http://j4mw.tumblr.com/post/84970815651/justicias-questions-for-the-house-of-labour-clc

Justicia for Migrant Workers is a collective of migrant workers, community and labour activists who organize to fight for better working and living conditions for migrant workers here in Canada and in their home countries.

This upcoming Canadian Labour Congress convention takes place at a critical juncture. Daily issues related to the crisis in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program grab headlines without any real dialogue on how to enact changes to enshrine the rights of migrant workers and to avoid a divide and rule strategy that only wounds the working class. Headlines construct a narrative or migrants taking Canadian jobs, decreasing workplace standards and having a negative impact in our economy.

We write this to challenge the conventional wisdom that migrant workers are the main reason for the crisis in the national and global economy. Rather, our focus should place the blame squarely on Canada’s broken immigration system and a precarious labour market that denies all workers the ability to work with dignity.

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International Workers’ Day Statement by No One Is Illegal Toronto and No One Is Illegal Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory

Last Thursday, Jason Kenney announced a moratorium on new and pending permits of migrant workers in the fast food and restaurant sector. This is a mass deportation order.

Though exact numbers are as yet unknown, there were 44,000 Labour Market Opinions in the food and accommodation sector issued in 2012. Thus, approximately that many migrants will be shut out this year. Migrants abroad with pending applications have also likely paid recruiters thousands of dollars to come to Canada. To do so, many have gone into immense debt that they will not be able to get out of. Workers already here will be unable to change jobs and apply for new LMOs in the sector, leaving them tied to potentially abusive employers.

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Syed Hussan, Coordinator, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/syed-hussan/foreign-workers-canada_b_5200186.html

There has been massive media attention on the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) in the last few weeks. Mainstream and social media is full of analysis and solutions. Some critics and commentators insist that the only appropriate way forward is shutting down the low-skilled temporary foreign worker program. They are wrong.

With increased workplace uncertainty, as permanent jobs disappear and the public sector shrinks, many are looking around for culprits to blame. Though migrant workers and the TFWP seems like an easy target, it isn’t.

Its important to analyze the key arguments being made about the TFWP.

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Migrant worker programs are the only avenues left for many migrants and pathways to residency are getting cut. Calling for abolition of temporary worker programs without addressing the systemic shifts in canadian immigration policy is a de facto call to end immigration. Instead, call for full legal status and basic labor rights for migrant workers upon arrival.

We must denounce by any means necessary the institutions, corporations and governments that allow the exploitation of ALL people to take place, especially those who do not have ‘status’, those who are poor, and those who are of colour.
While the government insists that migrant workers are treated fairly, migrant workers have documented experiences of isolation, discrimination, fear, exploitation, and limited access to social services. The typical migrant worker experience includes earning less than minimum wage, dangerous working conditions, and working 10-12 hours per day- often seven days a week- without overtime pay, basic employment standards, or the right to unionize. Most importantly, their temporary status makes them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, as any assertion of their rights leads not only to contract termination but also deportation. Therefore, access to citizenship is a tool of the labour market that fuels multi-million dollar industries.
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Reports of exploited foreign temps have grown as fast as the federal program. First in a series from the Tyee.
By Krystle Alarcon

http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/01/07/Canada-Migrant-Workers/
They hand you a soothing cup of Tim Hortons, pack frozen beef in factories, pick blueberries and apples on Abbotsford farms, serve fast-food meals and wipe tables, excavate mines and drill for oil in Western Canada, and raise your kids as if they were their own. Typically paid far less than Canadians, unprotected by labour laws, and disposed of when their contracts end, these migrant labourers have become ubiquitous while remaining all but invisible.
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