has to be said, though far from exclusively, are all going to continue to suck the hind teat of the capitalist economy.

  • worldofplenty

    2 years ago

    Why spin this accident as being about immigrants???

    A similar van crashed in New Brunswick and killed 12 passengers...just children. Saying ths crash in BC is due to them being immigrants or discriminated against becasue they were minorities or farm workers is just plain silly beyong belief. Were the kids in New Brunswick discriminated against because they were maritimers? It was an accident. There are traffic laws and police officers to enforce safety laws and occasionally something like this comes around to remind us why. Enough said.

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2008/01/14/crash-regs.html?ref=rss

  • Van Isle

    2 years ago

    Its obvious that

    Its obvious that worldofplenty isn't paying attention

  • worldofplenty

    2 years ago

    I am paying attention, I just boil it down to fault

    Farmers rights...yes..harkens back to panch villa. The glamour of it all and a union/ethnic minority twist to boot. The Tyee has printed about five articles on this van full of farm labourers. I'm getting a bit bored with it. Roads are dangerous places. There are other accidents that are worse! I wonder how many farm labourers are killed in road accidents in India? Probably a lot more than here!

    This is another story even worse and more sickening but it did not get a single mention. And you can see the employer should be liable, just as the employer of the east indians riding in the van should be. (As a side issue the drunk got off easy, typical in our justice system):

    http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Families+Tschetter+former+employer+million/2121168/story.html

  • Jerry Munro

    2 years ago

    worldofpoverty...

    "Its obvious that..." worldofplenty still isn't paying attention. And that is because he is trying to deflect any blame away from the predations of "the system".

    These wingnut folks really are goddamn obvious, in their pursuit of a world of poverty... save for themselves, of course.

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    worldofplenty

    Pathetic!

    "The Tyee has printed about five articles on this van full of farm labourers. I'm getting a bit bored with it."

    I'm getting monumentally bored with your insults to those who died and to their surviving relatives. No, it was not 'just another accident'.

    I really hope you are buying your goods at farmer's market and paying a decent price, and treating the vendors with respect, for if you aren't, you have N-O-T-H-I-N-G (ZERO) to have it in.

  • cboo44

    2 years ago

    "Just an accident" ?

    Time to turn on the "thinking side", son. "Accidents don't "happen", they are CAUSED, usually by human error or negligence. Now, follow the facts:
    New Brunswick- bus/van overloaded= human error
    BC- bus/van overloaded= human error
    New Brunswick- Adverse road conditions, vehicle travelling too fast= negligence
    BC-bus/van NOT LEGAL for transport= negligence
    BC-Driver NOT QUALIFIED= negligence
    BC- bus/van fraudulent inspection= FRAUD, negligence
    Get it?
    Spent 15 years on the highways, attending approx. 650 serious injury and fatal MVA's, save your nonsense for people who don't KNOW.

  • Fii

    2 years ago

    Are the Gills immigrants themselves??

    It sounds to me that (rich) immigrants are taking advantage of (poor) immigrants. Is that the gist of this article? And that it is up to our provincial gov't to do something about it?
    Well I can tell you this much- rich, successful immigrants are also taking advantage of poor, disabled Cdns. A friend of mine, whom I met in a park years ago walking our dogs, is on DB2 and has been screwed around by the prov. gov't for years. She now lives in Abbotsford in the trailer (no heat and no running water) of a rich East Indian who owns a truck lot or something. She "guards" the lot for him. In exchange, he pays her our of HER gov't checks. They are sent to HIM because he pretends to be her landlord and says he rents a suite in his house to her. He takes about $400 and gives her the rest- as her payment... from him. Yeah, I don't get it either.

    While the BC gov't is looking into these abuses of farm workers could they maybe get around to investigating this type of fraud, too?

  • cboo44

    2 years ago

    Immigrants?

    Who cares? Their name, ethnicity, colour, or citizenship status, SHOULD mean NOTHING. Our traffic and commercial transport laws and regulations are all "public safety" based. NOBODY should be exempt. It's past due that the Attorney General(any of them in the past 20 years or so) put MORE Crown Prosecutors on the job and opened more courtrooms, so that the public prosecutors do not have to take "the quick, easy way out" in order to clear a file. Let's go after some of these crooks.

  • butterchum

    2 years ago

    This is not about immigrants

    It's about farmers, most of whom happen to be immigrants. The New Brunswick crash was tragic, and the result of criminal negligence, and it is getting less press here because (a) it happened in New Brunswick and (b) fatal crashes resulting from impaired drivers are, unfortunately, not uncommon. This accident, on the other hand, is about the much broader issue of labour standards in BC that are constantly skirted with no accountability, and the finger-pointing that resulted from this crash, by everyone involved. No one is suggesting that farm workers are treated worse simply because they are immigrants, but of course this issue is tied to immigration because spoon-fed Canadians would not wake up at 4 am to sit on a rickety wooden bench without a seatbelt and pay to be driven in an overpacked van to work in the fields and make less than minimum wage (under the table, of course). Yes, this is partly the result of rich immigrants who exploit poorer ones. Yes, there are probably plenty of farm labourers killed in road accidents in India but how is that relevant? Should we lower our labour standards to match India's for farmers who are Indian-born? This is an issue that affects all farmers, and making this a race issue will not solve anything. The local produce you eat was probably picked by an immigrant's hand, but even if it was not, labour standards need to be raised across the board for the treatment of all farm workers.

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