Remembering Garvin Yapp
April 28th is the National Day of Mourning to remember workers killed at work. We are asking that at this year’s event, can you please take time to commemorate the death of comrade Garvin Yapp, a migrant farm worker from Jamaica who was employed in Canada for 34 years. Yapp died on August 14, 2022 while working on a farm in Canada.
Agricultural workers continue to toil under dangerous, dehumanizing and deadly work because of a myriad of legal exclusions under the province’s labour laws, and a lack of anti-reprisal measures to protect workers. Migrant workers endure additional barriers as a result of their tied work permits, the threat of being sent home at the whim of their employer and not being able to return to work for the following season. Canada’s migrant worker programs are employer-driven, which subjects workers to an uneven playing field.
Despite increased awareness regarding the plight of migrant agricultural workers to date, no action has been taken to address the unequal power imbalances that migrants endure. Agricultural workers are still denied the right to organize and collectively bargain. There are no specific protections under OHSA for agricultural operations and agricultural workers are denied minimum wage, overtime, holiday pay, vacation pay, and minimum hours of work per day and per week. Employer-provided accommodations are excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act and are excluded from OHSA protections.
The above is from Justice For Migrant Workers (J4MW).
Click here for a toolkit: https://londonlabour.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2025/04/Justice-for-Garvin-Yapp-Toolkit-2.pdf
