The systematic exploitation of foreign and migrant workers takes place with the full participation of the Canadian state.
migrant workers
Migrant farm workers in Ontario strike against working conditions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages: Employer responds with deportation
November 23, 2010
(Simcoe, Ontario) Over 100 migrant farm workers employed at Ghesquiere Plants Ltd. are facing imminent repatriation (deportation) after staging a wildcat strike to demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.
The migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados came together across racial, linguistic and ethnic lines to organize this wildcat strike and strengthen their collective power. The workers employed by this farm described numerous rights violations and complaints about their living conditions including the following:
Immigrant workers fight back
Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants
(Fernwood Publishing,
2009;
$17.02)
"A lot of Filipinos and others are silent in their jobs....They are scared that if they do something for change, they will be deported....They feel held at the blade between life and death."
February 10, 2012 |
Agriculture worker deaths or injuries while in transit are occurring at a disturbing rate in Ontario and across Canada. An inquest would bring awareness, answers and recommendations.
Inside a migrant worker transport van
In light of this week's tragic incident involving the deaths of 10 migrant workers in southern Ontario, I felt it was finally time to -- at least partially -- take the wraps off of a journal I kept during a two-week trip in early 2004 to investigate the conditions of undocumented Chinese migrant farm workers. I hope this can help shed light on the kinds of conditions faced every day by the people who tend, pick, and process the food we eat.
For more about this week's incident see here.
- - -
Peruvian lives on Canada's conscience
As the Peruvian immigrant community in Kitchener-Waterloo -- and families at home in Peru -- mourn the loss of 11 of their own in a deadly highway crash in rural Ontario on February 6, at least one Toronto daily newspaper two days later prioritized instead the highway death a single girl (a white, 19-year-old aspiring model), pushing the 11 Peruvian lives to page eight.
This is but a symptom of a larger problem that suggests that white/Canadian lives are more valuable than their non-white/non-Canadian counterparts.
Scene Otherwise: An Exhibition of recent work by Carole Conde and Karl Beveridge
Jan 19 2012 - 12:00pm
Feb 26 2012 - 6:00pm
Location
Toronto Free Gallery
1277 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON Canada
Phone:
416-913-0461
43° 39' 30.1176" N, 79° 26' 31.9884" W
See map: Google Maps
Scene Otherwise takes a number of artistic conventions and images and re-imagines them in terms of contemporary concerns. The first exhibition of the work of Condé + Beveridge in Toronto in over eight years, it brings together a number of projects that address issues of the environment, economics and politics.
Economic justice in the service industry
Though the first workshop in this guide is based around the film "Eyes on the Fries", it's not essential to have to hold the other workshops on economic justice in the service industry featured. Try replacing it with your favourite service-industry documentary.
The guide includes tips for facilitators, activities for the workshop and different scenarios of workers for participants to relate to. Some stats may have to be adjusted for a Canadian audience but the goal is the same: to empower service industry employees to organize. The workshop covers:
The importance of the informal economy
Factors that exploit workers
January 13, 2012 |
How many more farm workers must die before the specific regulations for farm safety are attached to OHSA, as they are for other industries?
