7 News Belize

Working In Canada: The Other Side Of That Story
posted (December 13, 2012)
Last week we told you all about the 150 Belizeans recruited to work at MacDonald's in Western Canada, and the more than 1100 who lined up for job interviews.

On the surface, it's an attractive offer, after all minimum wage over there is about 9.50 US per hour.

But a Canadian news agency reports that it's often not what it's cracked up to be. CBC.CA the website for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a lengthy print feature on the plight that many immigrant workers face.

It describes one 21-year-old from Mexico working at a fast food chain "who says he found himself walking to work in the snow and living in a basement with five other Mexican men."

Karl Flecker, the national director of anti-racism and human rights for the Canadian Labour Congress says that quote, "Many of these migrant workers who are coming in for work, who are often desperate for work, are put in incredibly vulnerable situations where exploitation, abuse, dangerous, unsafe working conditions are actually too often the norm for their situation."

Earlier this year four Mexican workers launched a human rights complaint against the former owner of two restaurants. One official is quoted as saying that quote, "The only people who are willing to do this work at those wage rates are people who are willing to live three, four and five people within an apartment."

You can read the entire article at the link below.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/11/f-temporary-foreign-worker-program-tim-hortons-canada.html

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