Fresh Taste Produce and Ontario Food Terminal

Toronto Gardiner Expressway: Right now, in an industrial plaza tucked in the shadow of Toronto Gardiner Expressway, there is another story breaking that exposes the legislative shortcomings that are failing workers even further down the food chain.A group of 12 Tibetan produce pickers, working for Fresh Taste Produce out of the Ontario Food Terminal, are one week into a strike as they fight for their very first collective agreement, according to Toronto Star. Almost every one of them is a refugee, who came to Canada after a decades-long flight from persecution that left their families stateless. The story revealed the seedy underbelly of a food service industry that many of us take for granted when we treat the family to a night out, but what do we know about the workers who bring us the food we put on our tables at home At nearly every stage of food production, from picking to packing to plating, there are appalling stories of vulnerable and precarious employees who barely earn enough to buy the food they serve. They are not people who are accustomed to having the law on their side but their stories are similar to many people who seek asylum and new opportunities in Canada. Some have worked there for 19 years. These immigrant workers start their warehouse shifts while the city sleeps, sorting the produce you find at your local big box grocery store for wages that range from $14 to $17 an hour. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.