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Press Release
Local groups to rally for rights of migrant and immigrant workers
April 28, 2006
Vancouver, B.C. – Community groups plan to stage a May Day march and rally in solidarity with migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, including those who are undocumented.
Glecy Duran of SIKLAB – B.C., a Filipino migrant workers organization, said around 12 groups from Vancouver will join the protest to mark International Labour Day.
She said migrant and immigrant workers are one of the backbones of Canadian society, filling in cheap labour positions but whose basic human rights are often neither respected nor protected. “Migrant and immigrant workers from countries like the Philippines, Mexico and Palestine are highly-educated and skilled, yet they are trapped in the cleaning, food, factory, farm and retail jobs that other Canadians do not want,” she continued. “Some of the most vulnerable of these workers are the undocumented, who are forced into the underground economy.”
Rally organizers take inspiration from the millions of immigrants and their supporters who took to the streets in various U.S. cities to stand up against the criminalization of immigrants in early April. The widely unpopular Sensenbrener Act in the U.S. would criminalize whole immigrant communities and those providing services to the millions of undocumented people living and working in the country.
Migrant and immigrant workers in Canada have also protested their deplorable working conditions, racist accreditation policies and unjust deportations.
Ordinary migrant and immigrant workers cannot meet the rising costs of housing, public utilities, basic goods and services across Canada, especially those remitting most of their measly earnings to support their families in their home countries.
“Our demand to stop the exploitation of these workers comes at a time of unprecedented rollbacks of wages as well as the undermining of labor standards and other workers' rights,” explained Merryn Edwards of Grassroots Women. “By rallying on International Labour Day, we stand up for just wages and working conditions for working class women and all workers, and against attacks on migrant and immigrant communities in Canada,” she continued. “We call on Canada to stop deporting these workers and to act on their promise to address the accreditation barriers facing many migrant and immigrant workers,” stated Edwards.
The groups will also critique Canadian immigration policies, such as the Temporary Foreign Workers Movement and the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), which bring in many of those workers from Third World countries.
“Canada capitalizes on the cheap and exploited labour of these people through racist immigration policies like the LCP,” stated Duran. “Under the LCP, we are forced to live and work in our employers’ homes under precarious conditions. Although Canada seeks to make us invisible, we recognize that we have common issues with other workers in Canada and that we must unite as workers for our fundamental rights,” she asserted.
The march and rally will take place on the west corner of Main Street and 18th Avenue in Vancouver on Monday, May 1 at 5:00pm.
>> organized by SIKLAB-Vancouver (Advance the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers), Filipino Nurses Support Group (FNSG), Grassroots Women, and the Bus Riders' Union >> participating organizations of the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS)
>> endorsed by No One is Illegal-Vancouver, International Indigenous Youth Conference Secretariat, People's Front, SANSAD, Justicia for Migrants-BC, Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, Palestinian Arab Women's Association, and B.C. Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines
For more information, contact:
• Glecy Duran, SIKLAB – B.C. at 604-215-1103 or siklab@kalayaancentre.net;
• Merryn Edwards, Grassroots Women at 604-682-4451 or grassrootswomen@telus.net;
• Beth Grayer, Bus Riders’ Union at 215-2775 or bru@resist.ca |
