Temporary Foreign Worker Program compliance mechanisms are ineffective at protecting migrant workers

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

According to a group of migrant workers, seven workers who organized workplace stoppage regarding working and living conditions were sent back to their countries. The terminations occurred on the weekend that people across Canada celebrated Emancipation Day. The activist group known as Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW), which strongly condemns the recent repatriation, brought this to our attention.

Such videos were widely circulated on social media depicting the issues faced by the workers and how the employer responded to the issues.

Even as several workers involved in the stoppage were sent home, other workers are raising concerns that they could be next. As if to add insult to injuries, while workers were being repatriated, the employer was permitted to employ a new group of workers from another source country.

All these are attempts by the employer to suppress workplace resistance.

Again, all this happened as Canada’s government introduced its “Recognized Employers Pilot,” program. This program seems to benefit employers who “have a history of compliance” with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (“TFWP”).

These policies help to facilitate an easier process for the importation of foreign labour to Canada. Instead of applying for a new LMIA every 18 months, recognized employers would have LMIA’s that would be valid for three years with simplified LMIA’s for any additional workers.

The employers are claiming labor shortage, while they are actively sending workers who oppose their oppression back home to languish.

According to J4MW, a group of asparagus workers were repatriated and were not provided with a transfer to continue to work in Canada. Other workers have raised concerns regarding the lack of work during this season. The only changes taking place are in the interests of employers and the government.

Through J4MW’s more than twenty years of experience organizing with migrant agricultural workers, the organization said it knows that TFWP’s compliance mechanisms are wholly ineffective at protecting migrant workers.

Workers have reported that employers handpick individuals to speak with federal inspectors; sit in and observe conversations with inspectors and workers; and discipline and terminate workers who speak up.

According to Justice for Migrant Workers, “The federal government has demonstrated time and time again that they are not interested in protecting workers; instead, they are focused on placating the needs of employers and ‘removing administrative burdens,’ as their own backgrounder on the REP states.”

Many years ago, I was prepositioned to come to Canada as a migrant worker to pick apples. That project fell apart for me, and I was very disappointed.

Back then a very young me did not know such things as I am privileged to see and hear now. Even though some people come here to do these jobs solely because of poverty, this is not a reason to treat them like animals.

It is said that a king cannot rule a barren land; maybe it is time for these poor folks to let these high and mighty employers harvest their crops themselves. Then and only then would they understand the saying, “Who feels it knows it.”

In the meantime, J4MW is demanding the following steps are undertaken:

• Permanent status for all current and former migrant workers
• An end to the tied work permit system
• An end to unilateral repatriations and disbarment from employment in Canada
• Full inclusion in programs such as Employment Insurance, Healthcare, and Canada Pension Plan
• Sectorial bargaining for all workers employed under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
• Access to healthcare
• Access to education
• Family reunification for migrant workers