News & Updates

Immigrants come to Canada to secure a future for themselves and their families. Yet a recent study undertaken by Ryerson University has painted a gloomy picture of the long lasting impact that the 2008 recession has had on immigrant workers.

The study followed hundreds of former employees of Progressive Mould Products (PMP) over a five year period to determine whether or not they were able to achieve any semblance of a middle class life after their plant declared bankruptcy in 2008. Sadly those interviewed reported that they were much worse off now as compared to when they arrived in Canada. The reported entitled “An Immigrant All Over Again? Recession, Plant Closures, and Older racialized immigrant workers: A case study of the workers of Progressive Moulded Products” profiles the experiences of immigrant workers who arrived in Canada in the ’70s and ’80s. The researchers found that:
– Only one third (34 per cent) of participants secured permanent full time employment, two thirds of former workers were either precariously employed or unemployed;
– 77 per cent of workers wages were worse off than what they earned from PMP;
– 36 per cent of male workers and 37 per cent of women workers reported a wage drop of $5 an hour or more;
– 52 per cent or women workers and 42 per cent of men reported that it was difficult to make ends meet since PMP went bankrupt;
– 49.4 per cent of workers felt their health worsened after the plant closures;
– 85 per cent of workers felt age barriers was the primary reason while they could not find permanent work;
– and 67 per cent felt that they were racially discriminated in the labour market.

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Once again the temporary foreign worker program has erupted in controversy where it is being used to pit workers against each other.

News reports point out that the Royal Bank of Canada has decided to move its information technology department abroad. To do so, it has brought in temporary workers from India that will learn the ropes from their Canadian counterparts. Following this training, the Canadian workers will be laid off, and the Indian workers will transition the IT department to India and return there.

This is not a story of so-called “foreign” workers coming to replace “Canadians”. It is a story of broken immigration laws where workers can be brought in to do short-term dirty work that no one else wants to do and can then be removed at the whim of the employers.

Many facts are yet unknown: how much are the migrant workers being paid? Did they have to pay fees to get these jobs? Were they promised citizenship? Will they be able to get basic services while here? All this needs to be determined.

What we do know is that 45 bank workers are being laid off to be replaced temporarily by migrant workers. This sort of ruthless denial of work to everyday people is deplorable and not surprising.

The Canada Centre for Policy Alternatives believes that Federal government layoffs of public servants will result in nearly 70,000 job losses by 2014-15. This past March, Canada lost over 54,000 net jobs because of Conservative policies. Getting rid of workers is what the Tories do best.

At the same time, Employment Insurance has been cut so that people are forced to go back to work sooner, at lower wages, and further away from their homes. Add to this mix a free-for-all season on migrant workers whose labour and immigration rights are being trampled upon and we have the perfect recipe for the downward spiral of wages.

Responding to any one of these concerns will result in incorrect solutions. The answer cannot be banning migrant workers from entering Canada.

We must emphasize an expansive, robust and inclusive immigration framework with full citizenship rights and benefits for migrants coming to work in this country. This must be done with corresponding labour reforms that protect the rights of all workers — migrants and Canadians. Doing so will mean an upward push on wages, and the ability for more people to safely fight and organize against the Harper agenda.

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