The family of a Guatemalan farm worker who died while changing the tire of a van on the farm where he worked will not be compensated. Pattern ? Ottoniel Lares Batzibal acted out of “benevolence” and had not received the instruction to carry out the repair.
“It’s not fair”, denounced Tuesday his daughter Mary Lares, deprived of her father and the main provider of the family. “I still can’t get over it. »
Mr. Batzibal died accidentally on July 18, 2021 at the Les Cultures Fortin inc. in Saint-Patrice-de-Beaurivage, in the MRC of Lotbinière. His comrades found his body crushed by a van.
The 38-year-old had worked for 12 seasons on the same farm, according to his family. He had permission to use company vehicles to transport other farm workers and had a Quebec driver’s license.
At the beginning of February, justice confirmed the decision of the Commission for standards, equity, health and safety at work (CNESST) not to recognize the death of the worker as a work accident. And therefore not to compensate the family.
“The benevolent intention of the worker is part of a personal initiative that was not related to his work”, concluded the administrative judge Valérie Lizotte.
Mr. Lares Batzibal fulfilled the function of driver, but had never received the mandate to repair the vehicles, according to the evidence retained by Mr.me Lizotte. She also pointed out that the accident occurred after normal working hours.
“Changing a tire is a task that is separable from driving a vehicle and has no connection with the employer’s obligation to provide or ensure a means of transport for its workers, especially that the preponderant evidence demonstrates that the worker could have changed vehicles to join his colleagues instead of attempting a repair,” wrote Judge Lizotte.
“It’s irreparable”
In their village on the outskirts of Guatemala City, the widow and daughter of the deceased are now trying to make a living by selling the textiles they weave with colored threads.
“It was hard for us to move forward because my dad was the breadwinner for my family,” Mary Lares said in a written conversation. My father’s death affected my little sister and she passed away on July 15 last year. The $50,000 life insurance payout linked to the death was swallowed up in the young woman’s health care, according to her sister.
The family learned of the death of Mr. Lares Batzibal through “a relative of a colleague of my father”, she continued. “It is irreparable. I cannot describe. »
Mary Lares wished the farm her father worked on for so many years would “help [sa famille] with compensation.
But before the Administrative Labor Tribunal (TAT), the lawyer for the mutual provident fund who intervened as the employer’s representative pleaded that “the repair of a puncture is part of a personal initiative and outside of the professional sphere expected of the worker by the employer”. Joined on the phone, Me Farchid Mochirian declined to comment on the judgment.
” It is sad ”
“It was difficult,” said Marcel Fortin, majority owner of Les Cultures Fortin inc. during a brief telephone interview. “We don’t wish that on anyone. »
“It’s unfortunate,” he added. A stupid accident. Mr. Fortin also stated that permission to take the vehicle had not been given to the workers.
It was Michel Pilon, general manager of the Migrant Agricultural Workers Assistance Network of Quebec, who represented the Batzibal family before the TAT. Although he is disappointed by the decision, he does not intend to appeal the case.
“I argued that transporting workers was part of his workload,” he said.
“Transport is the responsibility of the employer, and what I was pleading was that Mr. Batzibal was the driver designated to transport the workers, for example to go to the pharmacy, to the bank , to get food and so on,” he explained.
The family received $50,000 in life insurance, Mr. Pilon points out. “It is certainly difficult for the family, but fortunately they had insurance that covers agricultural workers. »
Not the first foreign farm worker to die
Hit by lightning
A temporary foreign worker employed on a farm in Oka, in the Laurentians, met an unfortunate end one evening in August 2021 when he was struck by lightning. As a thunderstorm rolled over the field, the group of workers he was part of continued picking cauliflower. Following the accident, the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) demanded that the agricultural company develop a procedure for evacuating fields in the event of a storm. .
Stuck behind a fence
A young Guatemalan worker lost his life in August 2018 on a dairy farm in Lambton, Estrie, after being stuck in the neck behind a mechanical barrier used to push cows towards a milking parlour. The CNESST recommended that employers make sure to identify trapping areas and make them inaccessible.
Asphyxiated
A foreign farm worker and his employer both lost their lives after entering a corn silo in September 2018. The CNESST investigation found they had been asphyxiated due to an “oxygen-depleted atmosphere by the presence of silage gas inside the silo”. In her report on the event, she adds that the planning for the execution of the work in the confined space was non-existent.