SIKLAB-B.C. (Advance the Rights and Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers and their Families)
Statement read by Olive Ariola, SIKLAB member, at the May Day Organizing Committee March & Rally

SIKLAB-BC May Day Statement

May 1, 2008

Warm and militant greetings from SIKLAB! As overseas Filipino migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, we join in solidarity with the workers and oppressed people in Canada and around the world on International Workers Day. On the day that commemorates and recognizes the force of the working class, it is only right that as overseas Filipino workers in Canada, we join with workers willing to raise high the banner of the working class against all forms of intensifying exploitation of labour.

My name is Olive. I am a former migrant worker, a former Live-In Caregiver, now an organizer for my community. I left the Philippines, because of the chronic political and economic crisis there. I could not make enough to support my children. Tuition, basic food and shelter were costs that I could never meet being the only bread-winner.

I went abroad but I didn’t realize that it would be very difficult abroad. In Hong
Kong I worked 18 hours a day for seven years. If I was late for my curfew with my employer, they made me sleep outside the door. I heard that Canada was better than Hong Kong. But being here was much worse.

My employers regularly made me do overtime work, promised to pay me, but never came through. I was scared to complain because I wanted to finish my 24 months. I knew my rights but the future of my children outweighed my exploitation. From the long working hours, I no longer felt healthy. Because of Immigration’s strict requirements and lengthy processing time, even though I submitted my papers on time I can no longer be reunited with my eldest child because she is past the 22 year old age limit. Shame!

My story is all too common in the Filipino community. Through the LCP, we are legislated into poverty and underdevelopment.  As migrant and immigrant workers in Canada 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.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada actively recruits Filipinos, the majority of whom are highly-educated and skilled women through the racist and anti-woman Live-inCaregiver Program (LCP). In the last two and a half decades, over 100,000 Filipinos in Canada have come through the LCP. Under the LCP, we are forced to live and work in the homes of middle- and upper-class Canadian families as live-in caregivers for a minimum of 24 months within a strict 3-year period. We sometimes earn only $2.00/hour for our labour while being denied our basic rights as workers. Therefore, we want the LCP scrapped and granted landed status immediately for these workers who are toiling as modern-day slaves in Canada. Shame!

Now with the expansion of the  Temporary Foreign Workers Program and the Bill C-50 made to increase Canada’s pool of highly-educated but cheap migrant labour, we as overseas Filipino migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, must stand in solidarity with other migrant, immigrant, and undocumented workers, as well as all Canadian workers and all oppressed people in a common struggle especially on International Workers Day.

7,000 people in Manila and all around the Philippines, led by the May First Movement (Kilusang Mayo Uno) took to the streets today to call for a rise to the minimum wage and better working conditions. They also called for the ouster of the corrupt, facist, and puppet Philippine President Gloria Arroyo.  Her regime’s anti-people and pro-foreign interest policies have wreaked havoc on the lives of Filipino workers and their families.  Under Arroyo's watch, the price of rice and other basic commodities have skyrocketed out of control.  The price of rice has increased 50% in the past two months. Isn't it ironic that a country that could produce rice must import it? Shame
  
To escape the ever-worsening political and economic situation in the Philippines, we are driven, over 3000 Filipinos every day, to work abroad in countries like Canada and tearing families apart. Last year, over 1 million overseas Filipino workers were pushed abroad as domestic workers, seafarers, laborers and entertainers. There are now over 8 million OFW’s in over 186 contries around the world. Canada is one of the countries who gladly accepts Filipinos as cheap labour.

Given the worsening situation in the Philippines and for our community in Canada, we meet this May Day with a renewed commitment to continue
educating, organizing,and mobilizing our community. We urge all progressive trade unions, organizations and the Canadian public to stand in
solidarity with the issues and struggles of migrant and immigrant workers.

Stop the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program!
Scrap the anti-woman and racist Live-in Caregiver Program!
No to Bill C-50!
Oust the corrupt, facist and pupplet Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo!
Long Live International Solidarity!

.

--