Migrant Workers In Canada

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Employment does not necessarily mean earning a steady income, partaking in benefits or living a healthy, stress-free lifestyle. In fact, some people are persuaded into contract or temporary jobs because they are desperately in need of employment (this includes low pay, travelling far distances, and being without benefits). Migrant workers are people who come to Canada with a work permit but do not have residential status (Carpentier and Fiset 2011:4). Working in Canada with a temporary status makes them vulnerable because they are working for a system that does not respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of migrant workers (Carpentier and Fiset 2011:11).
Precarious work has become popular to the extent where it threatens to replace the …show more content…

They come to Canada on a temporary visa, and are made dependent on their employers, which includes relying on them for access to healthcare, legal status, housing and transportation (Read, Zell and Fernandez 2013:24). They have no job security and are therefore dependent on their employers to be able to return to work each year (Read, Zell and Fernandez 2013:6). Due to this anxiety, they might avoid anything that could jeopardize their employment. This includes social activities. In the article Stories of Agricultural Migrant Workers in Manitoba, one worker talked about how he was invited to play soccer with the other workers but declined because he was scared that he would “fall down and injure himself which could result in him getting fired” (Read, Zell and Fernandez 2013:24). Unfortunately, that is how they have been trained to feel; they live in fear of their employment being terminated at any given …show more content…

By confining migrants in a particular workplace separate from everyone else, employers are ensuring that migrants are unable to talk to others and build connections with any other employers (Muir 2013). This limited social interaction between migrant workers and their surrounding community sometimes brings about racialized stereotypes and racism (Hennebry 2012:10). Canadian workers may not realize that some Mexican migrant workers come and work in Canada because they aren’t getting jobs in their own countries (International Organization for Migration