The Mixer, May, 2008 By Nick Worhaug, Co-Director, UNITE HERE Canada The Canadian census recently came out with some very interesting statistics showing Vancouver’s population is now made up of 46% immigrants - more than twice the national rate of 19.8%. And Toronto, Canada’s largest city, shows a population of 54% comprised of immigrants. Canada is changing. These percentages are higher than immigrant populations in Los Angeles, New York City or San Francisco! Growth rates showed that between 2001 and 2006, Canada’s population of 31.2 million increased by 1.6 million people, with 1.1 million being immigrants. It won’t be long before 30% of the entire population is foreign-born. Most Canadian immigrants are documented, unlike immigrants in the United States. But the number of undocumented immigrants is growing, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto. Undocumented immigrant workers in the construction industry are being paid low wages with no benefits and no protection from accidents and injuries on the job. There are reports of workers sleeping in unsafe, unfinished buildings. These workers come to Canada seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Why are there so few protections for them? The Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), a federal initiative, is supposed to fill urgent labour shortages in high-need industries. Western Canada – BC and Alberta in particular – have been experiencing hot economies and very low unemployment rates (it is expected this will begin to change as the effects of the US economic meltdown drift north). But the use of the TFWP is rising as lobbying efforts by the business community have resulted in changes to the program that speed up the application process for employers, allowing them to cut the time required to advertise job availability to Canadian workers from six weeks to seven days. Temporary workers coming to Canada now outpace the number of immigrants who gain entry into our country. | A study recently released by the Canadian Labour Congress identifies a number of abuses and misuses of guest workers who come to Canada under the TFW Program. Workplaces are not inspected by labour inspectors, employers are not monitored to assure contract compliance, and many of these workers who come to Canada pay huge fees to employment brokers for their chance to work here for two years. After paying up to thousands of dollars, these workers discover, (more often than not), that they are bound to a single employer and have no opportunity or legal right to establish permanent residency or citizenship. In other words, at the end of the two years, they have to leave. Under the TFWP, there is no legal obligation for an employer to inform the worker of any of their rights, leaving them vulnerable to abuse they may not even recognize. Many workers find they have been misled with false promises about wages and working conditions and government agencies that are supposed to enforce workers’ rights and safety issues are often difficult for them to find. Their situations are like indentured servitude: employers supply housing and food and take the “cost” out of their pay cheques. There have been many reports of workers arriving in Canada under the TFWP and finding dangerous workplace situations with distressing circumstances that have led to serious injuries and even deaths that may have been prevented if more oversight was in place. Despite the increasing number of workers coming in under the federal TFWP, employers are not satisfied with the pace of hiring. In British Columbia, the business community lobbied the BC Liberal government to establish a new pilot program for employers to nominate entry level and semi-skilled foreign workers in the tourism/hospitality and long-haul trucking industries. According to the government’s website, nominee applicants must have been employed in an eligible occupation by the sponsoring company on a temporary work permit for at least nine months immediately prior to the date of application to the BC Nominee Program, and must be legally employed by the sponsoring company at the time of application. So far, in Canada’s hospitality industries, workers arriving under the TFWP have been utilized outside urban areas where hotels can’t find housekeepers. It is expected that employers at a number of major hotels in urban areas will begin testing the waters with the TFWP in an effort to recruit cheap labour. For example, the Shangri-La Hotel, opening in Vancouver in January 2009, has indicated they may not focus on recruiting locally. The largest single group of guest workers come to Canada from the Philippines. A recent Vancouver newspaper headline read, “BC Needs 30,000 Filipinos”. The article outlined a program for closer cooperation between the BC and Philippine governments to get Filipinos hired quicker in the hospitality, healthcare and construction industries, with the goal to hire 30,000 workers in 2008. | Right now, there is a tremendous opportunity for a Canadian Immigrant Workers RISING! program that will help focus on the needs of the high percentage of immigrant workers in our industries as we continue to strengthen UNITE HERE in Canada. Almost 80% of our membership in this country is a recent or established immigrant. Together, we need to stand up and lead this fight by focusing on increasing our power in the workplace, our power in the community and our political power. We also need to fight to ensure that effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are in place that will ensure Canadian employers respect the rights of the guest workers they invite into the country - as well as the rights of any Canadian workers they may displace. As the impact of the weaknesses of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program become more apparent in our industries, our membership needs to mobilize to address the problems. We need to have a loud and strong voice to speak out and ask the questions: What kind of jobs will these new immigrants have – poverty level jobs? Decent family supporting jobs? And what will the impact be on our communities? Canada has always been a nation that welcomes immigrants. We need to start talking about it and we need to organize around Immigrant Workers Rising! Many thanks to Lynn Flandera, Local 40 Community, Political and Strategic Affairs, for her research and contribution to this article. | 
