March 12, 2009 - No. 52 Temporary Foreign Workers Under Attack An Injury to One is an Injury to All!• An Injury to
One is an Injury to All! - Peggy Askin
and Peggy
Morton Temporary Foreign Workers Under Attack An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
The headline "Worn Out Their Welcome?" is typical of the attempts of the ruling circles and their monopoly media to divert discussion from the issue of how to defend the rights of all and instead to set worker against worker and blame the people for the crisis. It is a deliberate attempt to divert workers from discussing the causes of the current crisis and do their own thinking about a new direction for Canada. Instead it attempts to make the temporary foreign workers who have been brought to Canada as indentured labour the issue and the problem. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is an anti-worker program from top to bottom. It is based on the outlook that workers are not human beings who have rights by virtue of being human. It denies that human beings together with Mother Earth are the creators of wealth and have first claim to the added value they have created. It seeks to hide the motivation of the ruling circles to bring in foreign workers as chattel labour to drive down the price of labour for the entire working class and destroy their defence organizations. All labour is considered a "cost of production" to justify the government's assistance to the monopolies to bring down this "cost" as much as possible. In recent years the Canadian government has essentially replaced immigration with a program of indentured labour. At the same time, it has created conditions where more and more workers are undocumented and are considered "illegal." The federal government reported in December, 2008 that there were 252,196 temporary foreign workers in Canada in December 2008, 57,843 of whom are working in Alberta. These workers are indentured to one employer and are provided renewable permits which allow them to work for one or two years. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 undocumented workers in Canada. Both the temporary foreign workers' program and the undocumented status are weapons used by the state to create a vulnerable strata of workers who can then be targeted for the worst exploitation with the aim of targetting the rights of all. The organized working class has answered this attack by the governments and the monopolies they serve on the basis that Our Security Lies in the Defence of the Rights of All! At Olymel in Red Deer and Maple Leaf in Edmonton, the United Food and Commercial Workers fought for programs to assist the temporary foreign workers. The actions of the workers organized by UFCW exposed the slum landlord arrangements and the obscene deductions from the workers' pay for substandard and overcrowded housing. In the face of the callous and inhuman disregard for the welfare of workers arriving in Canada under the temporary foreign worker program, at Maple Leaf the union organized to assist them with food, furniture, warm clothing and other necessities of life in cold Alberta. Many of the construction unions assisted temporary foreign workers to get unionized jobs. The Alberta Federation of Labour established a temporary foreign workers' advocate and temporary foreign workers came forward, with thousands of calls to the office in just its first six months. Many forms of criminal abuse were exposed, including the activities of the modern day slave traders called brokers who often illegally charge thousands of dollars and make the workers false promises of permanent resident status and eventual citizenship. Most important was the fact that these workers were not left to fend for themselves. This advocacy also forced the Alberta government to set up offices in Calgary and Edmonton where temporary foreign workers could bring their complaints. More than 800 temporary foreign workers came forward in the first three months to launch complaints. In 2006, temporary foreign workers hired to build the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver (RAV) rapid transit line were fighting to win a first union contract. Both the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the B.C. Federation of Labour pledged to defend the rights of the temporary foreign workers and prevent the program from being used to drive down the wages and working conditions of all workers. On the occasion of the visit of Mario Rojas Vilchez, an Executive Member of the Costa Rican Workers Federation (CTRN), who came to Canada to meet with the workers, CLC President Ken Georgetti said: "We are not going to allow unscrupulous employers to exploit foreign workers or to try and slash the fair wages and working conditions unions have won in Canada. The Canadian Labour Congress will work with the international labour movement to protect workers' rights and help all workers be treated fairly." The workers won their fight for a union. The CLC at its 2008 Convention called for an end to the program and its replacement with permanent immigration. The CLC took the stand that the federal government must provide a clear path to landed immigrant status for migrant farm workers and other current and former temporary migrant workers. Unions and many other organizations have also organized to defend the rights of the undocumented workers, who face an even more precarious existence than those who have come to Canada under the temporary foreign worker program. TML pointed out:
The stand that "our security lies in the defence of the rights of all" is a stand based on principle. From the time that the government began to expand the temporary foreign worker program, the monopoly media kept raising the issue as though the temporary foreign workers are the problem. The aim to stir up resentment and hostility could not be clearer. The organized workers' movement rejected this outright and aimed its fire instead at the government which was promoting indentured labour and modern-day slavery. First of all, the stand that the entire temporary worker program should be scrapped and replaced with a modern program which respects the rights of all, is a just stand and it needs to be emphasized once again. This is a program of modern day slave labour. It never had anything to do with a legitimate response to a "labour shortage." It was always and remains a means to attack the entire working class within Canada and the entire working class and people of the countries of origin which are super-exploited by the same monopolies who then bring them to the imperialist heartlands. Both temporary foreign workers and undocumented workers and their families who are living in Canada, working and contributing to the economy should be provided permanent residency status. They are not the cause of the economic crisis and should not be made its scapegoat. If they lose their jobs, they should receive EI and other benefits and assistance. Any debts "owed" to brokers operating in Canada who have been charging fees in violation of the law must be cancelled and the brokers punished. This is a stand consistent with the demand that Canada implement a modern immigration policy instead of participating in the trafficking of human beings. What will happen to the temporary foreign workers now in Canada if this is not done? Many temporary foreign workers are "in debt to the brokers." They have come to Canada on the promise and expectation that they could make a life for themselves and their families in Canada. Many have no prospects in their home countries. Others gave up jobs to come to Canada. It is of no consequence to the monopolies who pushed this program as a source of cheap labour if these workers are forced to go "underground" and become undocumented workers. This would suit the monopolies just fine because as undocumented workers they become even more vulnerable. To whom will they complain if they receive half the wages of other workers or are not paid at all? In the U.S., it is estimated that one in twenty workers is an undocumented worker. Workers in the U.S. responded to the attacks of the Bush administration on immigrants and "illegal" workers with some of the largest marches ever to take place in the U.S. They raised the banner of defence of the rights of all, demanded legalization for all now and say No! to raids and collective punishment. The Canadian workers movement has upheld the same banner and today must hold it even higher and carry it forward.
Stop Paying the Rich;
Increase Funding for Social Programs!
"Worn Out Their Welcome" -- A Shameful Headline!Following a forum at the University of Alberta on temporary foreign workers, the Edmonton Journal published an article under the headline "Worn out their welcome?; Scarce jobs ignite debate over Alberta's 57,000 temporary foreign workers." One of the speakers at the forum was Yessy Byl, temporary foreign workers' advocate for the Alberta Federation of Labour. TML is printing her response to the headline published in the Edmonton Journal on March 2, 2009. ***Re: "Worn out their welcome?; Scarce jobs ignite debate over Alberta's 57,000 temporary foreign workers," Alexandra Zabjek and Sheila Pratt, The Journal, Feb. 26. "Worn out their welcome?" What a shameful headline! I thought we were a society that welcomed all newcomers! A society where we still remembered struggling together in tough times, having no regard to where people were from. Didn't most of our families come here because of the difficulties they faced back home, hoping to build new lives for their families? Didn't many of our immigrant families arrive in Canada during the very difficult economic times after the First World War only to survive and build a stronger country? The vast majority of temporary foreign workers came here wanting to immigrate to Canada. Despite what our politicians now conveniently state, there was nothing temporary about the push to bring these workers to Canada over the last few years. Our immigration system was totally bogged down and unable to respond to our pressing labour shortages and so our politicians expanded our temporary foreign-worker program to meet our desperate need for immigration. Those temporary foreign workers have worked hard in Canada, contributing to our good times over the last few years, many bringing their families in hopes of building a new life. And now that we've hit a rough spot, we want to dump them? I agree that the Temporary Foreign Worker program should be stopped and no more temporary foreign workers brought here. Not because I don't want to see more immigrants to Canada, but because the program is a dubious guest worker program in which workers have lost many of the human rights generally accepted in our Canadian society. It is a program that lends itself to exploitation of workers -- an exploitation that the federal government refuses to police. We should welcome the temporary foreign workers who have lived here over the last few years, making valuable contributions to our Alberta economy and society. We should accept them as new immigrants to our country. We need them in the long run. * Yessy Byl is a lawyer and the temporary foreign worker advocate for the Alberta Federation of Labour.
Stop
Scapegoating Immigrants
|
On February 26, the 
"These 'illegals' are our
co-workers and our
neighbours
and
have worked here for decades with the full knowledge of the state
and the monopolies. In Toronto alone it is estimated that one
third of construction workers are non-status. The whole boom in
the construction sector rests largely on the ferocious
exploitation of these workers who work at half the wages of other
workers, without any benefits or even access to Medicare and who
live under constant threat of deportation. If these workers are
'illegal' then the record profits by the construction monopolies
and those in other sectors such as hospitality, are also illegal
and should be confiscated." (
In the face of
rising unemployment
and the economic crisis, this diversion and disinformation of the
monopoly
media are used to put pressure on the organized workers'
movement to change its stand and declare that temporary foreign workers
who
lose their jobs should be sent back to their country of origin.
This is a very important matter and it needs to be seriously
discussed by the workers. How does the issue pose itself?
What is the principle on which the unions take their stand? To
whom does the principle "An Injury to One is an Injury to All" and "All
for One and One for All"
apply? Why would a principle change dependent on whether the economy is
in a "boom" or a "bust" mode? Should we now all fend for ourselves? And
why should we have an economy subject to "booms" and "busts" in any
case?
Uphold the
banner of the workers' movement "Defend the
Rights
of
All!" This is a time to hold fast to our principles and reject
with the contempt it deserves the attempt by the state and the
monopolies to pit worker against worker. We can chart a
new course for Canada. The vast experience, knowledge and skills
of the organized working class must be put to work to fight for
solutions to the crisis and the serious problems of unemployment
and impoverishment facing the workers. This can be accomplished
through a campaign of public enterprise. Private enterprise is
not interested and is not organized to provide the people of
Canada with the Canadian standard wages, working conditions,
benefits and pensions they need and deserve and to do their duty to the
peoples of the world. Its aim is not to
organize production for the common good but to fill its own
pockets. There is an alternative! 
Only a few months
into the economic crisis in
Canada and
Liberal and Conservative leaders are already using the economy to
push for more restrictive immigration policies.