'It's like a cage': Foreign workers who quit Canadian Tire speak out about feeling trapped by work permits
'It's like a cage': Foreign workers who quit Canadian Tire speak out about feeling trapped by work permits
Rowell Pailan spends his days applying for jobs in factories, in restaurants, in shops. He's ready to take any kind of work.
Last September, Pailan quit his job with the company he came to Canada to work for over what he says are disputes about his treatment, including hours and wages. Now, he can't find an employer willing to do the paperwork to change his closed work permit — a standard part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program that ties workers to specific companies.
He knows the end date on that work permit means time is ticking on his Canadian dream.
"I'm still asking myself, what I am doing here, what I'm doing here in Canada," he said in a recent interview in his Wolfville, N.S., apartment.
Closed work permits should be abolished. When someone enters the country on one they are unable to properly bargain with their employer for fair compensation and when some employees are unable to bargain it lowers the bargaining power of their coworkers.
Employer specific visas are a fucking terrible idea.
They sure do get shitty FIFA stadiums built though, just ask Qatar!
I will never forget or forgive our governments and these companies for screwing over both Canadians and people around the world for what they did with the TFW program. Instead of bringing highly skilled people to our country we got cheap foreign labor to suppress wages and worsen the already really bad housing crisis.
This is really disappointing to hear about. I'm glad that things worked out in the end for Cresencio, and hopefully there's a way for Pailan and the others to appeal administratively or get a new review done that lead them down the same path.