L'ultime bataille de Melca

Melca Salvador laisse dans le deuil son fils de 12 ans, Richard. C'est Evelyn Calugay (à droite) qui a recueilli l'enfant Photo: André Tremblay, La Presse

par Isabelle Hachey La Presse

Melca Salvador était une battante. Elle s'était démenée pour améliorer son propre sort, celui de son petit garçon, celui des travailleurs immigrés qui subissent leurs malheurs en silence. Elle avait vaincu les bureaucrates fédéraux en obtenant l'asile au Canada.

Elle vient de perdre sa dernière bataille. Il y a deux semaines, Melca a été emportée par un cancer.

Retour en arrière. L'affaire Melca Salvador a éclaté en août 2000. La domestique philippine était alors sur le point d'être expulsée parce qu'elle n'avait pas respecté les règles d'un programme fédéral destiné aux aides familiales immigrées. Son crime: être tombée enceinte. Et s'être fait mettre à la porte par ses employeurs montréalais.

Cinq ans plus tôt, Mme Salvador avait quitté son archipel aux horizons bouchés. Elle avait d'abord échoué en Égypte, où elle avait fréquenté un compatriote, avant de débarquer à Montréal à l'automne 1995. Elle ne savait pas qu'elle était enceinte. Ses employeurs non plus. Quand ils l'ont découvert, deux mois plus tard, ils l'ont congédiée sur-le-champ.

Lire la suite: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/national/200903/14/01-836617-lultime-bataille-de-melca.php

Juana Tejada 1969 to 2009

Migrante-Ontario Statement
March 8, 2009
Toronto, Canada

Friends learned late today, March 8, of the death of our beloved friend Juana Tejada. Migrante Ontario extends our condolences to her husband Noli and her sister Berna. At around 9PM Juana lost her final battle. She died of cancer. (Photo Alex Felipe)

We in Migrante Ontario met Juana Tejada through her lawyer Rafael Fabregas. She was fighting for her right to stay in Canada. Juana was a caregiver that came to Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program. She finished the 24-month requirement and was eligible to apply for permanent residency. Her dream of permanently living in Canada was broken when, after going through a medical examination, she was denied her right to stay. She was diagnosed with cancer and was told that she would be a burden to the Canadian health care system.

We kickstarted a campaign along with other community groups and individuals to support her fight to stay in Canada. “It has been determined that you meet the eligibility requirements to apply for permanent resident status as a Member of the Live-in Caregiver class,” read Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s decision letter dated July 17, 2008. This decision did not come easy. Juana and her husband were put in a very difficult situation. They had to endure anxiety and emotional letdowns after her application was twice refused because she was diagnosed with terminal illness. But despite frustrations, Juana remained persistent and confident. Through her lawyer, she challenged the previous decisions, and subsequently made an appeal on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

After her victory, she continued to advocate for the changes to the Live-in Caregiver program. Along with her lawyer, Migrante and other community groups, she pushed for the amendment of the immigration law, in particular, calling to amend section 38(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act immediately by adding members of the Live-in Caregiver Class to the list of applicants who should automatically be granted exemption from the “good health” requirement. This is known to most of us as The Juana Tejada Law.

Just two hours before her passing, around 15 of us held a prayer vigil at the Toronto General Hospital. We talked about her and the campaign that she started. “As we gather today to be one with Juana in the final stages of her battle with cancer, I cannot help but situate this battle in the context of the larger struggle against the cancer plaguing Philippine society – the cancer that is slowly killing our compatriots in the Philippines - the social cancer of poverty, landlessness, the absence or lack of jobs that pushed Juana Tejada to leave the Philippines in the first place,” said Ricky Esguerra of the Filipino Migrant Workers Movement.

Juana tirelessly campaigned until she was brought to the hospital. We were inspired by her courage and her commitment was contagious. We know only too well the importance of this campaign and the importance of her contribution to the fight to improve the lives of caregivers in Canada.

As we grieve the loss of our friend, we also commit to pick up where she left off and continue the fight that she started.

Rest in Peace Juana

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Migrante-Ontario member organizations:
Filipino Migrant Workers Movement; AWARE; Philippine Advocacy Through Arts and Culture (PATAC); Damayan Migrant Education and Resource Center; Migrante Youth; Migrant Workers and Family Resource Center - Hamilton; Pilipinong Migrante sa Canada (PMSC) - Ottawa; Pilipinong Migrante sa Barrie (PMB) - Barrie

The Shift in Canadian Immigration Policy and Unheeded Lessons of the Live-in Caregiver Program

This is an interesting and important analysis by researcher Salima Laliani of recent changes in Canadian immigration policy; it also coincides with the subject of a documentary project we are presently working on entitled: The end of immigration?

Marie & Malcolm
____________________________

The Shift in Canadian Immigration Policy and Unheeded Lessons of the Live-in Caregiver Program
Ottawa, Canada
February 2009

Summary of the report:

This report elaborates the shift in immigration policy which began unfolding in Canada from the 2006 expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, culminating in June 2008, with the amendment of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It shows how this shift has been modeled on some of the weakest elements of the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), the longest standing immigration program offering temporary migrant workers the possibility of permanent residency.

Presenting figures never calculated before on the LCP – estimated retention rates, or a measure of the success of the Program in retaining temporary migrant workers as permanent residents – the report demonstrates that only 50 per cent of migrant live-in caregivers entering Canada from 2003-2005 became permanent residents by 2007. Calculated yearly for the period, 2003- 2007, the estimated retention rate falls to 28 per cent by 2005.

It is thus argued that the shift from permanent residency to temporary migration as a basis for the immigration system will not lead to building citizenship and labour supply in Canada. It is further argued that this is due to the inordinate amount of power granted by government to employers in the migrant worker employer relationship.

Testimonies of temporary migrant caregivers documented from the 1990s are used to illustrate this power imbalance. Judging from the pro-employer reorientation of Canada’s immigration system, federal and provincial governments have not learned from testimonies presented by feminist advocates over the past 20 years.

Les travailleuses domestiques veulent être couvertes par la CSST comme les autres travailleurs

Le ministre du Travail du Québec est accusé de faire preuve de discrimination à leur égard

Claude Turcotte - Le Devoir (Montréal)
Édition du lundi 23 février 2009
Photo: Jacques Nadeau

Au cours d'une conférence de presse donnée le dimanche 22 février dans Côte-des-Neiges, en plein cœur d'un quartier d'immigrants, des représentantes des travailleuses domestiques ont demandé d'être enfin automatiquement couvertes par la CSST en cas de maladie ou d'accident de travail.

Après trois ans d'attente et de demandes répétées d'une rencontre avec le ministre du Travail du Québec, la Coalition menant la lutte pour que les travailleuses domestiques bénéficient d'une couverture automatique de la Commission de la santé et sécurité du travail (CSST) en cas de maladie ou d'accident au travail revient encore une fois à la charge, en ajoutant quelques arguments de poids dans sa cause."

(Translation: "Domestic workers want to be covered by same health and safety legislation as other workers: Quebec labour minister accused of discriminating against them" This article appeared in Montreal daily newspaper, Le Devoir, on Monday, Feb. 23, 2009.)

Lire l'article à Les travailleuses domestiques veulent être couvertes par la CSST comme les autres travailleurs

Remembering a caregiver, a friend and fighter MELCA SALVADOR

The Melca Salvador Story
Uploaded by Productions_Multi-Monde

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This International Women's Day we honor a fallen worker...

Today I woke up to hear bad news from my 8-year-old son, Russell. He had just finished eating breakfast at his grandmother's who lives in an adjoining apartment flat she had gotten a contractor to build beside our family home. Russell had a worried look on his face when he told me the news, but not before he asked where his mother was. Seeing the worry on his face I assured him that his mother was fine and was upstairs in our bedroom. Russell starts to tell me that Richard is with my mother and my daughter Loren and they were all crying when he left them. Melca Salvador, Richard's mom had just passed away after her long struggle with cancer. My mother had just visited her in the Montreal General Hospital yesterday.

My heart sank, even though we had been expecting this for some time now. Melca has been fighting this for years. She was a fighter and was not going down without a fight. Her last weeks were spent in the hospital. I could not see her. As a filmmaker, fellow collaborators and I had captured her fighting spirit in a short documentary a few years back. This is the way I remember her and it was truly hard for me to see her beaten and broken by cancer. It says much about how governments spend billions to wage war and to send their daughters and sons to die in foreign lands. Billions spent to bail out the banks but no same show to save women from breast cancer. There's only one way to describe this lunacy for me - capitalist barbarism!

I could only think about Richard and how he must be feeling. My mother must have received a phone call from the hospital while she prepared breakfast for her grandchildren and Richard.

I immediately felt the need to write everyone... all those who have supported Melca in the past. You see, Melca was a migrant worker who fought for the right to stay in Canada with her then 4 year old son, Richard. Richard was born in Canada while Melca was still under Canada's Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). As a Canadian born child, Richard had a right to stay in the only country he has ever known. Unfortunately, Melca having been pregnant with Richard during her LCP status was not able to work for some months and thus was not able to finish the requirements under the LCP. Under this program, to be able to apply for landed immigrant status, you need to have successfully finished 24 months of live-in work within a period of 3 years. Canada is now poised to remove the carrot on this stick and may soon institute temporary status for domestic workers without any chance of applying as landed immigrants. No doubt measures that are taken to tighten its borders during this time of economic downturn in this monopoly capitalist state.

I want to say something more about her character but I feel that words continue to elude me. I am afraid of doing her injustice but I will try and the reader will just have to excuse me...

Melca Salvador was a women pushed out of her country by a semi-feudal and semi-colonial state that wishes nothing to do with real development for the people. She was punished by the Canadian state for her reproductive capacity. She was a migrant worker exploited in Egypt and escaped authorities there when her legal status to stay expired and she left her then lover to come to Canada. She found out she was pregnant 2 months into an LCP contract and was fired. But even after giving birth and having worked for years contributing to the Canadian economy she was told to leave. She joined PINAY - the Filipino women's association in Quebec. With PINAY she joined rallies against Canadian mining practices in the Philippines, she worked to keep a transition home for women domestic workers out on their luck and she was elected as PINAY's vice-chairperson around the same year she got her deportation orders. With PINAY leading the charge, she and her fellow women, migrants, friends and supporters fought a hard battle for justice and won. She fought for herself, for other migrants who suffered in silence and for her son, Richard. Her deportation order was removed and she was allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds.

She was a proud fighter, another reason to say to my past - you had no right to beat me down, to tell me I am second class, to look down on me because I was different...

Melca Salvador came from the Philippines as I have. She came from a modest family who continues to struggle to survive. Growing up an immigrant kid in Canada I was made to feel lower than most as women, people of colour and migrant workers today are still made to feel lower than most. But in the eyes of the working people who struggle and link arms, we are the same. We are equals. It is among their ranks were I find solace, pride, dignity and justice.

Don't get me wrong, she was not perfect, but neither am I or anybody else for that matter. But all the things that did make her a good person are the things that make me want to be a better person. As corny as this sounds, the Melca Salvadors of this world make me want to be a better human being. And just by association, I already feel that I am.

After bringing Russell to school I came back home and walked to my mom's adjoining flat. I had to take my daughter Loren to her preschool as well. As I opened my mom's door I saw Richard sitting quietly and red-eyed on a kitchenette table. He looked up at me, averted his eyes and walked over to bury his face in the sofa cushions nearby. I felt guilty. I should have spent more time with him during these past few weeks. I should have gone with him when he went to visit his mom in the hospital. I shouldn't have been such a coward avoiding to face Melca, to face death. I kept saying to myself that I would go, I would go... until it is now too late. How can I make it up to Richard?

As I drove Loren to her school she asks me, "Why did tita Melca die?".

How could I explain this to my five year old? "She died fighting cancer sweetheart," I simply said.

"And why was she fighting all the time?" she strikes back. I paused not knowing where to go with this.

"She fought so that you wouldn't have to. So that you can grow up with dignity." After tackling this situation in a matter-o-fact way I thought I would just continue. Of course I would have to pay for it.

"What's dignity?" the little voice in the back seat asked.

Looking back at her through the rear-view mirror I answered, "It's what you see in my eyes when I look at you, what you feel when mommy and I hug you and show you that we love you."

"Oh that's what it means," she said innocently, "I will fight too."

Pure innocent logic!

And so will I my darling. Melca's struggle for justice did not end with the staying of her deportation order. To honor the memory of Melca Salvador and to ensure that I make it up somehow to Richard, I will do my part to continue this fight. And so should we all...

For this International Women's Day we honor a fallen worker and call for:

Justice for Melca Salvador!
Justice for all women! Justice for all!
Onward with the struggle!
Makibaka! Wag matakot!

Joey Calugay
Secretary General
BAYAN-Canada National Organizing Committee

*****

BAYAN-Canada is a national alliance of progressive and anti-imperialist Filipino organizations

NOTE: Joey is also a member of the Centre d'appui aux Philippines - Centre for Philippine Concerns

IMA decries layoffs, "labour flexibility" & lack of protection for rights of foreign workers

Attacks to our wage and job security are happening everywhere. Yet, both the sending governments and the receiving ones are incapable or worse, unwilling, to stem the tide of violations to the rights of migrants that the financial crisis brings.

This was declared by Eni Lestari, chairperson of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) as migrants around the world reel from the creeping impact of the US-born financial crisis.

Speaking from Hong Kong where she is based as a domestic helper, Lestari said that her group has been receiving regular reports from their members in the United States, Canada and in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Europe regions of mass layoffs of migrants and implementation of more labour flexibilization schemes due to the financial slump.

“What we have feared for is rapidly coming true as termination of employment hounds domestic helpers; factory workers, like in Taiwan, are stripped of their labor rights with many even forced to resign from their jobs; immigrants and migrants in the US are fired from their jobs or are made to work for even few hours; and more workers ran away from abusive conditions in Saudi Arabia and become stranded,” she remarked.

Lestari cited the termination of more than 800 Filipino workers in Taiwan as well as about 1,000 workers in the construction and financial sectors in Dubai, United Arab Emirates as some of the more recent victims of the financial tsunami. She said that even the Indian and Pakistani authorities in the UAE are also expecting layoffs of their nationals soon.

In Canada, the government itself has admitted the reduction of demand for temporary foreign workers in the midst of the financial crunch and warned of ‘tougher times’. Meanwhile, 75,000 undocumented Indonesian migrants in Syria will be deported back to Indonesia early this year and the Indonesian government has even signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Syria over this.

Lestari said that the situation has been increasingly hard especially for migrant workers who are “carted off back home”.

“These repatriated workers find themselves in an even worse situation as they have to face mountains of debt, unemployment and insecurity for the future of their family. Instead of assistance, the responses of sending governments are empty promises of protection, deafening silence, or schemes that do not genuinely serve the migrants,” she added.

The IMA chair mentioned, in particular the governments of Indonesia and Philippines – two of the countries with the most number of nationals overseas – as “inutile” in protecting the wellbeing of their citizens abroad as well as “severely unprepared” for their responsibilities to their repatriated workers.

“Instead of providing the needed assistance to those who have been sent home and bringing about changes to reduce the vulnerability of its nationals abroad, the Philippine government institutes more policies like the ban on direct hiring that put migrants under the mercy of unscrupulous recruiters. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government remains as ineffective as ever in curbing the excesses of Indonesian recruitment agencies that continue to squeeze dry migrants of their hard-earned income,” she relayed.

Lestari also expressed their fear that the crisis shall bring about a more systematic and intense export of labor as sending countries sink in even deeper problems and only the forced migration of its people can be the source of its income.

“This is precisely what the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) gears for. The exploitation of migrants shall be more widespread and intense as slogans of migration for development shall surely be used as one way out of poverty and crisis we are experiencing,” she said.

The group renewed their call for sparing the wage and jobs of migrants during these hard times. Lestari said that workers, including migrants, must be granted reprieve from the attacks to their rights and livelihood.

The IMA chairperson also called to their members to continue to monitor the impacts of the crisis to migrant workers especially cases of retrenchments and labor rights violations. She said that actions should be launched wherever and whenever possible as IMA drumbeats the issues in the international level.

“Workers and the people must come first and not the big businesses and monopolists that have caused this crisis. Imperialists have plundered the world and the people are the ones made to suffer from its policies of neoliberal globalization. This is what we, migrants and immigrants, shall continue to struggle against,” she concluded.

Eni Lestari
Chairperson - International Migrants' Alliance
Tel. No.: +85296081475

Les travailleurs migrants parleront d'une seule voix - Le Devoir

par Éric Desrosiers

Le Devoir, Montréal, Québec, le mardi 27 janvier 2009 -- Application à la main-d'oeuvre du phénomène de la mondialisation, les travailleurs migrants viennent de former une alliance dans l'espoir d'un peu mieux faire entendre leur voix et défendre leurs droits.

(This article entiled: "Migrant workers will speak with one voice" on the founding of the International Migrants' Alliance - Canada appeared in the Montreal daily newspaper, Le Devoir on Tuesday, January 27, 2009)

L'Alliance internationale des migrants (AIM) a vu le jour en juin à Hong Kong et dit représenter 118 associations d'immigrants, syndicats, et autres regroupements de travailleurs migrants et de réfugiés provenant d'au moins 25 pays. Quelques mois plus tard s'ouvrait la section canadienne du mouvement, à laquelle appartiennent notamment: le Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants de Montréal, le Centre communautaire des femmes sud-asiatiques de Montréal et la Coalition d'appui aux travailleurs et travailleuses agricoles.

L'AIM se présente comme la première coalition internationale d'organisations représentant la masse des travailleurs migrants. «Avec l'augmentation de la mobilité de la main-d'oeuvre sur la planète, tout le monde s'est mis à s'intéresser à leur cas: les gouvernements, les institutions internationales, les ONG, les experts... Les seuls qui ne peuvent pas faire entendre leurs voix sont les travailleurs migrants eux-mêmes», explique Tess Tessalona, l'une des deux Canadiennes à siéger au comité de coordination de l'AIM.

On compterait actuellement plus de 200 millions de migrants internationaux dans le monde, soit deux fois et demie plus qu'en 1965, rapporte l'Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM). Ces travailleurs migrants représenteraient environ 3 % de la main-d'oeuvre mondiale et sont de plus en plus convoités par les pays industrialisés qui manquent de travailleurs hautement qualifiés, mais aussi de travailleurs agricoles, d'ouvriers de construction, de femmes de ménage, de plongeurs dans les restaurants ou encore d'aides ménagères. Alors qu'un nombre grandissant de pays essaient d'en contrôler étroitement les entrées et sorties à l'aide de programmes de permis de travail temporaire, l'OIM estime qu'entre 10 et 15 % de ces migrants se trouveraient en situation illégale dans le monde.

«Tout le monde profite de la situation, laissant la maigre part aux travailleurs migrants», constate Tess Tessalona. Les pays d'accueil bénéficient d'une main-d'oeuvre travailleuse et bon marché. Les pays d'origine profitent de l'argent que leurs ressortissants renvoient à leurs familles restées au pays, dont le total, en 2007, se serait élevé à 337 milliards. Les compagnies financières, qui servent d'intermédiaires dans ces transactions, se prennent de juteuses commissions au passage. La venue de ces travailleurs étrangers fait aussi sonner le tiroir-caisse d'agences de placement ou encore d'écoles de formation professionnelle.

En échange, on donne aux travailleurs migrants les emplois que les autres ne veulent pas, poursuit Tess Tessalona. Leurs heures supplémentaires ne sont pas toujours payées. Le seul filet social auquel ils ont droit est l'aide d'organismes communautaires sous-financés. Et lorsqu'il y a, comme aujourd'hui, un ralentissement économique, ils sont les premiers à se faire montrer la porte, ce qui veut souvent dire, dans leur cas, se faire aussi montrer la porte du pays d'accueil.

Pas mieux que les autres

À ce chapitre, le Canada ne fait pas tellement mieux que les autres, déplore Tess Tessalona. Les travailleurs agricoles ont beau, par exemple, payer des taxes et des impôts comme tout le monde, ils ne voient habituellement pas la couleur du filet social canadien. Loin de rendre nos règles plus accueillantes, le gouvernement Harper essaie d'étendre autant que possible le recours à des permis de travail temporaire. «On presse ces gens jusqu'à ce qu'ils aient donné tout ce qu'ils avaient dans le corps, puis on les renvoie chez eux», dénonce-t-elle.

Au Québec, la Commission des droits de la personne a conclu, le mois dernier, que l'exclusion des milliers de travailleuses domestiques et de gardiennes des dispositions de la Loi sur les accidents du travail constituait une «triple discrimination» à l'égard des femmes, des personnes à faible revenu, et des minorités ethniques «une forte proportion de ces personnes [étant] issue de groupes minoritaires, et principalement de Philippines embauchées dans le cadre du Programme fédéral d'aides familiaux résidants».

Les membres de l'Alliance internationale des migrants s'attendent à une longue et pénible lutte. «Il n'y a qu'à voir aux élections de cet automne. On n'a pas entendu un mot sur le sort des immigrants ou des réfugiés», déplore Tess Tessalona.

On se félicite, tout de même, du succès remporté ces derniers mois par l'AIM dans la défense à l'étranger de trois militants des droits des immigrants qui avaient été pris pour cibles par leurs gouvernements. «Ce n'est qu'un début. On prépare de nouvelles campagnes, ici comme ailleurs», annonce Tess Tessalona.

http://www.ledevoir.com/2009/01/27/229565.html#