REPEAT-Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) Leamington Support Centre Celebrates 10th Anniversary

LEAMINGTON, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 27, 2012) -

ATTN: NEWS AND ASSIGNMENT EDITORS FOR SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2012 -

Hundreds of migrant and domestic agriculture workers and community and labour allies will be attending the 10th Anniversary of the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) Support Centre in Leamington, Ontario this weekend. Over the past decade, the Leamington AWA Support Centre has become an invaluable resource and friend to the thousands of migrant and domestic agriculture workers who work each season in the Leamington, Essex County and Chatham-Kent areas.

On Sunday, May 27 at 4p.m., the celebration begins at the AWA Support Centre at 14 Albert Street in downtown Leamington. The celebration includes an official anniversary welcoming reception and speakers, a community barbeque, a soccer tournament, festive live musical performances, and the unveiling of a new outdoor mural to honour and recognize the enormous contributions that migrant agriculture workers make to the Canadian community.

Founded in 2002, the Leamington AWA centre was the very first of what has now become a network of ten AWA centres across Canada; four of them in Ontario including Leamington, Simcoe, Virgil and Bradford, Ontario. Operated in association with UFCW Canada (United Food and Commercial Workers union), the centres and their multi-lingual staff assist tens of thousands of agriculture workers annually with compensation claims, scheduling, pay issues, referral to legal counsel, health and safety training, CPP claims, and many other issues including unfair treatment and unsafe housing and working conditions. Today, with more than 10,000 members across the country, the AWA is the largest and most comprehensive agriculture workers' organization in Canada.