The Curfew: a dangerous hypocrisy for workers with precarious status

An open letter from the ATTAP Women’s Committee – January 2021 Community groups have been saying it for almost a year now. Sanitary measures have a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable or marginalized populations. Despite these denunciations from all sides, and while the Quebec Superior Court has just decreed the exemption of people experiencing homelessness from the curfew, the CAQ stubbornly maintains the curfew along with increased police surveillance mechanisms, for the rest of the population, completely ignoring the consequences it has on workers in essential sectors of the economy, starting with the reduction in working hours in certain businesses causing, very often, an overload of tasks during opening hours. On the other hand, since January 9, many workers have reported being repeatedly intercepted and questioned, sometimes for more than 45 minutes, by the police on their way home from work. To avoid these situations, many people with precarious migratory status felt compelled to quit their jobs. Others, to avoid having to spend long hours on public transport during the curfew limits, cram into communal spaces at their workplaces to sleep while waiting for 5am. One of the main problems with attestations of right of movement issued by employers is that you have to have an employer. It may sound silly, but the issue becomes much more complicated for so-called “autonomous workers” in the platform economy such as Uber, or for placement agency workers who can change workplaces every day according to the needs of the market. The same goes for domestic workers who perform tasks for private individuals and are constrained to the schedules the latter give them. Secondly, authorization alone is not sufficient for police checks. People presumed to be in breach of the law are obliged to identify themselves, and without valid identity documents recognized by the authorities, this is conducive to numerous blunders on the part of the police. Indeed, Radio-Canada revealed in an Enquête report last October that SPVM officers, unlike their counterparts in other major Canadian cities, contact the border services agency thousands of times a year, even though it’s not their responsibility to do so. In this sense, people whose immigration status is not guaranteed are potentially at risk of deportation during these controls. People with precarious migratory status therefore find themselves in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, most of them hold essential, albeit difficult and unskilled jobs, particularly in food production or the warehousing and distribution of everyday consumer goods. On the other hand, these same people are often deemed disposable in the eyes of their employers, who too often offer them only the minimum in terms of health and safety or even labor standards; undesirable from the perspective of the public, who see them as “job-stealers” or “invaders” ; or profiteers of their generosity from the perspective of the Canadian and Quebec state, which stubbornly refuses to facilitate the process of regularizing their immigration status or giving them access to public services such as health care, all the while knowing full well that the economy cannot do without them. To put an end to this contradiction, it is imperative that the curfew be lifted as soon as possible, so that essential workers can continue their activities without fearing for their safety. Furthermore, we call on all governments to put in place the necessary conditions to ensure the permanent protection of all vulnerable workers. At municipal level, this protection includes the introduction of an identity card distributed to all city residents, enabling them to identify themselves to the various authorities without having to reveal their migratory status. At the provincial level, we urge the provincial government to issue a Quebec selection certificate to all people with precarious status on its soil, enabling them to be regularized. Without this, it is extremely difficult for these people to denounce the abuses they have suffered, both in the workplace and outside it (domestic violence, harassment, fraud, etc.). In addition, we call on the Quebec government to extend public health care coverage to prevent people with precarious status from going broke when they need medical care, particularly in the event of a work-related accident. Finally, we call on the federal government to broaden the criteria for access to income replacement benefits, including the Canadian Recovery Sickness Benefit, to enable people with precarious immigration status to obtain them. No one should be put in a position where they have to choose between meeting their basic needs and recovering from a virus. Workers are repeatedly told that they are essential. It’s high time we provided them with the essential conditions they need to survive. The women’s committee of the Association des travailleuses et travailleurs d’agence de placement has been fighting since 2018 to defend the rights of workers with precarious or no status. The committee works to denounce gendered violence and highlight the multiple oppressions that are specifically exerted on precarious female workers. We have value, we have rights and together we fight for our cause.