Standing Up for Immigrant Workers

Campaigns are viewed not only as ways to make specific gains for immigrant workers but also as means to educate the wider community about the issues they face. For example, the first campaign, in 2000, was to defend Melca Salvador, a domestic worker admitted to Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program, against deportation. Besides winning the campaign, the IWC was able to bring into the public sphere the issue of importing immigrant labourers as “indentured servants,” and many community organizations and unions became involved.

Because many immigrant workers do not work in unionized shops, the Labour Standards Act represents one of these non-unionized workers’ (few) recourses against their employers. Along with many other groups in Quebec, the IWC became involved in a campaign to reform the Labour Standards Act in 2002. The IWC brought specific concerns to the campaign, including the exclusion of domestic workers from this Act and the difficulty in accessing information on workers’ rights. Several victories were had, including the coverage of domestic workers by the reformed standards. But the Act still has many inadequacies with respect to protecting workers in precarious and irregular jobs.

The IWC has also initiated a campaign on issues related to the North-to-South relocation of production and the resulting job losses and factory closures in Montreal. The spring of 2003 saw the closure of three recently organized factories employing immigrant workers. Using union-busting techniques, the companies laid off workers who then came to the IWC for help. Actions to sensitize workers and the wider public were initiated. One of these actions was directed at the Montreal Jazz Festival, a large buyer of t-shirts manufactured by one of the companies, Gildan. The IWC demanded that the festival adopt an ethical buying policy in response to Gildan’s labour practices, both locally and in their factories relocated to Honduras. The campaign was part of a wider campaign against Gildan led by the Maquila Solidarity Network in Toronto, and has resulted in some improvement in the conditions in factories in Honduras.

As the IWC has become better known, workers come there for advice and support on specific problems and issues. The Centre sees this as a way to encourage and support people in standing up against their bosses, but also as a basis upon which to build wider campaigns.

The case of one live-in domestic worker, who became ill in her employer’s house and subsequently unable to work, was the beginning of the Centre’s most recent campaign. This worker was assisted in making a claim with the CSST, Quebec’s workplace health-and-safety agency, for compensation while she could not work. She was told that, under provincial CSST legislation, domestic workers do not fit the definition of “worker” and therefore are not covered by the CSST. The IWC’s research found out that, in fact, three provinces in Canada (Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba) protect domestic workers from workplace injury or illness. In conjunction with PINAY, a Filipina women’s organization, and the Association des aides familiales du Québec (AAFQ), which represents and serves domestic workers, the IWC launched a campaign in March, 2006, demanding that these workers be covered. It has been supported by over 70 organizations, including the large union federations.