Statement
SIKLAB – British Columbia (Advance and Uphold the Rights of Overseas Filipino Workers)

UPHOLD THE RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS! GENUINE SOLIDARITY WITH MIGRANT WORKERS NEEDED!

September 20, 2006

As an organization of overseas Filipino workers in B.C. we once again urge for genuine solidarity between migrant and Canadian workers.

The time for unity of workers in Canada, both between and among migrant and Canadian workers, is ever more crucial especially that there is now greater efforts to divide us.

As migrant and immigrant workers we have been facing increasing exploitation and attacks under Canada's neo-liberal agenda. The exploitation of overseas Filipino workers has only worsened as imperialist globalization spurs on the international buying and selling of cheaper and cheaper Third World labour.

We only need to look at the increasing use of migrant labour to fill Canada's need for cheaper but highly-skilled labour as in the construction of the RAV line and the over 20-year history of using Filipino women as cheap temporary domestic workers to realize that both federal and provincial governments are hell-bent on creating profit off cheap and mobile migrant labour at the expense of the working class as a whole with moves to expand Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Based on this experience, for over ten years, our community-based organization of migrant and immigrant workers from the Philippines, has maintained the need for genuine solidarity.

However, now with growing debate that has finally reached the mainstream on the use of foreign workers for cheap labour, we think it necessary to reiterate the call for genuine solidarity especially with troubling rhetoric coming from all sides of the debate.

Particularly troubling is the talk around exclusion and protecting so-called Canadian jobs and standards.  We believe that the debate on migrant workers that is fixed on calling for protection of "Canadian jobs and Canadian standards" is a simplistic and short-sighted argument. This position is flawed by racism and a continuous refusal to understand Canada's long-history of using migrant labour to divide the working class in Canada, and a denial of the present fact that migrant labour is a global issue that constantly puts downward pressure on wages to ensure high profit margins both for local and global capital.

Canada's exploitation of migrant workers only serves the interests of those who stand to benefit from privatization, the clawing back of social services, and the driving down of workers' wages and rights. It is modern-day union busting on a global scale.

Instead of implementing a national childcare program that would benefit working class mothers and families, the Canadian government uses Filipino live-in caregivers as cheap labour for upper-class families through its Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). Instead of providing accessible and free public health care for all, the Canadian government uses Filipino nurses forced into domestic work to perform private nursing duties for upper-class elderly and affluent people who can pay for private care.

Therefore given that Canadian and migrant workers have more issues that should unite instead of divide us, we urge that the current debate on migrant labour go beyond the protectionist and patronizing attitude of "Canadian jobs, Canadian standards" and move into discussion on building genuine solidarity with migrant workers.

Scrap the anti-woman and racist Live-in Caregiver Program!

No to the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Workers’ Program!

Expose and oppose the exploitation of migrant, immigrant, and undocumented labour in Canada!

Heighten our unity and genuine solidarity in the struggle against imperialist globalization!

Workers unite!