Bitter harvest: Canada’s migrant farm workers and COVID-19 - The Fifth Estate

a lot of the fruit and vegetables we buy are grown here on canadian farms hardly any of it picked by canadian hands this is the story of the migrant workers who come to canada and the price they pay to put food on our table i'm mark kelly this is the fifth estate [Music] it's the side of canada's food supply chain few people see until now that is unbelievable i had no idea really no idea because i'm the guy on the other end i'm the guy who's buying this stuff perpetual motion at assembly line speed just another day at the food factory staggering the amount of hands that it takes to move stuff and staggering what we expect from these workers especially during a pandemic the search for people to work on canadian farms stretches all the way to trinidad and tobago my name is timothy frederick i'm going to canada to pick apple well this is probably my sixth time [Music] i'm going to miss my mom or my niece and nephew [Music] my sister and all friends are here it will actually be hard the pandemic is real and knowing that the country is bigger than us is a more big iris but like so many other farm workers timothy frederick calculates the risk is worth the reward of supporting his family i am a little concerned of the covet a little frightened but i'll make the extra effort to be safe sometimes it is hard to take worse to accomplish certain things in [Music] his life to canada begins at 2 a.m i'm leaving my family here and nobody lord is with them i will be praying every day for them timothy knows what he's leaving behind he doesn't know what awaits him when he [Music] while arrives the terminal suitable face coverings must be worn at all it's peak pandemic and our borders are sealed to most we have 136 farmworkers arriving today this is the two flights we have coming up since july but these workers have been given special permission to enter the country there's no time to waste for timothy and the crew they're months late arriving because of travel restrictions they're bound for norfolk county known as ontario's garden some of these farms are older than canada itself their fruit and vegetable crops worth more than half a billion dollars a season but for timothy and the others this season will be measured in human life as night falls one more stop on their 4 000 kilometer journey this is the first crew to have such a big welcoming party i don't know if everybody wants to acknowledge everybody farmer brett skyler can barely contain his relief just a month to apple harvest and this crew should have arrived in april to do the reminders on coven and that everybody's got their face mask we do our social distancing so i i just try to remember helicopter to keep our space but thank you so much for coming up but they can't start work yet regulations require a two-week quarantine for newer rivals to help keep the farm covet free [Music] i guess you don't even want to imagine what happens if that doesn't work now worst case scenario you gotta you end up shutting down for a couple weeks and um but even worse than that is people getting sick you don't want to feel that you contributed to that right we're doing everything we can but i mean hey this is an important thing we're doing out here uh um uh having affordable apples will be an important thing this fall and next year so people want food on their table yeah but at what price for these workers how do you like this orchard to work in it this is a new orchard does this year oh yeah yeah brett usually has workers at this point of the season but thanks to the pandemic he has half that the biggest expansion of my life uh just before kovid so we're getting through already i feel a lot of weight on your shoulders you're trying to take care of your workers you're trying to make an honest living here but it doesn't look like it's easy um no and i think i think it's important to remember that that it's it's not easy and that's okay a lot of life's not easy so it's it's figuring it out but it um there certainly is a lot of a lot of pressure and stress on on on the farmer this year and it's not just the farmer you can feel the stress in these stores and on these streets the town of simcoe's economy is kept alive by workers spending hard-earned money here but in this pandemic season it's dead quiet migrant workers told by some locals in no uncertain terms to stay away [Music] and that's pushed the story of these migrant workers out into the open are these foreign farm workers being exploited to help keep cheap food on our table for those who don't know me my name is leanne arnell and for over 10 years i've been selling clothes to migrant workers for themselves and has the pandemic exposed the uncomfortable underbelly of our food supply chain there's been deep rooted systemic problems within the farm working community historically since 1966 when the first plane landed bringing jamaicans to come and work in our agriculture here in canada but during covet a lot of these things have really come to light these activists are urging canadians to wake up in this time i've seen many things with my own eyes i've heard many things with my own ears there's been racial profiling there has been confusion around isolation and at the end of the day the community has lashed out at the farm workers and treated them as though they are at risk when in fact they are at risk just like the rest of us the crews come to canada under the seasonal agricultural worker program close to 50 000 last season alone from caribbean countries and mexico but this season is unlike any other season before and the tale of norfolk county tells the story of our country i want to ask our mayor crystal chop to come and say a few words these workers are an integral part to ontario's food supply chain they deserve to be treated with dignity respect and compassion always being mayor of the garden of ontario has inspired crystal chop to fight for the rights of the workers it was downright nasty at times you know we were receiving emails that how dare we you know allow the migrants to wander around town to go to the grocery store and they're entitled to the same rights as any other canadian without them agriculture here wouldn't survive why wouldn't the system survive without them you know i is it that you know canadians aren't prepared to to be working out in the in the fields uh you know it's it's labor intensive and it does it also requires skills and a lot of these guys have been coming up here year after year and they know their job well but were they being kept safe there was a spike in covert 19 cases in windsor essex outbreaks started to spread 13 of today's 21 confirmed positives are migrant farmers 191 workers test positive at this greenhouse near windsor hot spots including more than a hundred at another with workers crammed into bunk houses the spread of the virus seemed inevitable scotland group has been linked to 217 cases one of the biggest outbreaks tore through norfolk county at scotland farms as cases began to climb then we had to start to look at all of the the challenges that we faced um you know like many rural areas the hospital capacity that we had we have five icu beds we had eight ventilators so that was one of the first real constraints that we saw that outbreak helped push ontario's farm infection numbers above 1300 exposing a grim reality migrant farm workers in ontario were now 10 times more likely to get coveted than everyone else in the province the men and women who took a risk coming to canada were now paying the heaviest price with their lives three men died on three different farms 31 year old bonifacio romero he worked at woodside greenhouses 24 year old rogelio santos he worked at green hill produce this funeral was for juan lopez chaparro 55 years old a father of four [Music] people in the greater community really feel the loss that we want to share that grief with them and support them for 10 seasons he'd left his family behind most recently working at scotland farms to help keep canadians fed just trying to be there in a compassionate way and i didn't have anything else to offer them except that with fear spreading like the virus itself drastic measures were being imposed norfolk county's health unit has some of the strictest quarantine rules in the country and those rules mean rhett schuyler's workers have to isolate here instead of his farm this summer camp was transformed into a quarantine camp for migrant workers gone are the kids the laughter and the joy and this is where we find timothy frederick how's quarantine here going for you tell me tell me what it's like oh it sucks but i gotta do it i know so how much money do you estimate you've lost already this season you haven't even picked an apple yet nope well usually i would have a capital of like three thousand you know or probably put away so you're already three thousand dollars behind yes people taking chance to come across here to do work for here yes it benefited me in a little way but the big way it really benefiting the employer well it's also benefiting canadians you're putting you're putting food on the table for canadians but do you think canadians appreciate the fact that you are putting food on our tables well some of them does some of them does on some timothy wasn't expecting this but then again who was how are you finding this whole quarantine thing honestly i want to lie i wish we could be all day i can't sit down for too long i wasn't expecting to see so many women there are more this season than last do you all have kids at home that you've left at home you've got four kids how old are your kids twelve is the first one she's a girl his second is eleven he's a boy third is five boy and the last is two girl two boys shireen king says her family is desperate for money and she's desperate for work so here i am here you can follow this sidewalk good morning gentlemen lindsay feltes does the morning rounds on the lookout for any signs of the virus so are any of you experiencing severe difficulty breathing or severe chest pain no how about a barking cough making a whistling noise when breathing or pink eye no she's no nurse she's a camp director taking her cues from the local public health unit was that your idea or was that the government told you you've got to set up these like corridors where people can go and can't go the language that they would have used was needs to be separated right like an obvious separation we were like okay what's the best way to do that so you figured that out on your own yeah it looks like a crime scene still this is no field hospital i have something very important before this morning okay the checkup takes an uneasy turn i stepped on a chair tried to catch my breath this man complains of troubled breathing went alive same thing the same thing and then my truth goes drive okay and then how are you feeling now i'm feeling weak what do you do with that information now so little piece of me is is is totally nervous the minute you hear somebody saying he's having problems breathing the alarm bells have to go off absolutely and minutes later they do okay your temperature is elevated next step the worker is ordered into complete isolation grab the most important things that you need so that you can isolate and be away from the other two [Music] for timothy fear of the worst is now feeling real you've heard that there have been some workers this summer who have died from covid hundreds who've been infected so does that concern you yes what i spray every day when we come back farmers take matters into their own hands just let us do our job we'll feed you are you really worried about how it gets [Music] [Music] done [Music] in norfolk county tensions are high with the annual arrival of the migrant workers [Music] leanne arnell has come to see many of them as friends i feel sad for the way that the guys are being treated right now they've left their families behind to come here and they haven't even been recognized or appreciated she's not a farmer she's an activist and wants to remind people here the workers are essential i'm just going to stop over here and put up a couple of signs [Music] hola guys it's the pandemic paradox she says canadians rely on the workers for food and then vilify them for being here a few of us have come together to make a stand to recognize the farm workers and say thank you for all you do dear friends i greet you with gratitude for your leanne stops to read a letter written by a farmworker we migrants ask that you will not give up on us oh because we're with you 100 as you are with us we just don't have the voice or the power to speak out so i hope that this letter will be my voice and also the voice of other migrant workers thank you one love to you all has coveted exposed a double standard in the way farm workers and canadians are treated or are the rules of the seasonal worker program simply out of date [Applause] i'm heading to this farm to find out prosec farms is one of the biggest vegetable growers in norfolk county the family has been feeding canadians for four generations they employ a hidden army of workers 550 of them most from mexico danny prossic keeps the tomatoes running on time 16 000 kilograms an hour using computer programs to separate them by size and color picked packed then sent out the door holy cow this operation will be running from when when in the day usually we start at 7 30 and depending on order sometimes we'll finish at 11 o'clock at night but machines don't pack or pick the produce these folks do they don't work what many of us take for granted a 40-hour week they're paid a flat rate of 14.25 an hour nothing more no overtime no pandemic bonus across canada labor protections for agricultural workers are far weaker than almost any other industry [Music] really the pandemic has made more obvious things that we've already known for years and years it's sort of spotlight on the vulnerabilities of the system even at a certain point of the pandemic the grocery store cashiers were making a bonus on on their pay because they were deemed essential workers meanwhile the people out picking the food and packing the food they're not even getting paid overtime when they work overtime hours why are they not that essential when when we look at their role as being critical to our food supply well i think there's a couple of things there one is related to this way in which we devalue food and farm work and then the second thing is we don't have enough people who want to farm anyway so how are we going to a rebuild the farm population and then also rebuild the farm worker population that's a that's a tall order it is a tall order and it's only now finally i would say our officials getting panicked about it it's as fast as you can pick it and pack it you can sell it i could have two lines of these right now and i can if i had the people i could pack it and it could be sold but you can't do it without these seasonal workers absolutely not we've tried locals but uh they end up leaving because it's just not what they want this is too much work you would be buying all your produce from afar if we didn't have the temporary foreign workers the canadian workforce dried up decades ago as more people moved to cities provincial police have been called to head off possible violence among a group of transient workers those that stayed demanded better wages and better working conditions and pushed to unionize there are no beds no blankets no heat no hot meal so farmers banded with the federal government to bring in migrant workers these guys were flown in from jamaica the year 1967. and ever since a cost-effective way of keeping canada's food supply running the rules are basically stacked against the farm workers who sets the rules well the rules are set by the program itself and the program is developed by largely the federal government in consultation with farm organizations and some uh of the countries that send a lot of farm workers to canada particularly the caribbean and mexico but are those rules then set up to benefit the farmer or the worker the farmer back at the prosecs farm six hundred thousand cherry tomatoes a day are pulsing along the lines and into trays the goal is to have them on store shelves the next day the pressure's on you overseeing this and ultimately the workers here to get this stuff packed and get it out the door absolutely or else it's plus absolutely with so much pressure to produce during a pandemic the prosthetics made a drastic decision their 550 workers have been told to stay on the farm 24 7 to help keep the workplace coveted free we just asked them if you go somewhere what's that do for your fellow workers as well as as your job you can lose your job because of a pendant because you come home with kobe 19. bailey prosec came up with an approach to ease the sting of the lockdown so explain to me what i'm looking at here this has been put up to facilitate these guys getting their groceries right so so they don't have to go to town to get their groceries no the groceries come to them the workers order online and then pay for it here but this is specifically because of the pandemic 100 you wouldn't do this otherwise no it's keeping our guys safe minimizing the risk everybody has to accept there's a little spot that we all have to give [Music] we're out visiting family we're getting our hair done our nails done we're shopping we're visiting these guys haven't been able to do that think about staying in your house and no other industry in canada is any boss telling you that you have to stay in your bunk house and we're told in norfolk county more than 10 farms are doing just that ben how are you doing today you sound tired how many hours were you working today way more sometimes 16 17. have you or or any of the other workers tried to talk to the farmer to say can we change these rules [Music] it's for that reason we're protecting the identity of this worker he says the lockdown imposed by kominsky farms is into its sixth month it's mentally physically emotionally frustrated years before you could go sit down talk to your friends or families if but it gets worse the komianski farm hands out this letter threatening workers if they leave the property what did the letters say beyond the two-week quarantine it's illegal for farms to hold their workers captive so you think if you if you speak out you'll lose your job yeah we contacted kominsky farms about their lockdown and their letter they won't talk to us on camera but write in an email they follow direction and guidelines set out for municipal provincial and federal governments i don't know where that idea comes from that you would be able to restrict somebody in that way once they have gone through quarantine they are to be treated as any other canadian with the same rights as any other canadian when you look at what's going on in the u.s equal rights is an issue that's happening worldwide norfolk county is not any different and this issue with migrant workers this i would say is the civil rights issue here of of our time with without a doubt we just struggle because each government has given us a different direction the health unit gives you one direction service canada gives you another direction there's just too many groups that think they are telling us how to do what's best for the workers do you think you know what's best for the workers um i think we have a pretty good idea i think we do for sure paul prosik says this is the price of doing business during a pandemic the number of workers that we have here you you cannot ever imagine that 100 percent is going to be free and willing of our rules and regulations that's no business gonna get that when you're worried about guys going into town and and possibly contracting the virus what's at stake well it'll have to shut down if it does spread here then you you do see that other outbreaks the problems that they've had they'd have to shut down yeah two weeks for us is is huge how huge i don't know do you want dollars you want emotions you want give me all right you're talking millions you can do the math we do 75 million pounds of produce here a year in a matter of let's call it 14 weeks take two of them away that pretty much tells you what it is at the end of the day we're feeding people right what's wrong with that are you really worried about how how it gets done coming up the human cost of how it gets done i said this is where the boss put me to live a garage a complete garage the sweeping vistas of ontario's norfolk county cloak a reality thousands of migrant workers toil these fields to keep us fed but what's also hidden from afar are the conditions the workers live in [Music] what would be a garage anywhere else was a home for farm workers this is where we live in our [ __ ] garage living conditions many of us would find unacceptable i don't like this condition i live in it but deemed acceptable under the seasonal worker program no stove no washroom you've got to use the washroom you'll come outside and use this last year when clinton john discovered he'd be spending a season living in this garage he didn't just get mad come up here last night right to come and live in a condition like that he made this video it later posted on social media even the good olds to come up in canada and live like this when i walk in there guys i said this is where the boss put me to live they say yeah boy no heat right i went up there in may no heat tell me clinton why did you decide to make the video because i am not the only person that is victimized from the farm program it has mexican who's victimized from the farm program bit of jamaicans was victimized from the farm program so that is why i posted the video so that the whole world could see [Music] so we're in uh the thick harvest as you can see here we'll show you what's going on yeah give me a lay of the land yeah this is one of the most labor intensive things that we do dusty and his father daryl zamanik own easy grove where clint and john worked workers are pulling strawberry plants from the ground before they produce berries and the truck is bound for where florida north and south carolina predominantly they're replanted in the u.s the strawberries they yield then ship back to canadian grocery stores can we take a closer look come on in just i've never i've never seen this so everyone's in the dirt and this is perfect weather it's not too hot not too cold and if there were a coved outbreak on your operation what impact would that have on your operation it would be devastating 38 years worth of work would be done under the federal program the migrant workers are tied to the zamanick farm they can't easily quit and go to another farm our bubble is built up of canadians mexicans saint vincent trinidad and tobago and jamaicans and this season kovitz tied the workers even tighter to the farm what is the big fear the fear is that we either failed them or we've and failed their families and that's the fear that we work so hard every year to put food on people's plates and to have food security but health nothing is beats health their family i mean them godfather to some some of the children but not everyone feels the same hi there are you going to do this audio only or can we get you on video another easy grow worker is speaking to us on the condition we protect his identity to protect his job it's gonna be like prison you know we can't go anywhere he says workers are escorted into town to shop then brought back to the farm they have some motion detector cameras done properly to their monitoring so how do you feel about that having your all your movements being tracked by the farmer i'm not comfortable with when you speak you know they can threaten you of not requesting you back to canada you just keep your mouth shut so you can keep your job so we can get the chance to come back next year so we constructed this almost like a mini subdivision yeah um out of uh retired school portables this year the xamarinx spent more than half a million dollars on these bunk houses the worker we spoke to lives here and there's that camera he told us about there are motion activated security cameras that he's convinced have been set up for you to monitor their movements a the security cameras are to stop theft of our items b they're there to protect the men from getting broke into when they're at work when the guys came here i said there's the cameras and there's the camera just so you know you're aware uh it's not big brother we're not george orwell he felt like a prisoner locked down because of the rules that had been imposed by by you by the farm owners all we were adhering by was this was our bubble and this is what we were trying everybody signed up for that this is this is our this is our family clinton john was once part of the zaminik family i really love coming to canada to work but after complaining about his living conditions he wasn't invited back and he has no right to appeal that if you see something that you don't like you cannot talk about it you could only keep it to yourself because anytime you talk about it for sure the next year they will not request here and the farmer has to request here in order to get to go up i appreciate clinton's frustration i mean he didn't get hired back and he didn't get another farm so but but he feels he didn't get another farm because he spoke out about his his living conditions right that he was blackballed and not invited back yes so that this is not an isolated issue and it's not meant to take away a man's income you know there are reasons people leave you know joe can't get along with sally right well then you should just there's a lot of jobs out there move to another location is that simple but it hasn't been for clinton we paint our bus the trinidad flag right like however we can make this home we do right on cue right yeah the zamanics say clinton is simply a disgruntled worker and insists they treat their workers with respect it hurts me it hurts me when i get from my soul almost to tears almost to want to regret farming yeah it's that's so many things not doing enough my soul the imported farm workers usually come here year over year over year and of course because of the rules which everybody is criticizing is basically a captive worker doesn't really have any options when you use the word captive as in prisoner that these are people who who don't have the same uh you know mobility rights as canadians they're not going to speak out against bad working conditions because they feel they could just be sent home sent home or they won't be called back i mean are these some of the inherent problems that work against the laborers in this system absolutely so that's the deal you're signing on for like it or not a lot of people who are coming to canada are have even particularly dire circumstances at home so they'll suffer the consequences of the wider conditions in order to get that wage the zamanics aren't housing anyone in the garage anymore but they could housing guidelines are set by the province and this garage passed inspection last year in fact in norfolk county only seven percent of the bunk houses failed inspections do you think it's acceptable we have conditions in norfolk county where where four workers are living in a garage a furnished garage you know i think that it just shows that we need a uniform housing standard across the province so even beyond the provincial government we need a uniform standard that comes from the federal government that everybody can adhere to if that is compliant you know is is that the farmer's fault that you know they're providing what needs to be there past inspection standard past inspection remember the busy prosec farm and the long days their workers put in well this is one of the bunk houses workers come home to another garage this one we're told for 13 men with one of their beds tucked behind the fridge [Music] and then there's this from a neighboring farm in 2020 especially after what covett has revealed about congregate living should we be trying to do better absolutely the rules of the game are going to change and wouldn't it be better for us to you know present a plan to the federal government you know the federal government is still yet to have their working group meet um and at some point you know they've got to get it they can't come out in in february and expect farmers to change their bunk houses you know with an arrival a date a month later so the clock is ticking for next season already when we come back i feel like the bad guy this year is a farmer if you have to do this the same way next year probably i wouldn't come you wouldn't come [Music] [Music] good morning [Music] you made it two weeks of quarantine are finally over for timothy frederick and how does it feel to finally arrive good i think for today that's uh paperwork groceries banking and i bet this is the most excited anyone's ever been to get back to work but three workers are left behind we saw the one guy who had had the had a fever yep yeah so harry had the symptoms and the the uh the guidance from the health unit is to quarantine another 14 days i just told them right off the bat that you're going to get paid so you're not worrying about that financial stress but still this is what it's going to be that money will come from brett schuyler's pocket and his profits if he has any this season to be clear does did harry test positive for covet no no there's been no testing why not test him to try to ascertain some degree of certainty i agree yeah i totally agree public health workers don't regularly do covid tests on farms it's left to the farmers to manage the risk of an outbreak i have a lot of anxiety around us getting colbit on the farm because we're not immune to it i haven't figured out how to pick apples from the office [Music] for timothy the apple harvest couldn't come soon enough what's it been like for you great yeah tell me about it great it's perfect the weather's nuts it's not too cold it's not too hot it's perfect to pick up on a time to reap a time to reflect if you have to do this the same way next year missing some time spending time in quarantine probably i wouldn't come you wouldn't come but i'm up here so i gotta give it my full hundred mm-hmm you know probably next year who knows it might be better well it's good to see a smile on your face and everything and everyone's uh everyone's okay back home good good everybody good smiling because of my friend here she keeps you smiling [Laughter] brett skyler's breathing a little easier hoping his hardest harvest will soon be over can you in any way quantify the percentage of your time you spent on pandemic related worries and preparations and we asked my wife it would be all my time so uh but i would say i feel like it definitely took uh 50 60 of my time this year would you like someone to take the quarantining component off your hands absolutely that'd be uh be wonderful and there's things i would have liked to done better but i want to make sure those things happen for uh for next year should this really be on the farmer's shoulders to be the public health officer of your own workforce there's a lot of responsibility put on farm operators that you know we didn't go to school for that and i think a better use of a farmer is focusing on how to grow crops so what does the federal government plan to do with the program brett and so many other farmers rely on we are working to make sure the workers rights are protected we are working with employers we are working with farmers with three deaths and nearly 2 000 infected workers across canada this season has been called a national disgrace when the minister signed them coming into this country and the conditions are covered 19 she signed their death warrant employment minister carla qualtro admits the program is broken you're working to correct these incredible deplorable situations but when the fifth estate asked her how the government plans to fix it she declined to speak to us on camera do you fear that the increased scrutiny that there has been in the seasonal agricultural workers program can put that program in danger i am concerned about uh about putting the program in danger i i always feel there's things we can do better and we've got to work to do things better we want to be the gold standard um but there's just there's something to consider there that when we're not supporting canadian agriculture we're supporting it somewhere else as the apple harvest is wrapping up we track down shireen king you know when we first met you you were in quarantine it's good to see you have a smile on your face she's the mother of four who's come to canada for the first time to support her family does it make sense to you that you have to come this far just to earn some money if you do check your toe trinidad it's better i'll come because it's hard it's hard hard hard it's hard to get to work in trinidad yeah what we didn't know about shireen is the story behind her smile your sister's here your brother's here yeah your dad's here correct and did did they all help prepare you for what this was going to this experience would be like yeah my father especially he told us but i am a fighter i don't give up i had to give up if i want something i'll go in faith hard hard is that all right we get the family together for a snapshot shireen's sister brother uncle and her dad he's been coming to canada for 23 seasons it is nice now to see that i have my two daughters and my son and my brain lawyer with me and keep me company until they return home to trinidad at least they have each other [Music] one last note to this story just as the harvest was wrapping up on brett skyler's farm an outbreak 13 people tested positive for the virus another 100 were quarantined but to make matters worse even after they clear quarantine many are essentially stranded here the trinidad government has closed its borders to returning workers the canadian government says there's little it can do one last reminder that after everything they've done to help provide for canadians maybe now it's time for canadians to do more to provide for them [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Fifth Estate

Views: 110,515

Keywords: Migrant workers, agriculture, farming, workers, labour, migrant farm workers, farms, vegetables, fruits, food, food security, Canada, Ontario, Norfolk County, Mark Kelley, COVID-19, Coronavirus, pandemic, coronavirus pandemic, health, farmer, politics, economics, The Fifth Estate, cbc, CBC News

Id: AaQKN6oja3c

Length: 44min 30sec (2670 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/witshunt]

In the US nor Canada, the mostly Eurasian bourgeoisie never remember those they rely upon so heavily to keep them so fat, their wine goblets full and their beer mugs frothing over while they’re happy and watching pay-per-view television shows and ranting and raving about how much they love HBO and Showtime... while the bourgeoisie rely almost entirely on the most marginalized people to do the most dangerous and backbreaking work.