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The Inequality of Low-Wage Migrant Labour: Reflections on PN v FR and OPT v Presteve Foods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2018

Bethany Hastie
Bethany Hastie*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor Peter A. Allard School of Law University of British Columbia hastie@allard.ubc.ca
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Abstract

This article explores the inequality inhering to low-wage migrant labour and critically evaluates the current capacity of human rights law to account for and address this inequality. This article uses two recent human rights tribunal decisions as case studies through which to conduct this examination: PN v FR, 2015 BCHRT 60, and OPT v Presteve Foods Ltd, 2015 HRTO 675. While these cases establish the positive role of human rights law in accounting for the wider context in which inequality impacts on migrant labour, this role is also inherently limited by the purpose, scope, and function of the Tribunals. This article will identify and discuss issues illustrated in the cases that are reflective of deeper systemic and structural inequalities attending low-wage migrant labour, including: the underlying reasons motivating low-wage labour migration; the legal regulations governing migrant workers’ status and employment conditions; and, the racialization of migrant workers.

Résumé

Cet article explore les inégalités inhérentes aux travailleurs migrants à faible revenu et évalue d’une manière critique la capacité actuelle des droits de la personne à prendre en compte ces inégalités et à y remédier. Pour mener cet examen, dans le présent article, nous analysons deux décisions récentes du Tribunal des droits de la personne comme études de cas: PN v FR, 2015 BCHRT 60 et OPT v Presteve Foods Ltd, 2015 HRTO 675. Bien que ces affaires illustrent le rôle positif des droits de la personne dans la prise en considération du contexte plus large dans lequel les inégalités ont des incidences sur le travail des migrants, ce rôle s’avère également intrinsèquement limité par le but, le champ d’action et la fonction des Tribunaux. Cet article identifiera et discutera les enjeux qui sont relatifs aux cas et qui reflètent les inégalités systémiques et structurelles les plus marquées en ce qui a trait au travail des migrants à faible revenu, tels que les raisons sous-jacentes qui motivent la migration de travailleurs à faible revenu, les règlementations régissant le statut et les conditions d’emploi des travailleurs migrants ainsi que la racialisation des travailleurs migrants.

Keywords

migrant labourinequalitytransnational labour lawhuman rightsdiscriminationtravailleurs migrantsinégalitésdroit transnational du travaildroits de la personnediscrimination
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 33 , Issue 2: Vers un droit du travail décolonisé : Contributions au droit transnational du travail en émergence / Decolonizing Labour Law: Contributions to an Emergent Transnational Labour Law , August 2018 , pp. 243 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2018 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Adelle Blackett, Stefanie Carsley, the anonymous reviewers, and the editors at CJLS for their helpful feedback and comments on this article.

References

1 Sheppard, Colleen, “Mapping anti-discrimination law onto equality at work: Expanding the meaning of equality in international labour law,” International Labour Review 15 (2012): 14.Google Scholar For general discussions on globalization and labour, see also: Blackett, Adelle and Trebilcock, Anne, introduction to Research Handbook on Transnational Labour Law, ed. Blackett, Adelle and Trebilcock, Anne (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015), 3–36;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Arthurs, Harry, “Who’s Afraid of Globalization? The Transformation of Canadian Labour Law,” in Globalization and the Future of Labour Law, ed. Craig, John and Lynk, Michael (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 51–74;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Howe, Joanna and Owens, Rosemary, “Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Era: the Regulatory Challenges,” in Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Area, ed. Howe, Joanne and Owens, Rosemary (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2016), 3–40.Google Scholar For an account that advocates for the positive role of temporary labour migration in liberalising international migration in the global era, see: Ruhs, Martin, The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Bauder, Harald, “Foreign farm workers in Ontario (Canada): Exclusionary discourse in the newsprint media,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 35 (2008): 112–114;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Flecker, Karl, Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP): Model Program – or Mistake? (Ottawa: Canadian Labour Congress, 2011), 16–18;Google Scholar Hennebry, Jenna L. and Preibisch, Kerry, “A Model for Managed Migration? Re-Examining Best Practices in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program,” International Migration 50 (2010): 33.Google Scholar

3 See Flecker, “Model Program,” 18; Anderson, Bridget, “Migration, immigration controls and the fashioning of precarious workers,” Work Employment Society 24 (2010): 311;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Walia, Harsha, “Transient servitude: migrant labour in Canada and the apartheid of citizenship,” Race Class 52 (2010): 71;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Howe and Owens, “Temporary Labour Migration”; Smith, Adrian, “Racism and the regulation of migrant labour,” in Research Handbook on Transnational Labour Law, ed. Blackett, Adelle and Trebilcock, Anne (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015), 138–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See Faraday, Fay, Made in Canada: How the Law Constructs Migrant Worker Insecurity (Toronto, ON: Metcalfe Foundation, 2012).Google Scholar

5 For critical commentary in the Canadian context, see, e.g.: Lenard, Patti Tamara and Straehle, Christine, ed., Legislated Inequality: Temporary Labour Migration in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012);Google Scholar Basok, Tanya, “Post-national Citizenship, Social Exclusion and Migrants Rights: Mexican Seasonal Workers in Canada,” Citizenship Studies 8, no. 1 (2004): 47–64;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Binford, Leigh, “From Fields of Power to Fields of Sweat: the Dual Process of Constructing Temporary Migrant Labour in Mexico and Canada,” Third World Quarterly 30, no. 3 (2009): 503–517;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fudge, Judy and MacPhail, Fiona, “The Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada: Low-Skilled Workers as an Extreme Form of Flexible Labour,” Comparative Labour Law and Policy Journal 31 (2009): 101–141;Google Scholar Sharma, Nandita, “The ‘Difference’ that Borders Make: ‘Temporary Foreign Workers’ and the Social Organization of Unfreedom in Canada,” in Legislated Inequality: Temporary Labour Migration in Canada, ed. Lenard, Patti Tamara and Straehle, Christine (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 26–47.Google Scholar

6 Blackett and Trebilcock, 16. It is beyond the scope of this article to address rights and developments at the international level, however it should be noted that migrant workers possess an array of rights under international law, including under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, 18 December 1990, GA Res 45/158. In addition, concerns regarding low-wage labour migration programs are noted and currently being discussed and acted upon at the international level, such as through the Global Compact for Migration. Finally, sending countries have taken some action to protect workers abroad. For example, in November 2017, ASEAN leaders signed a new agreement, the “Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers.” For further reading on the rights of migrant workers under international law, see, e.g.: Judy Fudge, “The Precarious Migrant Status and Precarious Employment: The Paradox of International Rights for Migrant Workers” (2011) (Metropolis British Columbia Working Paper Series No. 11–15); Guild, Elspeth, Grant, Stefanie, and Groenendijk, C. A., ed., Human Rights of Migrants in the 21st Century (New York: Routledge, 2018);Google Scholar Costello, Cathryn and Freedland, Mark, ed., Migrants at Work: Immigration and Vulnerability in Labour Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See, e.g., Sheppard, “Mapping,” for a general discussion on the intersections between anti-discrimination law and equality. This is also explained further in Section 1 of this article.

8 For example, in Quebec, the Human Rights Commission tabled a report on systemic discrimination of migrant workers in 2011: Quebec Human Rights Commission, “Systemic Discrimination Towards Migrant Workers,” summary of La discrimination systémique à l’égard des travailleuses et travailleurs migrants, adopted at the 574th meeting of the Commission, held on December 9, 2011, by Resolution COM-574-5.1.1.

9 Legal claims related to migrant workers’ experiences and conditions in Canada can, and have been, pursued also through employment and labour law, constitutional law, and immigration law, to name a few. See, e.g., Re Certain Employees of Sidhu & Sons Nursery Ltd and United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 1518 (2014), 241 CLRBR (2d) 1 (BCLRB); Espinoza v Canada (Attorney General), 2013 ONSC 1506; Re 639299 Alberta Ltd and Meganathan, [2014] AWLD 1468, (AB ESU); Martinez v Muir, 2016 NSLB 26; Devyn Cousineau, “At Risk: The Unique Challenges Faced by Migrant Workers in Canada,” Human Rights 2014 Conference Proceedings (Vancouver: Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, 2014). In addition, legislation has surfaced in response to noted problems in a few provinces: Worker Recruitment and Protection Act, SM 2008, c 23; Foreign Worker Recruitment and Immigration Services Act, SS 2013, c F-18.1. Resistance and strategies to advance equality further exist outside of the formal legal process and include broad-based advocacy, policy reform, and other work, by both migrant workers and community and other organizations working at a concerted and collective level. For further reading on broader collective actions and resistance in these contexts, see: Choudry, Aziz, Hanley, Jill, Jordan, Steve, Shragge, Eric and Stiegman, Martha, Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants (Blackpoint, NS: Fernwood Press, 2009);Google Scholar Hanley, Jill, Shragge, Eric, Rivard, André and Koo, Jah-Hon, ““Good enough to work? Good enough to stay!” Organizing Temporary Foreign Workers,” in Legislated Inequality: Temporary Labour Migration in Canada, ed. Lenard, Patti Tamara and Straehle, Christine (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012) 245–271;Google Scholar Hanley, Jill and Shragge, Eric, “Organizing Temporary Foreign Workers: Rights and Resistance as Canada Shifts Towards the Use of Guestworkers,” Social Policy 40, no. 3 (2010);Google Scholar Choudry, Aziz and Smith, Adrian, ed., Unfree Labour?: Struggles of Migrant and Immigration Workers in Canada (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2016).Google Scholar

10 A total of eleven reported human rights complaints in Canada concerning discrimination against migrant workers were identified. Four claims proceeded to a full hearing and were determined in favour of the complainant (Guzman v T, (1997) 97 CLLC 230-029, [1997] BCHRTD No 1; Monrose v Double Diamond Acres Limited, 2013 HRTO 1273; CSWU Local 1611 v SELI Canada Inc, 2008 BCHRT 436; Ben Saad v. 1544982 Ontario Inc, 2017 HRTO 1). Six claims were unsuccessful, settled, or abandoned (Peart v Ontario (Community Safety and Correctional Services), 2014 HRTO 611; Raper v Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services, 2015 HRTO 269; Casimir v Twin Peaks Hydroponics, 2013 HRTO 141; Jamjai v Greenwood Mushroom Farms Inc, 2013 HRTO 96; Milay v Athwal, 2004 BCHRT 132; Hazel v 624091 Alberta Ltd, 2013 HRTO 435). One claim is currently proceeding through the BCHRT: Chein v Tim Hortons, 2015 BCHRT 169.

11 Unlike CSWU, which involved wage discrimination, Monrose, which involved blatant derogatory comments, Saad, which was determined on the basis of disability, not ethnic origin, or Guzman, where the primary question related to parental liability. The details of PN and Presteve are set out in Section 2 of this article.

12 See Blackett and Trebilcock, 3–5.

13 See, e.g., Blackett, Adelle, “Situated Reflections on International Labour Law, Capabilities, and Decent Work: The Case of Centre Maraîcher Eugène Guinois,” Liber Amicorum in honour of Katia Boustany, Revue québécoise de droit international, (2007): 223;Google Scholar Hepple, Bob, “Equality and empowerment for decent work,” International Labour Review, 140 (2001): 5;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sheppard, “Mapping,” for discussions related to concepts of inequality in labour and human rights contexts. See also Sheppard, Colleen, Inclusive Equality: the Relational Dimensions of Systemic Discrimination in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010)Google Scholar for an in-depth examination of the evolution of legal understandings of inequality in Canada.

14 See Sheppard, “Mapping”; Hepple, “Equality.”

15 Enabling discrimination claims to proceed on the basis of an identifiable characteristic, such as sex, age, race, national origin, religious belief, and others. See, e.g., Human Rights Code, RSBC 1996, c210; Human Rights Code, RSO 1990, c H19.

16 Sheppard, “Mapping,” 8–9.

17 See, e.g., Blackett, “Situated Reflections”; Sheppard, “Mapping”; Blackett, Adelle and Sheppard, Colleen, “Collective bargaining and equality: Making connections,” International Labour Review, 142 (2003): 434;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Minnow, Martha, Making all the difference: Inclusion, exclusion and American law (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

18 Sheppard, “Mapping,” 8. See also Sheppard, Inclusive Equality, 13; Hepple, “Equality,” 7; Blackett and Sheppard, “Collective Bargaining,” 426, discussing the challenge of addressing systemic discrimination in unionized environments and access to collective bargaining.

19 Sheppard, “Mapping,” 8. See also Hepple, “Equality,” 7.

20 See Sheppard, Inclusive Equality, 17–18, discussing five primary shifts in understandings of inequality and discrimination. See also, Sheppard, “Mapping,” 12; Hepple, “Equality.”

21 See, e.g., Hepple, “Equality,” 8, discussing affirmative action and employment equity programs; Blackett and Sheppard, “Collective Bargaining,” 446; Sheppard, Inclusive Equality; Sheppard, “Mapping,” 8–9. For a critique of the limitations of traditional policies, such as duties to accommodate, see Gwen Brodsky and Shelagh Day, “The Duty to Accommodate: Who Will Benefit?,” Canadian Bar Review 75 (1996), cited in Sheppard, “Inclusive Equality.”

22 E.g., for a discussion of the challenge for collective bargaining and labour law to address systemic inequality, see: Blackett and Sheppard, “Collective Bargaining.”

23 See, e.g., Blackett, “Situated Reflections,” for a critique of Commission des droits de la personne et droits de la jeunesse (Cupidon Lumène) c. Centre Maraîcher Eugène Guinois Jr inc.

24 Sheppard, “Mapping,” 14, citing Blackett, “Situated Reflections.”

25 PN v FR, 2015 BCHRT 60, para 1.

26 PN v FR, para 101.

27 See PN v FR, paras 118–137, regarding the Tribunal’s reasons and determinations on the remedies.

28 PN v FR, para 2.

29 PN v FR, para 17.

30 PN v FR, para 15.

31 PN v FR, paras 93–101.

32 In the context of employment, protected characteristics include: “race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, political belief, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or age of that person or because that person has been convicted of a criminal or summary conviction offence that is unrelated to the employment or to the intended employment of that person.” Human Rights Code, RSBC 1996, c210, s13(1).

33 PN v FR, para 89, citing to Moore v British Columbia, 2012 SCC 61.

34 PN v FR, para 1.

35 PN v FR, paras 71–86.

36 PN v FR, para 72.

37 PN v FR, paras 74–75.

38 PN v FR, para 76.

39 PN v FR, para 80.

40 Ibid.

41 PN v FR, paras 80–81.

42 PN v FR, para 82.

43 PN v FR, paras 83–85.

44 PN v FR, para 86.

45 PN v FR, paras 93–106.

46 PN v FR, para 101.

47 PN v FR, para 104.

48 OPT v Presteve Foods, 2015 OHRT 675, paras 1–9.

49 OPT, para 2.

50 OPT, par 230.

51 OPT, para 19.

52 OPT, paras 3–4 (re OPT), para 6 (re MPT).

53 OPT, para 6.

54 OPT, para 13.

55 OPT, para 14.

56 OPT, para 13.

57 OPT, para 25.

58 OPT, para 25.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 OPT, para 133.

63 OPT, para 168, the authority referring to his position as owner and principal, and ability to confer, grant, or deny a benefit or advancement to OPT as an employee.

64 OPT, para 132.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Faraday, Made in Canada. See also Flecker, “Model Program,” 13; Binford, “Fields of Power,” 504; Judy Fudge and Daniel Parrott, “Private Foreign Worker Recruitment for the Live-In Caregiver Program in British Columbia” (paper presented at Regulating for a Fair Recovery conference, Geneva, Switzerland, July 6–8, 2011).

68 Fudge and Parrott, “Private Foreign Worker Recruitment.” Relatedly, see Hodge, Jarrah, “Unskilled Labour: Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program,” Undercurrent 3 (2006): 60–66;Google Scholar Pratt, Geraldine, “Collaborating Across our Differences,” Gender, Place and Culture 9 (2002): 195–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 See Faraday, Made in Canada, 60.

70 As discussed in the Introduction, these include a closed work permit and temporary immigration status.

71 Faraday, Made in Canada; Marsden, Sarah, “Assessing the Regulation of Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada,” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 49 (2011): 46;Google Scholar Lenard and Straehle, “Legislated Inequality,” 5–6, 12; Marsden, Sarah, “The New Precariousness: Temporary Migrants and the Law in Canada,” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 27 (2012): 212;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sharma, Nandita, Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of ‘Migrant Workers’ in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006);Google Scholar Sharma, “Difference”; McLaughlin, Janet, “Classifying the “ideal migrant worker”: Mexican and Jamaican transnational farmworkers in Canada,” Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 57 (2010): 80;Google Scholar Fudge, “Precarious Migrant Status,” 30; Fudge, Judy, “Migrant Domestic Workers in British Columbia, Canada: Unfreedom, Trafficking and Domestic Servitude,” in Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Area, ed. Howe, Joanne and Owens, Rosemary (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2016), 151–172.Google Scholar

72 McLaughlin, “Classifying,” 80. For similar critiques concerning the inherently racialized and discriminatory nature of low-wage migrant labour programs, see: Bauder, “Foreign Farm Workers,” 103; Lenard and Straehle, introduction, 5–6, 12; Marsden, “New Precariousness,” 212; Sharma, Home Economics; Sharma, “Difference”; Satzewich, Vic, Racism and the Incorporation of Foreign Labour: Farm Labour Migration to Canada since 1945 (London: Routledge, 1991);Google Scholar Fudge, “Precarious Migrant Status,” 6; Smith, Adrian, “Racialized in justice: the legal and extra-legal struggles of migrant agricultural workers in Canada,” Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 31 (2013): 15–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Sheppard, “Mapping,” 14, citing also Blackett, “Situated Reflections.” See also, Lenard and Straehle, introduction, 12; Fudge, “Precarious Migrant Status,” 30; Sharma, “Difference,” 35–40; Faraday, Made in Canada.

74 See, e.g., Fudge, Judy, “Global Care Chains: Transnational Migrant Care Workers,” International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 28 (2012): 63–69;Google Scholar Briones, Leah, Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are Not Enough (Burlington: Ashgate, 2009);Google Scholar Mantouvalou, Virginia, Forced, “Servitude and Labour in the 21st Century: The Human Rights of Domestic Workers,” Industrial Law Journal 35 (2006): 395–414;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Murphy, Clíodhna, “The Enduring Vulnerability of Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 62 (2013) 599–627;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Parreñas, Rhacel, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001);Google Scholar Fudge, “Migrant Domestic Workers”; Mantouvalou, Virginia, “Temporary Labour Migration and Modern Slavery,” in Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Era, ed. Howe, Joanna and Owens, Rosemary (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2016), 223–240.Google Scholar

75 See ibid.

76 See, e.g., Satzewich, Racism and the Incorporation of Foreign Labour; Marsden, “The New Precariousness”; Bauder, “Foreign Farm Workers”; McLaughlin, “Classifying”; Sharma, Home Economics; Smith, “Racism”; Smith, “Racialized in justice.” The racialization and stereotyping of workers is not limited to migrant workers, though migration status may intersect in unique ways with race, gender and other characteristics: see, e.g., Blackett, “Situated Reflections.”

77 See Anderson, “Migration,” 310; Sharma, “Difference,” 38; Priebisch, Kerry, “Pick-Your-Own Labour: Migrant Workers and Flexibility in Canadian Agriculture,” International Migration Review 44 (2010): 413;Google Scholar Faraday, Made in Canada, 76; Sikka, Anette, Labour Trafficking in Canada: Indicators, Stakeholders, and Investigative Methods, Report No. 42 (Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2013), 10, 16;Google Scholar House of Commons, Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, “Temporary Foreign Workers and Non-Status Workers” (May 2009) (Chair: David Tilson, MP), 37.

78 See, e.g., Sheppard, “Mapping,” 9, commenting that systemic discrimination cannot be solved through a retroactive and individualized legal complaints system, but requires “new regulatory strategies.” See also, Hepple, “Equality,” 12.

79 Sheppard, Inclusive Equality, 4.

80 See Sheppard, “Mapping,” 14.