36 Search Results for temporary foreign workers

How employers of Temporary Foreign Workers get away with low pay and bad working conditions

Oct 3, 2016

Canada’s controversial Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program is once again under the microscope with the release of a Parliamentary Committee report last week. While the report recommends some much-needed improvements to the rights of migrant workers, its main focus is to give employers easier access to TFWs. Instead, we need a re-think of the Program so… View Article

From discrimination against temporary foreign workers to sexual harassment, there’s no shortage of issues a human rights commission could tackle

Dec 10, 2014

By Gwen Brodsky and Shelagh Day

British Columbia is the only province in Canada that does not have a Human Rights Commission. That makes us the weakest province when it comes to fostering human rights awareness and preventing discrimination. Currently BC only has a Human Rights Tribunal, which mediates and adjudicates complaints about discrimination after it has occurred. The Tribunal does… View Article

Temporary foreign workers policy lets low wage firms have their cake and eat it too

Apr 22, 2014

By David Green

One point that has been highlighted by the recent controversy over Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) is that firms can be profitable with very different approaches to wages and worker turnover. On one side of the spectrum are companies such as Lee Valley Tools, which treats its employees well in terms of wages, benefit, and training,… View Article

A paradox in COVID-19 pandemic recovery: Increased precarity of women hotel workers in British Columbia

Jan 24, 2024

By Alice Mũrage, Michelle Travis and Veronique Sioufi

REPORT: While BC’s accommodations and food services sector (AFS) received over a billion dollars in government COVID-19 subsidies, women workers—predominantly racialized and immigrants—either lost their employment or had hours and income significantly reduced…. View Article

Fires and farmworkers: Climate justice means improving protections for migrant farmworkers

Sep 15, 2023

By Veronique Sioufi

The impacts of the climate crisis are socially and geographically uneven: the wealthiest regions contribute disproportionately to the destruction of the planet while the poorest regions suffer the heaviest consequences. In this context, migrant farmworkers find themselves doubly displaced, facing droughts and inundations in their home countries, then heatwaves, fires and floods where they come… View Article

Will 2023 be the year BC farmworkers finally receive basic minimum wage protections?

Jan 26, 2023

By Anelyse Weiler and David Fairey

The majority of BC households are stressed because of debt and inflation. It’s even worse for one group of farmworkers who, legally, may earn less than minimum wage. While British Columbians rang in the New Year, the provincial government quietly increased the minimum piece rate wage for farmworkers by a pitiful 2.8 per cent—their first… View Article

Protecting the health and rights of migrant agricultural workers during the COVID-19 outbreak should be a priority

Apr 1, 2020

By Anelyse Weiler, Janet McLaughlin, Susana Caxaj and Donald Cole

Manually skilled migrant workers contribute vitally to the Canadian food chain, including to agricultural and seafood industries. But food security cannot be achieved on the backs of workers who are denied equal access to social protections and benefits, and made uniquely vulnerable to coronavirus transmission. With news about this week’s community outbreak among migrant agricultural workers… View Article

Government wrong to exclude farm workers from basic minimum wage protection

May 15, 2018

By David Fairey and Anelyse Weiler

A crowded van picks up an elderly Punjabi grandmother. After a 45-minute unpaid ride to the farm, she picks blueberries in the hot sun for up to ten hours with no overtime pay. If she slows down or takes too many breaks in the shade, the contractor may arbitrarily decide she hasn’t earned enough hours… View Article

Historic gains in Ontario workers’ rights: What BC can learn

Jun 12, 2017

By David Fairey

In light of the growth and prevalence of precarious employment and the lack of decent conditions of employment for vulnerable workers, labour advocates and unions in Ontario campaigned for improvements to employment and labour relations laws. As a result of their campaign, in February 2015, Ontario’s provincial government established an independent review headed by two… View Article

BC’s workers need a human rights commission