To the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs
This Thanksgiving, remember migrant farmworkers
As you sit down with your family and friends for a Thanksgiving meal this weekend, take a moment to think about who grew your food, who caught the turkey, who picked the grapes.
The migrant farmworkers who did have a message for you. They too want to be with their families. And they are asking you to help spread their story on Facebook and Twitter.
Featured in these photos are three of the over 40,000 migrant agricultural workers that come to Canada year after year, working in fields, greenhouses and factories. These jobs are dangerous, low-waged and necessary. Without them, our food system would simply not work. Yet, the law excludes them from basic protections, or the ability to reunite with their families. While they are afraid of reprisals from bosses if they show their faces, they are organizing and resisting. This Thanksgiving, they are asking people across Canada to remember them.
Share their story on Facebook and Twitter this weekend and urge your friends and family to sign this petition: http://migrantrights.ca/en/
Read their stories below. Their names have been changed to protect workers against employer reprisals.
This is Mario. He is 29. His sign reads, “Agricultural workers give our hands and our years of youth to the Canadian economy.” He also says, “I gave my hands and labour to this country. And I have suffered injuries while working here. And because I’m not a permanent resident, I will be one more number that will be replaced when my contract ends! We do the heavy work Canadians won’t do, but we don’t have the same rights as permanent residents. That’s not fair.”
This is Chris. His sign reads, “If you drink wine this Thanksgiving, thank a migrant worker.” 41 year old Chris is a Caribbean father of two and has been coming to Canada for 10 years to grow and harvest peaches, pears, and grapes. He works up to 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. The income he earns here provides food, clothing, and school expenses for his children back home. Chris adds, “One day I want to bring my family to Canada so we can all be together.”
This is Mario. He is 29. His sign reads, “Agricultural workers give our hands and our years of youth to the Canadian economy.” He also says, “I gave my hands and labour to this country. And I have suffered injuries while working here. And because I’m not a permanent resident, I will be one more number that will be replaced when my contract ends! We do the heavy work Canadians won’t do, but we don’t have the same rights as permanent residents. That’s not fair.”
Policy Submissions: Open Work Permit Program for Migrant Workers Facing Risk
Migrant workers and their support organizations across Canada call on the Federal Government to ensure permanent resident status upon arrival for all migrant workers. The current system of temporary, employer specific work permits leaves labour and human rights beyond the reach of migrant workers in Canada. As an interim step to permanent resident status, we are calling on the Federal Government to create open work permits for all workers.
The Federal Government, however, has begun discussions about creating an open work permit program for workers facing abuse only. Here are submissions on how to make this program effective and responsive.
Click to download: Open Work Permit Program for Migrant Workers Facing Risk
MWAC calls for stronger labour standards for Migrant Workers
The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (Bill 148) introduces many important changes to address Ontario’s outdated labour laws. The proposed changes in Bill 148 to the Employment Standards Act (ESA) and Labour Relations Act (LRA) provide a good start to addressing precarious work to deal with changing workplace practices.
However, we join with the Workers Action Centre and Parkdale Community Legal Services in calling for amendments to Bill 148 to ensure it can close the gaps and raise the floor of minimum standards for the highest possible number of workers in Ontario. In particular, we call on the Committee to make the necessary amendments to ensure that workers have notice of their schedules and are compensated when the shift is cancelled at the last minute, and to ensure that the equal pay provisions can meet their goal of alleviating the unfair treatment of part-time and temporary agency workers.
At the same time we urge the government of Ontario to take this opportunity to address the following areas:
- End employment standards exemptions: Only one quarter of workers in Ontario are completely covered by the minimum standards due to a complex web of exemptions. The proposed legislation does not address these exemptions, instead leaving the issue to a recently announced and separate process. Many migrant workers fall within these exemptions. The Employment Standards Act sets the floor for the most basic workers’ rights – all workers should enjoy these rights and Bill 148 should simply eliminate exemptions that apply to migrant workers. In the alternative, Bill 148 should be amended to include a narrow definition of the circumstances in which an exemption will be available in order to better guide the separate review of exemptions.
- Stop illegal recruitment fees: In 2009, the provincial government took an important step by prohibiting recruitment fees. However, there are ongoing reports of recruiters demanding exorbitant and illegal fees from migrant workers. Effective enforcement and mandatory registration for recruiters and employers is required to ensure that migrant workers can take home their pay.
- Effective enforcement requires protection from repatriation for migrant workers: The important gains in the proposed legislation will be illusory unless enforcement is strengthened. MWAC welcomes government announcements about significant increases to enforcement resources. We urge the government to consider the particular vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers, who face immediate repatriation by unscrupulous employers if they complain. Working with the federal government to issue open work permits when complaints are made and allowing anonymous complaints would alleviate some barriers to enforcement for migrant workers.
- Caregivers and agricultural workers must have equal rights to unionize: Unions are the most effective way to ensure fairness and democracy in workplaces. Yet agricultural workers and caregivers – two industries that are rife with abuse – are excluded from the Labour Relations Act and thus have no effective way to unionize. We urge government to accept the recommendations of the Special Advisors and end these unfair exemptions. There is no reason to delay this step to a separate “exemptions review” process.
Millions of workers (and their families) in this province are waiting to see how your committee will pave the way to strengthen Ontario’s archaic labour laws. We are calling on you to reject suggestions that will make work more precarious, under the guise of enabling flexibility for the kind of business practices that continue to exert downward pressure on the wages and working conditions of all of us.
The bulk of evidence shows that decent work is the foundation of a strong economy, better health outcomes, and reduced inequality.
The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change also fully supports the recommendations and amendments put forward in the submissions by: the Workers’ Action Centre, Parkdale Community Legal Services, and the Ontario Federation of Labour as part of the Fight for $15 and Fairness.
The Right to Unionize for Migrant Workers
Please read the joint submission by Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and Caregivers Action Centre entitled
Stronger Together:
Delivering on the Constitutionally Protected Right to Unionize for Migrant Workers
This submission was written by Fay Faraday, a member of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and part of the Equal Pay Coalition.
You can download and read the submission here.
Migrant workers earn low wages and have work permits tied to one employer. This creates a context of rampant abuse and exploitation. Yet they are legally denied the right to unionize and collectively bargain.
Despite the recommendations of the Changes Workplaces Review, the current proposals in Bill 148 do not address or correct the the denial of these fundamental rights to migrant workers.
We are demanding that the exclusion domestic workers, agricultural workers and horticultural workers from the Labour Relations Act must be repealed. We also demand that the Labour Relations Action be reformed to enable broader based bargaining where migrant workers are employed.
For more information about this submission, contact info@migrantworkersalliance.org.
Migrant workers left behind in 2017 Federal Budget
Joint Release from Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and Coalition for Migrant Workers
MEDIA RELEASE
Contact: Sharmeen Khan – Migrant Workers Alliance for Change – 1-647-881-0440
Natalie Drolet – Executive Director, West Coast Domestic Workers’ Association – 1-604-669-6452 or 1-604-445-0661
March 24, 2017, Toronto — Migrant workers and advocates are angered that the 2017 Federal Budget failed to deliver promised details on reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The Liberals delayed their response to a Parliamentary Committee review of the TFWP in January by promising that details would be announced in the Budget. But the Budget offers only a handful of paragraphs that ignore migrant workers’ critical demands for open work permits, permanent residency and robust rights enforcement. Instead, the Budget re-announces policy positions that were originally announced in December or in the Liberals’ 2015 election platform.
“The Liberals are continuing to delay while migrant workers continue to face exploitation,” says Sharmeen Khan, Coordinator of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. “The Budget acknowledges that migrant workers need protection for their rights to decent work and that migrant workers need access to permanent residency. But the Budget doesn’t actually deliver any policy response to address these long-standing demands or dedicate resources to meaningful proactive rights enforcement,” says Khan. “Migrant workers raised many important concerns in the TFWP review and the Liberals need to address them in a real way that delivers real change.”
Under the new budget, workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the Caregiver and Temporary Foreign Worker Programs will continue to have their work permits tied to one employer. Furthermore, the exemption to “caps” in low-wage seasonal industries means further exploitation and precarity for migrant workers in sectors such as fisheries where an unlimited number of migrant workers are only hired for 6 months on a non-renewable permit.
The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development (HUMA) recommended in its 2016 review of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program that the government develop open work permits and pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers. Yet despite these clear recommendations, the Liberal government has refused to overhaul this deeply unjust and exploitative condition on Canada’s most marginalized workforce. While the government claims to continue investigating ways to developing pathways to permanent residency, no details or resources were given in the budget regarding how this work would be done.
“The vulnerability and violence we experience is a result of tied work permits,” says Gabriel Alahuda, a member of Justice for Migrant Workers. “I should be able to complain about my employer, or if needed leave and find other work without the fear of deportation. Without open work permits and permanent status, we are forced to stay in abusive working conditions.”
The Canadian government had an opportunity to rectify decades of abuse and mistreatment by ensuring that migrant workers have the same labour rights afforded to other workers. However, the failure of the government to protect this workforce reveals that the government’s priority is to maintain an exploitative and racist policy that provides a cheap, exploitable workforce for employers and disproportionately exploits workers of colour and women.
If the government is committed to building a “better future for temporary foreign workers” they must meet with migrant workers to develop direct paths to permanent residency, eliminate work permits tied to one employer and develop stronger enforcement to protect migrant workers from abuse. But so far, migrant workers and advocates have been waiting for over a year with no real commitment from the current Liberal government to better the lives and working conditions for migrant workers.
For more information on our demands, please check go to our petition here.
Policy Brief: Submission from CMWRC & MWAC to HUMA
Submission to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities
PLEASE DOWNLOAD HERE
These submissions are being jointly made by Coalition for Migrant Worker Rights Canada (CMWRC) and the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC). CMWRC is the representative body of migrant workers in the country. Our members include Cooper Institute in Prince Edward Island, Caregiver Connections Education and Support Organization (CCESO), Migrant Worker Solidarity Network in Manitoba, Migrante Canada, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in Ontario, Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture in Okanagan Valley, Temporary Foreign Workers Association in Quebec, Temporary Foreign Workers Coalition in Alberta, Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregiver Rights in Vancouver and West Coast Domestic Workers Association in Vancouver.
The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) includes Alliance of South Asian Aid Prevention, Asian Community Aids Services, Caregivers Action Centre, Fuerza Puwersa, Industrial Accident Victims’ Group of Ontario, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Legal Assistance of Windsor, Migrante Ontario, No One Is Illegal – Toronto, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Social Planning Toronto, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, Unifor, United Food and Commercial Workers, Workers’ Action Centre and Workers United.
These recommendations have been endorsed by AIDS Committee of Durham Region, Jesuit Refugee Service, Retail Action Network BC, Refugees Welcome Fredericton, SAME Brock Chapter, MigrantWorkersRights Canada, BC Employment Standards Coalition, Migrante BC, PINAY Quebec, People’s Health Movement Canada/Mouvement populaire pour la santé au Canada, Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network, Migrant Worker Health Project (International Migration Research Centre), Gabriella Ontario, AAFQ (association des aides familiales du Québec/Caregivers Association of Quebec) and Inter Pares.
Submissions to Gender Wage Gap Strategy Committee
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.
Ontario Immigration Act – Submission to Standing Committee
Submission by Migrant Workers Alliance for Change to Standing Committee on Justice Policy of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
April 16, 2015
A comprehensive recruiter regulation system in Ontario requires legislation that is designed with a view to ending the practice of migrant workers paying fees to work in Ontario. Specific measures to this end include:
- Require compulsory licensing of all recruiters working in Ontario with a financial bond: Currently anyone can recruit migrant workers in Canada or abroad, charge them large fees, and either put them in contact with a Canadian employer or walk away without actually providing the job they promised. To counter the abuses inherent in this system, all recruiters in Ontario must be licensed, the list of licensed recruiters should be easily accessible online to migrant workers around the world, and the licensing should include a financial bond.
- Require compulsory registration of all migrant worker employers in Ontario: Employers choose which recruiters they work with, and are often aware of the fees being paid by migrant workers overseas or in Ontario. As such, as effective recruitment regulation process requires knowing which employers hire migrant workers in the province. Currently, Ontario depends on the federal government’s willingness to share information about employers that hire migrant workers. A compulsory and robust employer registration system is required for effective recruiter regulation.
- 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. This practice ensures predictability and certainty for employers, recruiters and migrant workers.
Click HERE to read our full submissions.