Response to Leigh Binford’s forum statement: ‘Assessing Temporary Foreign Worker Programs through the Prism of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program: Can They be Reformed or Should They be Eliminated?’

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-370
Author(s):  
Radhika Kanchana
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Agricultural Worker ◽  
Temporary Foreign Worker Programs

scholarly journals THE INACCESSIBILITY OF JUSTICE FOR MIGRANT WORKERS: A CAPABILITIES-BASED PERSPECTIVE

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany Hastie
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Regulatory Structure ◽  
Legal Remedies ◽  
The Face ◽  
Temporary Foreign Worker Programs ◽  
Access Mechanisms

This article examines the barriers migrant workers face in accessing justice, including the ability to assert legal rights in the workplace, and to access mechanisms for legal redress or remedy. Drawing on empirical research, and using the capabilities approach as a conceptual framework through which to examine these issues, this article demonstrates that the regulatory structure of the Temporary Foreign Worker Programs operates to actively constrain the ability for migrant workers to assert their rights in the workplace, and seek effective legal remedies in the face of rights violations.

scholarly journals Bodies and Documents: The Material Impact of Collaborative Information- Sharing Within the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Jane Clause
Keyword(s):  
Information Sharing ◽  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Workplace Safety ◽  
Agricultural Worker ◽  
Complex Needs ◽  
Stakeholder Relationships ◽  
Physical Impact ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
Work Knowledge

This study examines information-sharing practices within the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), focusing on the program as it is administered within Ontario. I analyze 61 documents for their content, codification of stakeholder relationships, and discourse regarding the program. Documents were selected based on their creation, use, or circulation within Ontario, and based on the likelihood that at least one stakeholder group would look to the document for (what they perceive to be) reliable information. Documents include, for example, SAWP contracts, webpages describing program requirements, and e-pamphlets on workplace safety and accessing services. Document analysis was supplemented by interviews with industry and service provider experts, which guided interpretation of documents’ significance. I argue that documents function as material actors, alongside (and sometimes beyond) human actors, and make physical impact on SAWP bodies and realities. Documents construct and uphold neoliberal structures surrounding the program by contributing to the creation and sustaining of incomplete, labour-centric individuals. Through consistent sharing of narrow, “work” information, and the rare inclusion of more well-rounded, “non-work” knowledge, documents subtly discipline the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable communication. In doing so, material actors (alongside other SAWP actors) perpetuate a foreign worker program which does not consider the varied, complex needs of whole persons but, instead, treats them as disposable labouring bodies.

scholarly journals Migrant workers and fissured workforces: CS Wind and the dilemmas of organizing intra-company transfers in Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Legal Limits ◽  
Temporary Foreign Worker Programs ◽  
Permanent Employees ◽  
Seasonal Agricultural Workers

Canadian temporary foreign worker programs have been proliferating in recent years. While much attention has deservedly focused on programs that target so-called low-skilled workers, such as seasonal agricultural workers and live-in caregivers, other programs have been expanding, and have recently been reorganized into the International Mobility Program (IMP). Streams within the IMP are quite diverse and there are few legal limits on their growth. One of these, intra-company transfers (ICTs), is not new, but it now extends beyond professional and managerial workers to more permeable and expansive categories. As a result, unions increasingly face the prospect of organizing workplaces where ICTs and other migrant workers are employed alongside permanent employees, raising difficult legal issues and strategic dilemmas. This article presents a detailed case study of one union’s response to this situation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document