Essential Work = Essential Worker

Canada consistently relies on migrant labour for two vital employment sectors: care work and food production. According to the federal government, migrant work is considered temporary. In practice, however, it is a permanent fixture of the labour market. Canada’s Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SAWP) has been partnering with Mexico and several Caribbean countries for more than fifty years, with the farming season lasting up to eight months and most workers returning to the same farm year after year. Care workers, usually arriving from Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, often work weeks without days off and dedicate years of physical and emotional labour to the families they care for. This labour is essential, not only to the Canadian economy, but also to Canadian public health.

The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) acknowledges migrant work as essential and seeks fair treatment for the essential workers who provide it. The MWAC was established in 2008 in a joint campaign to end recruitment fees for care workers and migrant farm workers, who were seen at the time as disparate groups. The alliance is a democratic coalition of self-organized migrants and has grown to be associated with more than twenty activist agencies and service providers working in and across the Greater Toronto Area and Ontario. Their team of five staff each specialize in the needs of different migrant-driven sectors, including care workers, seasonal farm workers, and migrant students.

The MWAC prioritizes two branches of collective organizing: first, the coordination of policy proposals and campaign development; and second, training and resources, including “know your rights” materials and legal supports that advocate self-organizing among migrant workers. In spring 2019 the group led the production of a comprehensive policy proposal, co-signed by several Canadian advocacy groups from Prince Edward Island’s FCJ Refugee Centre to Okanagan’s Sanctuary Health. The proposal’s recommendations are ambitious but grounded in the knowledge and experience of the workers the agency supports. MWAC seeks permanent resident status for all migrant workers upon arrival, citing the classist National Occupation Classification (NOC) system, which grants such status to highly educated migrants. Permanent residency upon arrival allows for immediate access to healthcare and the accompaniment of family members to Canada.

In the absence of these measures, alternative recommendations include open or occupation-specific work permits that would allow workers the freedom to seek work from another employer should they need to leave a hostile or abusive work environment (currently workers must seek permission from their current employer to leave their post and find work elsewhere, which MWAC likens to indentured labour). Many of these recommendations would ensure proper healthcare for migrant workers, and thus mitigate the larger public health emergency.11At time of writing, the Government of Canada has suggested temporary foreign workers should receive medical coverage equivalent to residents of Canada. See item #8 in “Frequently asked questions: Changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program regarding COVID-19,” https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/foreign-workers/employer-compliance/covid-faq.html.

The COVID-19 crisis is fundamentally affecting both major migrant-driven work sectors (agriculture and child/elder care). Many care workers, due to bureaucratic challenges around acquiring proper documentation, work under the table—as such they have no labour protections and are ineligible for government supports such as Employment Insurance (EI) and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, but are nonetheless being asked to leave their positions unpaid as employers are mandated to work from home. These are workers who provide essential care to Canadians every day, but now find they are unable to care for their financial—and therefore mental and physical—well-being. The irony here is palpable, as the essentialness of the work is not made commensurate with the essentialness of the worker, who continues to face severe policing and is denied the prospect of citizenship.

Seasonal farm workers make contributions to EI but are often ineligible for it. This season, migrant farm workers are asked by the Canadian government to self-isolate upon arrival for a paid period of fourteen days, measures that farmers will receive a government benefit for. However, many of the accommodations workers are put up in do not allow for suitable social distancing. While some employers are explicitly heeding the government’s calls for isolation, others are expecting workers to begin the season immediately upon arrival, informing their employees that they will owe for this period later on.22Sara Mojtehedzadeh, “Migrant farm workers from Jamaica are being forced to sign COVID-19 waivers,” Toronto Star, April 13, 2020, https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/04/13/migrant-farm-workers-fear-exposure-to-covid-19.html.

In the Toronto Star, MWAC executive director Syed Hussan reacted to these unfair expectations and illegal practices by employers, stating that permanent residences and a national housing standard are the bare minimum in order to remedy this unjust treatment. The recent COVID-19 outbreak in a Kelowna, British Columbia, nursery, where sixty-three temporary foreign workers and twelve local workers were exposed to the virus, will likely not be the last agricultural workplace to be infected due to substandard living quarters.33Nick Eagland, “COVID-19: Kelowna nursery outbreak likely won't be last for migrant workers, advocates warn,” Vancouver Sun, April 2, 2020, https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/covid-19-kelowna-nursery-outbreak-likely-wont-be-last-for-migrant-workers-advocates-warn/. Migrant workers are already at greater health risks due to systemic racism, precarious immigration status, and limited access to healthcare. In some of the federal migrant labour programs, temporary seasonal workers are ineligible for healthcare until having worked in the country for three months. These risks are further exacerbated during a global pandemic—granting permanent resident status upon arrival could alleviate many of them.

The MWAC also acts as the secretariat and coordinating body to the Migrant Rights Network (MRN; established in 2018) whose expanded scope includes all non-permanent residents. The MRN’s membership is now approaching fifty groups nationwide, and it has collectively released new priorities in light of the current epidemic: healthcare for all, regardless of immigration status; worker protection from reprisal of taking time off, and access to government emergency benefits; an immediate moratorium on detentions and deportations; support for the community via unfettered access to social supports like food banks; and the belief that “those who know, lead”: migrant-led organizations and communities know what is best for them, and policy makers should look to these groups in legislating. Their networked approach to organizing empowers each group to be autonomous in its decision-making and informed by local communities, while also allowing for a united front in efforts to lobby Canadian legislators. Hussan explains that central to MWAC’s structure is the democratic participation of the workers the group represents.44Syed Hussan, email conversation with author, April 21, 2020. He likens the organization to a union, where each local can determine effective strategies for their own workplaces—structures that he says are prevalent in the Global South.

Migrant work touches many facets of the Canadian economy, from the fruit belts of the Okanagan Valley and Niagara to affluent homes in Calgary, Montreal, or Toronto. In spite of its ubiquity, most migrant workers face tiered notions of residency, with possibilities for citizenship becoming increasingly scarce. The MWAC’s first campaign against recruitment fees back in 2008 was won—first for care workers, then for migrant farm workers—through the radical merging of two underrepresented workforce populations that shared a common goal. This highly collaborative ethos is standard among many migrant-rights organizations and has proven to be a useful strategy in the past. In this moment, the MWAC and the MRN are mired in unknowns as they continue to work with their communities in unprecedented circumstances. Through shared resources and networked approaches, they remain hopeful that all non-residents will emerge from this crisis with stronger protections for their dignity and safety, using this critical moment as a flashpoint to reimagine a future where those providing essential work are themselves deemed essential.