These former farm workers won a standards case in B.C. They told CBC about their working conditions [Video]

Stephanie Ramirez says she worked 15-hour shifts and drank up to three Monster Energy drinks a day to keep herself going. Until one day, her body gave out and she collapsed on the job.

Ramirez is a Guatemalan farm worker whose story Canadians might not ordinarily hear. But CBC News has learned she is one of five workers who were collectively awarded nearly $80,000 in a B.C. Employment Standards Branch decision involving a Fraser Valley employer.

Yet when the federal department that oversees the temporary foreign worker program conducted an investigation into the workers’ complaints, it found no problems and gave the same employer a clean audit.

“Quite often, these kinds of things just get swept under the rug,” said Jenna Hennebry, a professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and International Migration Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. 

“This.… is one of a few cases …