Episode #184: Permission to Exploit #6: Control at Work
In the sixth episode of the Permission to Exploit podcast series, we begin to explore what exploitation looks like day-to-day, starting with control at work: schedules, unpaid hours, withheld documents, verbal abuse, surveillance and coercion.
We are joined by migrant worker Megha, and by Marisa Berry Méndez, Responsable des campagnes, Amnistie internationale Canada francophone.
Permission to Exploit is a special series of the FCJ Refugee Centre’s Borderless Voices podcast, that combines lived experienced specialists and professional specialists’ insights to examine Canada’s closed work permit system, and the reforms needed to make it safer.
Hosted by Diana Caipa, Anti-Human Trafficking – Migrant Case Coordinator at FCJ Refugee Centre; and Jacob Basseches, Anti-Human Trafficking – Migrant Case Worker at FCJ Refugee Centre.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Borderless Voices podcast, presented by the FCJ Refugee Centre.
‘Permission to Exploit’: The System Behind the Exploitation of Temporary Foreign Workers
When your immigration status as a temporary foreign worker depends on your employer, the power shifts. ‘Permission to Exploit’ is a podcast that combines expert insights with lived experiences and the perspectives of professional specialists to examine Canada’s closed work permit system and the reforms needed to make it safer.
Episode 6, Control at Work: Schedules, unpaid hours, withheld documents, verbal abuse, surveillance, and coercion.
Hi, my name is Jacob Basseches, and I’m an Anti-Human Trafficking Migrant Case worker at FCJ Refugee Centre.
We’re here today with Megha, who suffered from serious labor exploitation right here in Ontario, Canada. Today, we’re going to ask her a few questions about the control and coercion she experienced in the workplace and hear from her about her personal lived experience with these matters.
Jacob Basseches: Megha, when you first started working, what did a normal workday look like for you?
Megha: A normal workday did not really have a clear start or the end date for me. I mean, end time for me. I would come in already like anxious knowing that the workload would be heavy because most of the time I used to work alone. So sometimes if I had like early orders, I had to go and open the store and make sure that everything is ready. And like six to seven hours that I was just left alone. I had no breaks or anything. And I often worked long hours, sometimes without proper breaks. Even when I was physically tired, I felt like mentally exhausted because I was constantly trying not to make mistakes. It wasn’t just about the hours, it was the pressure. I felt like I was always behind, always trying to prove I deserved to be there.
J: Got it. Were the hours or conditions different from what you were promised?
M: What I was promised and what I was experienced felt like two different realities. Before starting, I was told the job would be stable, fair and supportive. But once I started, the workload was heavier than described and the expectation kept changing. There was no clarity or there was no security. I realized that the promises were more about convincing me to come, not about protecting me once I started my job. I was actually issued an LMIA [Labour Market Impact Assessment] to work as a pizza cook, but without my documentation changing, I was supposed to act as a manager in the place. So it was more responsibility for less space.
J: Can you talk a little bit more about that? What were the official responsibilities that you were supposed to have based on your contract and your LMIA, versus what you actually ended up having to do as your day-to-day responsibilities?
M: Sure. So I was issued an LMIA as a pizza cook. So pizza cook basically is like a kitchen work. And yes, sometimes I had to take the orders or something, but it’s not like I’d be doing both back and forth, because the kitchen area is separate and the desk is separate. That’s what I was told, that I would be working in the kitchen and there was nothing else that i’d be doing. And when I’m like more experienced to give the training, if we hire someone new, I should be giving the training. This was like making the pizzas, making sure the quality was good… These were my job responsibilities, but once i started to work they made changes, and they said that, as a manager, I should be able to be placing the food orders, I should make sure that we had everything in stock. That was the managers’ job, but I was forced to do that, and then I didn’t have anyone working with me. There was a driver who had their own responsibility, And they don’t help with the kitchen, they don’t help with taking the orders. So most of the days I’m just working by myself, like seven, six to eight hours every single day, and I have to come to the front, take the order, go back to the kitchen, make the pizza, cut the pizza, and then give it to the customer, even though it was busy. I had no one to help me in between. And if sometimes I get like 20, 30 pieces, if one single customer is placing that order like in advance, still no one was coming to help me with that. And I had to do everything myself, including the current customer and the order which was already placed.
J: Wow. Did you feel like you couldn’t say no to what your employer wanted? And if you did feel that way, what made it so hard to say no?
M: I did not feel like I had the power to say ‘no.’ Even if like no one physically forced me, the pressure was constant. My immigration status was tied to the job, and I had taken so many loans, and all the money I owed to everyone, I had to return. So if I say ‘no,’ I’m going to lose my job first thing, and I I was told that my employer is a Canadian citizen and I’m just a temporary worker. They have more rights in the country than I. I mean, I do. So they said that they will call Immigration and they’re going to say that they have taken out me from the job and they will deport me from here. So with all this pressure that was going, anything they say, I never used to say ‘no .’ I was just doing the job.
J: And how did your employer respond if you or someone else ever complained or asked questions?
M: Eevery time the worker raised concerns or asked a question, the response was usually dismissive or intimidating. Sometimes it was just silence, like not even responding. Anything was like a reminder that we were replaceable for them. Over time… I mean, people stopped asking… You know, when we worked over time, we were not paid no money for that. So we were not able to question anything. We just had to keep working.
J: You were never paid any overtime?
M: No. Because all the pay that I had, it was exactly 40 hours. Because my clock in and clock out time ws not always accurate, in the sense that it didn”t actually start at 10 and finish at 3. So sometimes it varied. But every single week [that I did] more than 40 hours, I never got paid anything over that. And there were weeks that I was working like 55-60 hours. Anything more than 40 hours, I was never paid.
J: Did you ever feel like you were being watched or monitored by your employer or anybody else?
M: Yes, I felt constantly watched, not just physically, but psychologically. And there was a time that… Because I used to work most of the time just by myself and without no one in the store, I had like no breaks in between, and there was an incident … My employer said to me, “even if you need to go to the washroom, you have to wait until the next person come.” So I opened the store 10 o’clock in the morning until someone come at 4 o’clock. I cannot go to the washroom because if I get a call and I don’t pick the call, he sayd that he was losing the customer. So he doesn’t care about me. He cares about what money he makes out of the business. And he was checking the cameras on his phone, and there was an incident, when I was going through my monthly cycle, and I had to use the washroom. I just went inside the washroom and he called to the store phone. And he was just so rude to me and said that, “oh, if you go like that, who’s going to pick the call? I told you that you’re not supposed to go to the washroom. You have to be at the front or in the kitchen where you’re visible to the customer. Or if you get a call, you should be able to answer, not go into the washroom.” He was watching always.
J: Wow. Were there other ways that you felt mistreated by your employer or anybody else while you were at work?
M: My manager was doing the same thing because my employer told most of my situation to my manager, and he was always… Whatever his duties and responsibility were, he was forcing me to do those one. And they wanted me to live nearby the store, I should not be living too far. Because in case of emergency, they’d call me [and tell me] that I had to go to the store and work, even though I just finished the job and came home.
J: Wow. So you were expected to always be on call?
M: Yeah, even if I was sick, I had to go to work. And there were days, when my monthly cycle, that I was not able to, you know, stand on my feet, and Iwas not able to work, but I was still forced to work those days, and I was not let to come home, and eventually when the pressure became too much and I was not able to control myself, I started to cry in front of everyone in the store, and I was like, “why don’t you guys let me go home?” Because I’m not feeling fine and I’m not able to stand. My stomach was really hurting bad. That’s when they started to make changes on my schedule without informing me. Sometimes I closed at 12 o’clock in the night and I had to go and open again in the morning. And I had not enough time to rest myself.
J: Did you feel like they were punishing you for your reaction?
M: It was kind of a punishment, because they thought that they own me because of the LMIA work permit.
J: Got it. What do you think would have happened if you had tried to leave the job or if you had left the job?
M: At that time, leaving did not feel like a real option for me. I believed that I would lose my job, my legal status and all the money I invested, because I paid like nearly $30,000 for all the process. And I had a fear of being reported or deported or, you know, starting everything from zero again. If I had to go find an employer again… I did try to find a new employer, but anywhere I called a consultant, they kept asking me for the money and I was not in a position to pay more money to someone again to get the job. I felt like I had like no other option.
J: And am I understanding correctly that your employer used the power that they had over you to also make your husband do things?
M: Yeah. They were telling to me that, you know, when they had a driver shortage or something like that, my husband was supposed to go and deliver the pizzas, and he did a couple times, and then my husband said, “see this is not fair, because you work there and them asking me to come and deliver the pizza is not gonna be okay.” That made a problem between me and my husband, and our relationship became like really worst, and when I told to my employer, “you know, I work here, and what you’re doing to me is already too much for me to take, and you bringing my husband in between, that’s creating a problem in my relationship,” and he said he doesn’t care about that, because he thinks that my husband was as a dependent on my LMIA work permit, and my employer said like “you guys are staying in this country because of me, and you both are supposed to do the job,” whatever we say.
J: Did the control ever extend beyond the workplace?
M: When I come home and they’re calling me and saying like, “oh, can you come back to the store now? We got a big order, there is only less people to do the work.” And sometimes like it’s my day off and they still want me to go and help them, not just in the store, but also on the phone calls. They never used to send me the message, like [only] once in a while, but [then] they used to make a WhatsApp call and say like, “oh, we want you here right now, you have to come to the store because there is an order.” And they would be calling me, you know, like sometimes in the night, or [they’d say], “tomorrow morning, you have to go and open the store, because the person who’s supposed to open is not coming.” So I had to be prepared always, because anytime they called I had to go.
J: Did you feel that, as a temporary foreign worker, as an LMIA holder, that you were treated differently from other employees who perhaps were residents or citizens?
M: Yes, because there were a couple of kids who used to work [there], and they were Canadian citizens, and they were notforced to do anything the way they used to do with me. They were treated so good. But for me, that was not at all an option . And there were some temporary foreign workers, but who were on the work permit, and even they were treated fairly. It was just me, because I was on the LMIA work permit. And my employer verbally told me this, [he said that] “until you are on my LMIA work permit, anything you do, it’s under my control. You have no choice.”
J: Did your employer or manager ever threaten you?
M: Yeah, they always used to threaten me of deporting, and they even called the cops on my husband and raised a fake complaint about my husband, saying that my husband hit me. They did this one because I refused to go to work one day, because that was my day off and I did not want to go to work. And when I said this, me and my husband were having an argument regarding these things, [saying] like “they can’t be keep calling you whenever they want.” So when my husband came near my workplace, my manager called the cops on my husband and falsely complained about my husband. And then he said, “oh, this is still the beginning for you. You still have more in the future.”
J: Wow… Okay, last question. Do you have anything else that you’d like to say to the public, to the Canadian people about the control that you experienced working as a temporary foreign worker with an LMIA?
M: I would like to tell them that everything happened because I had no idea about how the law or the rules and regulations work in the country. I was trapped and I was stuck. All I wanted to tell them is that if you ever get into any kind of problem, you’re just a call away from the cops or, if you want, to go and get help from any organization like the way I did. I would highly encourage them. You have to go and get the help rather than going through all the struggle that I went through. And the law is the same for everyone. It is not different for a citizen and a temporary foreign worker or whatever. So just be careful and don’t let anyone put you to the level that my employer put me to.
J: All right. Thank you so much. That’ll be all.
M: Thank you.
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Jacob Basseches: We’re here today with Marissa, from Amnesty International. Hi, Marissa.
Marisa Berry Méndez: Hi.
J: When listeners hear your name in this episode, what is the one thing you’d want them to understand about you and your work?
M: I guess the kind of a broad thing about my work would just be that I’ve been working for migrant justice and migrant rights and particularly on the rights of migrant workers in the temporary foreign worker program for about 15 years. First for several years at the Canadian Council for Refugees and now with the French-speaking section of Amnesty Canada.
J: Great, thank you. In your research and advocacy work, what are some of the most common ways employees exert control over migrant workers inside the workplace?
M: So I can give you some of the examples that we documented when we carried out our research project a couple of years ago where we interviewed 44 workers. Some of the examples of control that we documented were retention of documents, you know, identity documents like passports and work permits. Limitations imposed on freedom of movement. So some employers purposely tried to isolate employees, controlled their ability to leave their accommodations. In some instances, they restricted their freedom of movement indirectly by forcing them, for example, to always be available so that they couldn’t feel free to leave. There was surveillance, including with cameras inside and outside of living quarters. Some workers reported that the employer asked the neighbors to kind of keep an eye on them and report back. And we also documented undue interference in their private lives. So the employer entering the workers accommodation unannounced, and other forms of surveillance, such as cameras, that I mentioned. And the employer sometimes controlling things like medical appointments and even the information that’s provided to the worker by the doctor. So kind of, you know, monitoring that relationship as well. I can add a few other examples. There were a few workers who told us about not being allowed to bring friends to their living quarters, imposing rules on them like not drinking alcohol or curfews at night. And also some people reported constant accompaniment by somebody, whether it was the employer or a supervisor or a recruiter. And somebody else reported being forced to… They weren’t allowed to leave the farm in which they worked on at any time, except when they were accompanied to go do their groceries late at night at the shop of a friend of the owners, when the shop was closed. So some of the forms of control, just even physical control, were very intense.
J: Wow. Yeah… We often hear about particularly long schedules or unpaid hours. Why are migrant workers particularly vulnerable to these kinds of labor violations?
M: I mean, I’m sure that I’ll say this a couple of times throughout the interview, but the sort of the root causes of all types of abuses that migrant workers are vulnerable to come down to the same structural reasons, which are the closed work permit that they’re subject to under the temporary foreign worker program and their precarious status. The fact that their status, their right to remain in Canada is dependent on the closed work permit that is tied to one employer. So those are really the structural reasons. But in terms of long hours, in some provinces, labor standards, in particular for agricultural workers, are below the standards provided for by international law and even by the provincial general labor protections. For example, in Ontario, the agricultural workers are excluded from the Labour Relations Act. So employers don’t have to comply with employment standards concerning wages, overtime, and rest. That explains why sometimes they’re legally subject to really, really long hours and lack of rest. In terms of wage theft, so unpaid hours, three quarters of the workers that we interviewed for our report reported some form of wage theft. And these included receiving lower salaries per hour than what was stipulated on their contract, delays in payment or even periods of time without receiving any wages, hours that were not registered or paid and overtime that was not adequately remunerated or in some instances not paid at all. So again, there’s overlap where, you know, in Ontario, again, agricultural workers aren’t subject to the same provisions around overtime. But then this was also an issue beyond the legislation. And I would add that 16 of the workers that we spoke to, so slightly less than half, reported unfair or unlawful deductions off of their pay that were either not allowed under the regulations of the program or that were inflated. And some were demanded, some made demands for cash payments after having submitted their pay, their duly received pay. They were asked to make sort of cash deductions afterwards. In some cases, the deductions included medical expenses or medical insurance, despite the employer’s obligation under the program to provide private insurance to migrant workers in the first months or until they’re covered by the public health system.
J: Now, some workers report having their passports or personal documents taken by employers. What does international human rights law say about that kind of practice?
M: The retention of identity documents by employers is an infringement of international human rights laws. And it’s been identified also by the ILO, the International Labour Organization, as an indicator of vulnerability to forced labor. To get technical about it, in terms of how it’s not compliant with international law, it violates fundamental rights inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to freedom of movement, the right to leave a country and return to one’s own country, and the right to work.
J: Beyond physical control, workers often describe verbal abuse, intimidation, or constant monitoring, and you’ve touched on a lot of these. But how do these physical pressures function as a form of workplace control?
M: I think, and I’m sure that workers themselves would be more eloquent to answer this question, but from what I understand, from what I’ve heard from workers, that kind of abuse and monitoring creates a climate of fear, which exacerbates the fear that migrant workers have of dismissal or repatriation just as a result of the conditions of the program. Many workers who have been abused or exploited talk about the impacts on their mental health, of the experience of verbal abuse or physical abuse, because in many cases it is also racist or sexist, the abuse, and very dehumanizing. We spoke with workers who were victims of severe labor exploitation, and it’s clear in those cases that the abuse has left the worker traumatized. Oftentimes, even when the abuse is happening or when it’s escalating or when it’s gotten to a point where even to the worker, it’s become clear that this is far beyond what should be allowed. Many workers still feel that they cannot leave or that they have to accept it.
J: What factors can create this sense of being trapped?
M: Right. I think this question really takes us back to those structural elements of the program that keep people actually trapped. I mean, one of the workers we spoke to said, this is a rough translation, said the closed work permit is a prison. because of how difficult it is to change jobs. The only way out for a lot of workers is to leave their job and either become undocumented, which of course nobody wants because of the extreme vulnerability of that situation, or return to their country. And people have often invested huge amounts of money, especially given their means. Sometimes entire families, communities, have pitched in or they’ve gone into large amounts of debt in order to pay the fees to participate in the program. And it’s important there to say that generally those fees are illegal because nobody is supposed to pay. Workers are not supposed to pay any fees to participate in this program. Only employers are legally allowed to pay recruitment fees. So there’s the issue of debt and also just the expectations of being expected to provide for your family back home once you’ve gotten this opportunity. So people are just, they’re afraid of being dismissed and they know that they’re… In most cases, they know that they’re tied to one employer and that they really can’t leave. Of course, there is technically the possibility of being hired by another employer and changing jobs. This is such a… It’s a very arduous, you know, time-consuming process. And most workers aren’t connected to other employers. So it’s really not a reality for most people. And so ultimately, they’re in a situation where their employer controls both their living and working conditions and their right to remain in Canada.
J: From a human rights perspective, what protections should exist to prevent these kinds of workplace control and exploitation?
M: I would say, Ithe key points would be to address those root causes. So anybody who comes to Canada as a temporary worker should have an open work permit. They should have the same right to labor mobility as other workers, because otherwise they find themselves in this position of being trapped and an extreme imbalance of power with their employer. And another thing that we found in our analysis when we drafted our report is that the temporary foreign worker program is not only inherently exploitative, but also discriminatory. And so one of the things that we propose, that we recommend, is that, you know, in Canada’s immigration program, discriminatory barriers to accessing permanent residents should be removed. The way that things stand currently is that in our economic immigration programs, people who are coming to fill low skilled jobs, quote unquote, low skilled jobs, people with low levels of formal education or work experience in those low skilled jobs, are not really eligible to immigrate in the economic stream, because they don’t get enough points under the point system generally. And we found that this is discriminatory according to a variety of intersecting identities, including race. So we recommend that those barriers be removed so that the people who are currently being, you know, really actively recruited to come as temporary workers under the temporary foreign worker program would actually be eligible for permanent immigration programs if they wanted to be. And I’ll add, so those are kind of the two, I guess, big recommendations around the structural problems with the program. And then, of course, you know, we need to improve legislative protections and enforcement. The main kind of note that I would make about that is that when you have these factors of vulnerability built into the program, legislation can’t do its job because people don’t actually have access to justice. They’re afraid to complain. And the protections mechanisms are, you know, complaints. They’re reactive. They rely on workers making complaints. But certainly there are legislations, like the labour standards exemptions for agricultural workers in Ontario. In Quebec, there are also some exemptions. And then in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta, the restrictions on the right to unionize and collectively bargain, that should be lifted, so that workers who are… I mean, you know… Those legislations apply to agricultural workers at large, and not only migrant workers, but migrant workers are disproportionately impacted in some cases. So that needs to be improved and certainly an enforcement of all these rules. But one of the things, again, that we found with the situation of migrant workers is that the reactive enforcement just doesn’t cut it. And even if there are some provinces that have made important inroads, I guess, in proactive enforcement of legislation. And we certainly applaud that. But again, when you have these factors of vulnerability, it often doesn’t go far enough. And I know that the Special Rapporteur, the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, documented in his report how a very high percentage of some of the government enforcement measures were done remotely. So, for example, they would they would see whether employers were being compliant with the legislation through a phone call or video conference. And, you know, you’re clearly not getting at the conditions on the ground if you’re not visiting the workplace and talking to workers. And even in situations where they visit the workplace, with certainly good intentions, we’ve had workers talk to us about how the employer has prepped them in advance, told them what to say, different kinds of things that make those enforcement efforts not as impactful as we would want them to be.
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The problem isn’t just long hours or bad management. When power is unbalanced everyday workplace practices can become tools of control.
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