VANCOUVER - A group of foreign tree planters found living in squalid, slave-like conditions in a remote B.C. forestry camp a year ago say they still have not been paid.

The tree planters, some of them women and most of them of African heritage, were found by forestry workers at a remote camp near Golden, B.C., last July, living in squalor in containers with no washrooms.

They said they were fed rotten food and subject to racial slurs and sometimes even violence.

In January the B.C. Employment Standards Branch ordered Khaira Enterprises of Surrey, B.C., to pay $228,000 to 57 workers for unpaid wages.

But the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre says the tree planters have still not been paid, and the federal government has not corrected their hours or earnings in order for them to collect Employment Insurance benefits.

B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair says the workers have had to wait to far too long, and he's calling on the various government agencies involved to help.

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