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Article: Native migrant labour in the southern Alberta sugar-beet industry: coercion and paternalism in the recruitment of labour.
- Article from:
- The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology
- Article date:
- February 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Assn. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1953, the Canadian Federal Government's National Employment Service recruited 120 status Indian(1) workers from northern Saskatchewan and Alberta to work in the sugar-beet fields of southern Alberta. By 1962, 551 farmers in southern Alberta employed over 2100 Native workers on a seasonal basis to thin, hoe and harvest sugar-beets. Those workers thinned approximately 40% of the 16,103 acres of sugar beets planted that year and collectively earned $400,000 for their efforts. In 1990, the Canadian Sugar-Beet Producer's Association estimated that 85% of the 3000 workers employed in the production of sugar beets were Native people, again, mainly from northern Saskatchewan ...