Vehicles carrying immigrant farm workers are often dangerous, yet roadside inspections have fallen off in recent years, a prominent labour rep said today.

“These are vulnerable workers. They aren’t on our radar screens. They work early in the morning in fields. They don’t feel they have rights. They don’t speak the language,” said B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair. “We have to be doubly vigilant.”

Sinclair spoke at day three of a coroners inquest into a fatal car crash that killed three East Indian farm women. Thirteen others plus the driver were seriously injured on March 7, 2007. The 15-passenger van was overloaded and had only two seat belts.

Testimony has revealed the vehicle had worn-out tires. One witness said it shouldn’t have been on the road.

A similar accident happened in 2003. A van carrying berry pickers to Abbotsford blew a tire and crashed on its side. Four workers not wearing seatbelts crushed Mohinder Kaur Sunar. She died of suffocation.

WorksafeBC -- known then as the Workers' Compensation Board -- issued three recommendations at the time. Those included a call for coordinated roadside inspections to get unsafe vehicles off the road.

Most observers agree the provincial government didn’t take action until the 2007 deaths.

“There was a hiatus,” said WorksafeBC’s Roberta Ellis. “There’s no question this tragedy was a wakeup call for all of us.”

The Farm Workers’ Inter-Agency Committee was formed after the crash. Its goal is to coordinate and improve worker safety. The following data were taken from its reporting (click here for 2009) on roadside inspections:

2007: 522 vehicles inspected. 155 didn't pass.

2008: 165 vehicles inspected. 14 didn't pass.

2009: 235 vehicles inspected so far. 24 didn't pass.

Sinclair said such data suggest roadside inspections aren't the priority they were two years ago.

“We’re making headway with this industry,” Ellis countered. “But we’re not satisfied that we’re there yet.”

Part of the problem is that farm worker transportation is handled by companies under contract, Sinclair said. For instance, RHA Enterprises operated the van which crashed in 2007, not the greenhouse that workers were headed to.

Owners Harwinder and Ranjit Gill got paid based on the number of labourers they could deliver, an incentive for overloading.

Such an arrangement also makes farm and greenhouse owners less accountable when something goes wrong, Sinclair added.

“It’s a systemic problem,” he said. “There’s no fear or concern.”

Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.