Labour struggles for workplace justice: Migrant and immigrant worker organizing in Canada

Abstract

This article explores the dynamics of labour organizing among migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, focusing on two case studies: first, recent efforts to organize migrant farmworkers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program; and, second, the work of the Immigrant Workers’ Centre in Montreal. The Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program, which employs workers from Mexico and Caribbean countries, is often viewed by policymakers and employers as an example of ‘best practices’ in migration policy. Yet workers in the program experience seasonal employment characterized by long hours and low wages, and are exempt from many basic labour standards. The Immigrant Workers’ Centre formed in 2000 to provide a safe place for migrant and racialized immigrant workers to come together around problems in their workplaces. Through these case studies, we examine labour organization efforts including advocacy and grassroots organizing through the Immigrant Workers’ Centre and legal challenges attempting to secure recognition of freedom of association rights for farmworkers. The article explores the ‘limits and possibilities’ of these strategies, and concludes by assessing the implications for labour organizing among the growing numbers of migrant and immigrant workers employed in a wide range of low-wage, low-security occupations due to the recent expansion of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Temporary migration projects and voting rights

“…Schmidt (2006) and Fitzgerald and Hardy (2010) list various ways in which national labour unions have changed their mode of operation in order to be more efficient in organizing temporary migrants: cooperation with unions in the country of origin (see also Meardi 2012); creation of regional or global migrant workers unions (Gordon and Turner 2000, Waddington 2000, Cotton and Gumbrell-McCormick 2012; portability of trade union membership across borders or mutual recognition of affiliations between national trade unions (Ford 2013, p. 263, Rosewarne 2013; establishment of branches in the sending countries (Gordon 2007, p. 575); establishment of, or cooperation with, migrant worker centres that provide information, legal assistance and support to temporary migrant workers (Fine 2007, Choudry andThomas 2013); and integration of migrants into national labour unions, sometimes involving derogations to strict equality among unionized workers, in order to make special provisions for temporary migrants.…”

Temporary Workers, (Im)Permanent Labour

“…Agriculture is one of the primary areas in which migrant workers are hired, a practice that began in the late nineteenth century with workers from South and East Asia coming to work on farm fields and gardens in British Columbia (BC) (see Lim, 2015;Preibisch & Otero, 2014, p. 178). Since the neoliberal turn of capitalism 1 in the 1980s and the increasing globalization of the agri-food market, 2 Canada's dependence on temporary labour migration has grown (Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Preibisch, 2007;Roberts, 2019). Temporary labour migration is a growing phenomenon that arises from the dependence of "developed" countries on foreign workers as a "flexible workforce" to remain competitive in the global market (Preibisch, 2007, p. 418), and from the changeable and precarious socio-economic and political conditions in "developing" countries (Cundal & Seaman, 2012;Roberts, 2019).…”

L’informalisation du recours à la protection sociale au Canada : le cas des réformes de l’assurance-chômage et du nouveau Tribunal de la sécurité sociale

“…13 Les travailleurs étrangers temporaires sont de facto privés de certains des droits collectifs du travail et du droit à la protection sociale (voir notamment Choudry et Smith, 2016). …”