07) SCRAP THE "CHEAP LABOUR" TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS PROGRAM

Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada, June 1‑2, 2013

     Under enormous public pressure, the Harper Conservatives announced in late April that changes would be made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). But the government has not changed its fundamental strategy to create a larger pool of cheap labour for the benefit of big capital.

     Following media revelations that big corporations such as the Royal Bank were deliberately abusing TFWP regulations to replace Canadian workers, the government promised to step up enforcement of rules, such as the requirement that employers seek to hire Canadian employees, and to end the practice of paying migrant workers up to 15% less than other workers. Companies will now have to pay for the cost of processing applications when migrant workers are recruited under the TFWP, a fee which had previously been absorbed by the government, i.e., Canadian taxpayers.

     But as the labour movement has noted, much of the change the Harper government has promised is already on the books, without being enforced. Over the past month, new reports have emerged that federal employees are threatened with dismissal if they do not process TFWP applications quickly and with minimal review. Without real and effective monitoring or enforcement, the announced changes will not improve the existing situation.

     The fundamental problem is not that the Harper Tories have "failed to listen" to complaints, but rather that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a deliberate corporate strategy to funnel foreign workers into poorly‑paid jobs without legal rights, protections or benefits such as parental rights. As our Party's recent Central Convention pointed out, "These super‑exploited workers are at the mercy of employers, and when their services are no longer needed, they must leave the country or face immediate deportation."

     The TFWP is one expression of the global drive by big capital to treat workers as disposable profit producers rather than human beings, and to drive down the wages of all workers by increasing the "reserve army of the unemployed" in every capitalist country. The TFWP also gives right‑wing forces an opportunity to divide the working class by promoting anti‑immigrant, racist views at a time of economic crisis and high unemployment.

     The Communist Party of Canada calls for the abolition of the TFWP, and instead demands that all migrant workers be provided a path to citizenship, with all the economic, legal and political rights and protections achieved by the working class in Canada. We urge stronger unity of all workers ‑ domestic and foreign‑born, organized and unorganized, employed and unemployed ‑ to fight back against the Tory government's racist agenda and the drive by the corporations to attack wages and working conditions.

(The above article is from the June 16-30, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)