Category: Uncategorized

Read in full HERE.

To understand how the gender wage gap affects women migrant workers it is important, first, to understand who women migrant workers are and what are the social dynamics that characterize their precarity in Ontario. Second, it is important to understand the legal frameworks that institutionalize their precarity in ways that very predictably leave them subject to intense gender discrimination, wage theft and other rights violations that deepen the wage gap. Third, it is important to recognize that these dynamics of systemic discrimination demand a response that is equally systemic and multi-dimensional. A wide range of changes need to be made and need to work together to eliminate the precarity that enables and sustains employer behaviour that impoverishes migrant women workers.

In the case of agricultural workers, research and anecdotal evidence from our member organizations has shown that many women participating in the program are single mothers from rural regions who have limited economic opportunities in their home communities. (Encalada Grez, 2011). In the case of domestic workers, research and anecdotal evidence from our member organizations has shown that women are single mothers, or married but in either case are primary caregivers.

Women migrant workers that we work with see labour migration as a survival strategy that provides opportunities to support themselves and their families that are impossible to access in their home contexts which are often characterized by unemployment, underemployment, underdevelopment, civil unrest and/or home governments that have actively adopted labour export policies as their dominant economic strategy. This effectively forces women into migration for work and produces a precarity that means women can be coerced into enduring profoundly discriminatory treatment because of their need to maintain the employee relationship while in Canada. Research found that women in agriculture try to keep their jobs in Canada by increasing their productivity, attempting to outperform men and sometimes acquiescing to exploitative and sub-standard working and living conditions (Encalada Grez, 2011).

While in Canada, employers exert an astonishing intrusive degree of surveillance and supervision over women migrant workers’ non-working time. This surveillance and supervision exceeds even that imposed on male migrant workers and includes imposing stricter curfews, asserting greater control over their living conditions, and controlling social interactions. Romantic relationships are sometimes explicitly prohibited via contracts, and often implicitly prohibited. Pregnancy may result in termination or preclude a worker from being invited back in to the program. Harassment and violence by male co-workers and male employers often goes unreported. Harassment and violence as a result of the joint nexus of gender, racialization, and lack of permanent immigration status in towns, cities and communities where migrant workers are is also largely unreported.

The cumulative effects of these constraints gravely impacts women migrant workers wages that are often paid below or at minimum wage, lower than both their male counterparts and Canadian citizens. As the Closing the Gender Wage Gap: A Background Paper notes, racialized women face a gender wage gap of 36.8%. Additionally, we are aware that migrant workers, most of whom are restricted to working in low-waged industries or unable to assert their rights as a result of being undocumented, earn the absolute least amount of wages. While we have not been able to do a comprehensive analysis of the wages of migrant workers vis-à-vis the broader workforce, it is certain that racialized women with temporary or no immigration status earn even less than racialized women in general.

When looking at the legal frameworks, it is clear that the gender wage gap for women migrant workers is driven by a number of systemic dynamics that subject women migrant workers to low pay and that subject them to widespread practices of wage theft and other violations of workplace rights which deepen their wage disparity and isolation in the labour market.

Read in full HERE.

Proposed Ontario Immigration Act regulations set out prescribed criteria for categories of individuals who may be eligible to receive a certificate of nomination for permanent residence. These regulation exclude migrant workers in occupations deemed low-skilled from access to Permanent Residency. MWAC believes that the Ontario Immigration Act, and future Canada-Ontario Immigration Act regulations must include access to permanent residency for migrant workers. This step should be taken in parallel to ensuring permanent resident immigration status upon arrival for migrant workers.

Read in full HERE

Across Ontario migrant worker allies issued recommendations to the Special Advisors of the Changing Workplaces Review calling for swift reforms to the Employment Standards Act and the Ontario Labour Relations Act.

Download and read them here.

• Submissions from the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change HERE
• Submissions from Justice for Migrant Workers HERE
• Submissions from the Caregivers Action Centre HERE
• Submissions from Fuerza Puwersa HERE
• Submissions from Toronto Workers Health and Safety Legal Clinic HERE
• Submissions from Dr. Jenna Hennebry, Dr. Janet McLaughlin and Dr. Kerry Preibisch HERE
• Submissions from Erinn Burke, Northumberland County HERE

Sunday, March 29th, 2pm
Citizenship and Immigration Canada Toronto headquarters
55 St. Clair East. 

Toronto – Over a 100 migrant workers and supporters in Toronto will be planting seedlings and food at Immigration Canada headquarters to insist that migrant workers are rooted in communities. The “plant-in”, part of actions taking place in 8 cities across the country, calls for an end to the so-called “4 and 4 rule”, and for permanent immigration status for migrant workers. A live band will accompany the planting on Sunday afternoon.

Over 3,000 people have also signed a petition.

“Many of the people who are being forcibly uprooted on April 1st have lived in the country for longer than 4 years. They have families, friends, and relationships,” says Liza Draman from the Caregivers Action Centre. “Workers already face abuse from employers and recruiters because of bad provincial and federal laws, Pulling them away from their communities on top of that is unjust, inhumane and arbitrary.”

Approximately 70,000 low-waged workers in the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and Live-In Caregiver program are impacted by the 4 and 4 regulations, which bars the renewal of work permits past four years. The clock on the first 4 years started on April 01, 2011, but many workers have been in Canada for years prior to that.

“These laws aren’t good for workers or employers,” says Syed Hussan of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. “It doesn’t serve anyone’s purpose to remove a trained workforce, and replace it with new workers that are less aware of their rights. Why does growing roots in Canada and holding down a job for four years result in deportation?  This mass deportation is classic economic mismanagement and is frankly irrational.”

People working low-wage jobs in service, retail, caregiving, manufacturing and agriculture among others are not able to immigrate to Canada permanently under existing federal law. At the same time, the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently noted that the number of Canadian citizens in “low-skilled” jobs has dropped by 26% between 2002 and 2013, highlighting the need for permanents immigrants in these sectors.

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The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) is Canada’s largest migrant worker rights coalition with 15 national and community groups.

www.migrantworkersalliance.org

MWAC is part of the Campaign Against the 4 Year Limit on Migrant Workers which is made up of 19 organizations across Canada. Its demands have been endorsed by nearly a dozen major national groups.

www.no4and4.tumblr.com

Media Contact:
Syed Hussan, Cell: 416 453 3632, Email: hussans@migrantworkersalliance.org

Toronto — The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Canada’s largest coalition of migrant worker rights groups, is pleased with the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s (PBO) report released today entitled: Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada: A look at regions and occupational skill which adds a note of reason to debates around Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada.

“This report is resounding evidence that the hysteria around migrant workers stealing jobs from Canadian citizens is misplaced,” says Syed Hussan, Coordinator of MWAC. “In fact, there is a great need for low-skilled migrant workers to come to Canada, lay roots and settle permanently. It’s time to shift the dialogue to ensuring migrant workers are accorded rights to permanent residency by the Federal government as well as simultaneous provincial reforms where migrant workers are provided with equal access to provinicial labour rights and social entitlements The first step to this is ending the unjust 4 and 4 rule that uproots migrant workers who have worked in Canada for four years.

The PBO found:

• At their peak, Temporary Foreign Workers make up 1.8% of the entire Canadian labour force.
• Between 2002 and 2013, Canada’s low-skilled workforce declined by 26%
• While low-skilled citizen workers experienced a large increase in unemployment following the recession, their number was essentially back at its pre-recession low by 2013.
• Most low-skilled temporary foreign workers are in smaller cities where the number of low-skilled Canadian workers is often lower than the national average.
• In general, there is insufficient data to show the relationship between foreign workers and labour shortages.

Important background:

• The reported unemployment rate in Canada is 6.6%
• At the end of 2013, there were over 1.3 million unemployed Canadian citizens and only 53,953 low-skilled foreign workers in the country.
• Migrant workers pay all taxes into the system, but are denied full employment insurance, pensions; and access to subsidized housing, post-secondary education, and skills training.

March 4th. 1pm.
MP Joe Oliver’s Office. 511 Lawrence Ave. West.

Toronto – Migrant worker groups across Canada are speaking out against arbitrary time limits on low-waged workers. Mass deportations are expected as controversial regulations passed in 2011 start their impact on April 1^st, 2015. Temporary Foreign Workers and Live-In Caregivers in low-waged jobs that have worked in Canada for four years will no longer be able to extend their permits and have to leave; those that stay will become undocumented.

“These regulations impose an artificial deadline on worker’s lives and relationships in Canada and enforce a revolving door immigration system,” says Tzazna Miranda Leal, Migrant Worker Organizer with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. “The fact that these workers could hold down a job for four years, working 40-60 hours a week, proves that their labor is needed and that their jobs aren’t temporary. They deserve permanent status, not deportation.”

Liza Draman, a Live-In Caregiver organizer with the Caregivers Action Centre adds, “This 4 and 4 rule is a secretive backdoor to excludep Caregivers that are raising Canadian children and taking care of seniors. Its unfair, unjust and cruel.”

Approximately 60,000 caregivers are awaiting their permanent residency because of Immigration Canada’s backlog. As a result, many Caregivers, especially those who may have troubles at work, may not be able to get their open work permits within four years and may face deportation.

Senthil Thevar worked under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program in Canada and is deeply worried about these changes. “Workers like me paid thousands of dollars to come work in Canada. We work long hours, and often don’t even get minimum wage. Now they want to keep us for just four years, and then replace us. We are not chewing gum to be chewed and spat out.”

At least 70,000 workers currently in Canada, and approximately 50,000 entering each year will be impacted.

Deena Ladd from the Workers Action Centre adds, “This is not a solution for workers, employers or the economy. Workers lives will be less stable. Employers will be able to hire a new set of workers every four years who will know less about their rights, and will have to be trained at great cost. Together, this means an economy with greater turn-over, more temporary work and fewer rights.”

Actions are also taking place in Charlottetown, Edmonton, Guelph, Hamilton, Okanagan valley, Vancouver, Victoria. See full list: http://no4and4.tumblr.com/. Over 2,000 people have signed a petition athttps://www.change.org/p/stop-the-mass-deportation-of-thousands-of-immigrants-on-april-1st

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Source:
Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
www.migrantworkersalliance.org

Campaign Against the 4 Year Limit on Migrant Workers is comprised of migrant worker groups and organizations that work directly with migrant workers across Canada. Members as of February 21, 2015 include Fuerza Puwersa (Guelph), Migrant Workers Alliance for Change*, Migrante Alberta, No One Is Illegal – Vancouver, Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture (Okanagan Valley) and Sanctuary City Hamilton.

*Migrant Workers Alliance for Change includes Alliance of South Asian Aid Prevention (Toronto), Asian Community Aids Services (Ontario), Caregivers Action Centre (Ontario), Industrial Accident Victims’ Group of Ontario, Justicia for Migrant Workers (Ontario), KAIROS Canada, Legal Assistance of Windsor, Migrante Ontario, No One Is Illegal – Toronto, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Social Planning Toronto, UNIFOR (Canada), United Food and Commercial Workers (Canada), Workers United and the Workers’ Action Centre (Toronto)

Endorsers of Campaign Against the 4 Year Limit on Migrant Workers

• Canadian Labour Congress
• Cooper Institute – PEI
• Council of Canadians
• MigrantWorkerRights – Canada
• OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
• OPIRG – McMaster
• No One Is Illegal – Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories

Edmonton, Alberta: March 5, Women’s Day march and speakers forum, 1PM at the Luther Centre 10014 81 Ave.; March 17, Flor@20, Strathcona library 2PM
Guelph, Ontario: Guelph City Hall, March 1, 11am. Community walk.
Hamilton, Ontario: February 28, 11am, various locations.
Okanagan Valley, BC: March 4, community awareness and flyering, various locations.
Toronto, Ontario: March 4, 1pm, Stop Mass Deportation Order to be issued to Finance Minister, Joe Oliver.

Actions in other cities to be announced.

WHY:    On April 01, 2015, the 4 & 4 rule (Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations s. 200(3)(g)) will come into effect. Under these rules, low-waged workers in the Temporary Foreign Worker program and Live-In Caregiver streams  who have been employed in Canada for one or more periods totaling four years will be denied continued status and forced to leave. They are barred from re-entering Canada as workers for four years. Over 62,000 workers currently in Canada, and many others entering the country will be affected. Workers that choose to stay past four will become undocumented. The fact that these workers have been able to maintain a job for four years proves that their work is permanent, not temporary.

As a response to these changes, front-line migrant worker groups across Canada have come together to launch the Campaign Against a 4-year Limit on Migrant Workers. Migrant workers should be granted permanent residence, not forced to cut their ties with friends, family and community and leave. These exclusions target workers that make less than the prevailing wage in their province or region (approximately $23/hour); and place an arbitrary limit on relationships and ties built over years.

WHAT: Migrant worker groups across Canada are coming together to demand:

1. An immediate moratorium be placed on the 4 & 4 rule, so workers here may continue to work.

2. That permanent residency be given to migrant workers already in Canada.

3. That migrant workers receive access to all social benefits and entitlements

4. That legislation be enacted providing permanent residency for all migrants upon arrival.

WHO:   Campaign Against the 4 Year Limit on Migrant Workers includes Fuerza Puwersa (Guelph), Migrant Workers Alliance for Change*, Migrante Alberta, Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture (Okanagan Valley) and Sanctuary City Hamilton.

*Migrant Workers Alliance for Change includes Alliance of South Asian Aid Prevention (Toronto), Asian Community Aids Services (Ontario), Caregivers Action Centre (Ontario), Industrial Accident Victims’ Group of Ontario, Justicia for Migrant Workers (Ontario), KAIROS Canada, Legal Assistance of Windsor, Migrante Ontario, No One Is Illegal – Toronto, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Social Planning Toronto, UNIFOR (Canada), United Food and Commercial Workers (Canada), Workers United and the Workers’ Action Centre (Toronto)

As of February 27th, campaign demands are endorsed by the Council of Canadians, OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, MigrantWorkerRights-Canada, MIGRANTE – BC and No One Is Illegal – Vancouver.

For more information: www.no4and4.tumblr.com

• Toronto / Canada-wide coordination: Syed Hussan, hussan@migrantworkersalliance.org or Cell: 416 453 3632

• Edmonton, Alberta (Migrante AB): migrantealberta@gmail.com; 780-966-5908

• Guelph: Fuerza Puwersa email: fuerza.puwersa@gmail.com or Mobile: 519-328-8835

• Hamilton: Hamilton Sanctuary City Coalition: sanctuaryhamilton@gmail.com

• Okanagan Valley, BC (RAMA): E-mail: hola@ramaokanagan.org or Mobile: 250-212-4740

On November 26, 2014, the Ontario Liberals re-introduced the Ontario Immigration Act (Bill 49). The Bill is now in its Second Reading. Debate will recommence some time after the Members of Provincial Parliament (MPP) return to the Ontario legislature on February 17, 2014. This is an initial analysis of the Ontario Immigration Act. We will be releasing more information in mid-February.

While this legislation is framed as an ‘Ontario Immigration Act’, it provides no real rights, benefits or access to immigration status for low-waged migrant workers in Ontario. It does not effectively free migrant workers from fees, or regulate unscrupulous recruiters. As it stands, the Ontario Immigration Act is designed to facilitate recruitment of high-waged migrants to Ontario in line with the new Federal Express Entry immigration system and develop provincial temporary immigration programs.

If passed, the Ontario Immigration Act would:

• Give Ontario the power to create its own temporary or permanent immigration programs, provided the Federal Government agrees to their creation.
• Give Ontario the power to create a registry of employers that hire within these new Ontario-determined programs. The registries are not compulsory.
• Give Ontario the power to create a registry of recruiters who refer migrants to employment in these Ontario-determined programs. This registry would not include immigration consultants who are often recruiters, and is not compulsory.
• Give Ontario the power to create an inspections and investigations department that will have powers two years from the date this Act comes into force. These investigators have entry, search, seizure and fine levying powers to ensure that:
  • Unregistered recruiters do not recruit migrant workers to Ontario’s programs
  • Unauthorized immigration representatives do not work in Ontario; and
  • Recruiters and representatives follow required protocols if and when they are registered.
• Allow Ontario to share information about employers and recruiters with other provincial and federal agencies, provided that registries are created.
• Give Ontario the power to fund non-governmental bodies to promote settlement and integration of immigrants. No actual funding is guaranteed.
• Give the Minister of Immigration and the Government the power to make subsequent changes Ontario’s immigration policy by regulation, and without having to table new laws.

The Ontario Immigration Act does not legislate changes, it instead grants the government the power to implement reforms should it decide to do so. Moving key reforms into the realm of regulations, rather than legislation, further distances them from public scrutiny and influence. The Ontario Immigration Act is a missed opportunity for creating meaningful recruitment regulations in Ontario, and ignores best practices being developed in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and elsewhere.

For the recruiter and employer registry aspects of the Ontario Immigration Act to work, the Ontario Immigration Act must be transformed with a view to ending the practice of migrant workers paying fees to work in Ontario. Specific measure to this end include:

1. Require compulsory licensing of all recruiters working in Ontario with a financial bond: Recruiters charge migrant workers thousands of dollars, and seize documents from them to connect them with employers in Ontario. A robust licensing system, with a financial bond is necessary to end this practice.
2. Require compulsory registration of all migrant worker employers in Ontario: Ontario depends on the federal government’s willingness to share information about employers that hire migrant workers. A compulsory and robust registration is system is necessary for accountability when fees are illegally charged from workers.
3. Hold recruiters and employers jointly financially liable for violating labour protections: This practice is already the law in Manitoba and other provinces and ensures that responsibility for violations is not passed to recruiters abroad. Instead employers should be held accountable for working with appropriate recruiters (who should be licensed in Ontario) to ensure that migrant workers do not face abuse.
4. Use employer and recruiter registries to uphold labour rights: Recruiter and employer registries should sit within the Ministry of Labour that has the expertise and the legal status to enforce employment standards, ensuring that migrant workers are not charged fees, and that their rates of pay and conditions of work meet Ontario’s minimum standards.

The Ontario Immigration Act should also include access to Permanent Residency for low-wage workers.

1. Ontario is one of the few provinces where the provincial immigration nominee program explicitly excludes low-waged workers. A fair Ontario Immigration Act would provide provincial access to permanent residency to workers of all skill levels, including low-wage, often deskilled & de-professionalized migrant workers.

The current legislative framework in Ontario is a web of exclusions that prevent migrant workers from accessing equal wages, decent housing, healthy jobs, protection from abusive recruiters and employers and the ability to enforce their rights. It is time for a comprehensive look at all provincial legislations that impact the lives and working conditions of migrant workers. It is time for comprehensive legislation that:

1. Prioritizes the right to immigration status on landing for migrant workers: Ontario should push for permanent immigration status for all migrant workers who build, feed, and care for Ontario.
2. Ensure that labour standards including health and safety and anti-reprisals protections; housing and other social entitlements are equally accessible: Migrant workers are excluded from many of Ontario’s rights and protections. Some migrant workers are not paid minimum wage because of their occupations; some are not covered by health and safety protections or receive adequate compensation when injured; employer-provided housing for migrant workers is often not regulated; and Ontario’s anti-reprisals protections do not adequately respond to migrant worker vulnerabilities. Many other social entitlements are unavailable. Comprehensive legislation is needed to ensure migrant workers have equal access to all social rights and protections, which includes:
   1. Strengthen anti reprisal protections so that migrant workers can exert their in the workplace
   2. Expand occupational health and safety so that all workers are protected at work
   3. Eliminate discriminatory provisions in workers compensation so that injured workers can live with dignity
   4. Ensure that migrant workers can access Ontario’s social safety net including access to social assistance.
   5. Update Ontario’s employments standard act so that it levels the playing field for precarious migrant workers.
   6. Expand tenant protections do that migrant workers are not relegated to sub standard housing and can live in housing of their choice.

Moving forward

Changes need to be made to provincial and federal policy to ensure migrant workers in agriculture, care work, and other sectors gain meaningful rights and protections. To do this, we need you to get involved!

• Get educated: Follow Migrant Workers Alliance for Change on email, facebook, and twitter.
• Get active: Reach out to member organizations of MWAC or other groups that work with migrant workers and volunteer your time with them. Help create the space for migrant workers to gather and determine their own political agenda.
• Pressure the politicians: Reach out to your your MPPs and your MPs and let them know that you are watching them.

The proposed compliance framework may be able to lead to real implementation steps that ensure the principle of equal protections for migrant workers is met. However, three critical changes are needed to ensure that these regulations do not end up doing the opposite:

1. The compliance mechanisms and sanctions must not in any way punish workers for their employers’ abuse. The regulatory mechanism should include open work permits, and access to permanent residency for migrant workers. Failure to do so would make these regulations extremely punitive for migrant workers.

2. There should be no exceptions to workplaces that are being inspected or sanctioned. All migrant worker employers, that is those who are part of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, Live-In Caregiver Program and the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, should be equally and comprehensively assessed for abuse.

3. These regulations will result in a convergence, and possible confusion between provincial and federal jurisdictions. MOUs on information sharing, and specific protocols to ensure that migrant workers are able to gain lost wages, or have access to other entitlements under provincial jurisdiction, must be developed.

For our full submissions, click HERE.