Filipino Nurses in Canada: In Search of a Better Life

In this interview with the on-line magazine Bulatlat, our friend from Montreal, Evelyn Calugay, shares her experiences when she decided to move to Canada as a nurse from the Philippines. She also shares her opinion about Canadian policies that are detrimental to foreign-trained nurses.

By JHONG DELA CRUZ
Bulatlat.com

ALBERTA, Canada — The Philippines has been exporting nurses since the 1960s. Enticed by the promise of a brighter future for themselves and their families, Filipino nurses have since flocked to other countries in the thousands.

The pay may be higher where they end up, but they fall prey to exploitation, misleading integration programs and erroneous policy changes.

Such was the story of Evelyn Calugay, who went to Canada to escape the hard life in the Philippines. She shares her experiences and insights in this interview with Bulatlat.

More at: Filipino Nurses in Canada: In Search of a Better Life - Bulatlat

Call for solidarity messages to Second International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees

Dear Colleagues, Friends and Delegates to the Second International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees!

Our Second Assembly will take place November 1-4, 2009 in Athens, Greece!

May we request all organizations, and even individuals, to send SOLIDARITY MESSAGES or GREETINGS to the Second International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees.

The messsages/greetings need not be long, and could be just one paragraph (or even catchy one-liners). We will display your messages during the assembly for our Greek friends and assembly participants to see, and compile them as part of our official documentation.

You may also forward this email to organizations or individuals you know that/who are one with us in spirit and principle, to make the Second IAMR a success. All messages would surely inspire the Assembly.

May we have your messages before Oct 31. Please send them to the following email addresses:

iamr2athens@gmail.com
mig_europe@yahoo.com

Your militant messages and greetings would keep us warm and inspired during and even beyond the assembly!

Long live the struggle of migrants and refugees for their rights and welfare!
Long live the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees!

rio
iamr2 secretariat

Migrante Canada denounces decision to prevent Migrante Sectoral Party from participating in 2010 elections

MIGRANTE CANADA
Press Release
October 16, 2009
Toronto, Canada

Migrante Canada denounces in the strongest possible terms the decision of the Commission on Elections [COMELEC] to delist the Migrante Sectoral Party (MSP) from the list of registered organizations vying in next year’s party-list election in the Philippines.

“This COMELEC decision is unjust and anomalous,” says Marco Luciano, Migrante International Global Council representative for Canada. “Not only is it a violation of due process leading to the disenfranchisement of a group that has truly served the interests of Filipino migrant workers and their families the world over. It opens the door for the Malacanang-backed party-list groups to dominate the coming party-list election, thus serving the ruling administration’s objective of prolonging its rule.”

What ever happened to due process?

In its Resolution No. 8679 issued October 13, 2009, the COMELEC en banc ordered to delete Migrante and 25 other groups “from the list of registered national, regional or sectoral parties, organizations or coalitions” citing Section 6, item No. 8 of the Republic Act 7941 otherwise known as the Party-List System Act.

This particular section of the Party-List System Act allows the COMELEC to motu propio - "on its own impulse" - remove a sectoral group or party BUT ONLY “after due notice and hearing” if “it fails to participate in the last two (2) preceding elections OR fails to obtain at least two percentum (2%) of the votes cast under the party-list system in the two (2) preceding elections.”

However, the MSP was never guilty of such failures in two preceding elections - in 2004 and 2007.

The MSP participated in the 2004 partylist election, but, unfortunately, failed to garner the required 2% of the votes cast. Then the MSP did not participate in the 2007 election after formally informing the COMELEC months before the election. The failure to gain the two percentum of votes happened only once - in 2004 - not twice, not in two preceding elections; and the "failure" to participate in the election happened only once - in 2007 - not twice, not in two preceding elections. It is therefore erroneous, if not malicious, for the COMELEC to delist the MSP and other sectoral groups on the basis of Section 6, Item 8 of RA 7941.

“Moreover, the COMELEC’s en banc decision is tantamount to suppressing the rights of a party that seeks nothing but to represent in the House of Representatives the millions of Filipino migrants all over the world,” Luciano adds. The MSP announced in September its intention to run again in the party-list election, cognizant of “existing policies and laws that are detrimental to the interest of migrant Filipinos and in order for Overseas Filipino Workers [OFWs] to be represented by their own partylist.”

“Why disenfranchise the MSP which has been in the forefront of helping many distressed OFWs and their families since its formation in 1996?” says Luciano, noting the courageous work of Migrante and its allied organizations in many parts of the world.

If the COMELEC wants to unload itself of election work next year, they should have made efforts to get rid of many sham party-list groups, like Bantay and Kasangga, supportive of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime while masquerading as representatives of the marginalized sectors. Let the axe fall on these bogus groups, but not on the Migrante Sectoral Party which truly represents the interest of the Filipino migrants.

“We call on all Filipino migrants around the world to condemn the COMELEC’s unjust decision,” Jonathan Canchela, chair of the Filipino Migrant Workers’ Movement [FMWM], said in a separate statement.

“We encourage them to voice out their opinions against this oppressive decision delisting the MSP from the list of qualified sectoral groups hoping to participate in the electoral process next year. Let the dissenting voices of the Filipino migrants be heard,” says Canchela, who also announced that FMWM and other Migrante Canada member organizations are planning to launch consolidated protest actions in response to this decision of the COMELEC.«

Reference:
Jonathan Canchela – Tel: +1 647.833.1023

Hundreds of Philippine temporary workers pick tomatoes in southern Ontario

Dear IMA-Canada members and friends,

On Sunday, October 4, 2009, Migrante Ontario spokesperson Maru Maesa and myself went to Southern Ontario. We drove west from Toronto for about four hours to Kingsville, a small town southeast of Windsor, Ontario. Going through a long road by the fields the drive felt longer than it was. Upon entering the town of Leamington, the town before Kingsville, we started seeing rows of long tent-like structures wrapped in what seems to be tarpaulin. These greenhouses looked more like something out of a sci-fi movie. (In photo: Maru Maesa (centre - 2nd row) & Marco Luciano (3rd from right) with new friends in Kingsville.)

I was invited by a friend to attend a health fair for migrants. He is with Justicia 4 Migrant Workers, an organization that organizes Mexican and Carribean agricultural workers. After setting up our table, farmworkers started coming in. Surprisingly there are close to 40 Filipino farmworkers that came to that event.

Most of these workers came directly from the Philippines. A lot of them came from the northern provinces like Baguio, Ifugao, Ilocos Norte. There were some that came through Vancouver. They were recruited to work as carpenters and construction workers for the Olympics. When they get to Vancouver, there were no jobs for them and that their agency "shipped them" to Southern Ontario. During "off season" they work four days a week and four hours per day (@ 9.70 per hour). They live in apartments outside the farm. One workers said that she along with 8 of her co-workers live in one bedroom apartment. She said that most of the workers live in similar conditions.

What's interesting to know is that there are more than 300 of them in the Leamington / Kingsville area working in different privately-owned farms. One farm in particular employs 100 Filipino farmworkers. One worker said that he is expecting his brother in law to come from the Philippines sometime in the spring of 2010 along with another 200 farmworkers.

Marco Luciano
Migrante Ontario
_______________

You are invited to view Migrante's photo album:
Farm Visit, Kingsville, Ontario - Oct 4, 2009

View Album
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If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser:
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_______________

G20 Summit: Putting Profits and Monopolists Above the People: IMA

Press Statement
of the International Migrants Alliance on the G20** Meeting
September 20, 2009

If the G20 will have their way, there is no hope that the people can cope with the current depression gripping the world. Worse, there can never be a future where social justice prospers and where the dignity of all workers – including (especially) migrant workers – is upheld. Saving the neoliberal globalization still is the major agenda of member countries of the powerful G20. The group is a champion of the very same policy that has put the world in the worst financial crunch in recent history.

People around the world are reeling from the impacts of the financial crisis that stemmed from the crisis of overproduction inherent in the monopoly-ruled global economy. Though the G-20 projects its meeting in the United States as one that will find ways to get the world out of the economic rut it is now in, it is without doubt that the priority of the G-20 will be on how to save the big monopolists and banks that have been the ones cornering profit and production at the expense of human lives. Meanwhile, the people of the world are left with a worsening social, economic and political condition.

Millions of people have lost their jobs or have been made insecure and temporary in their employment. Agriculture, a pillar for our livelihood and right to food, has also suffered with the worst impact to landless peasants already living under severe feudal and semi-feudal exploitation. The number of people going hungry has reached over one billion. Even so-called middle class is rapidly finding it hard to cope with the rising prices of goods. Access to education, health and public services has become even narrower than before with compelled privatization of these services. States continually slash budgets for services while giving unprecedented leeway and perk to businesses especially the monopoly-capitalists.

The people’s discontent is on the rise. To curb any form of dissent, policies have been enacted that curtail the civil and political rights of the people such as the right to protest and assemble, the right to unionize and even the right to free expression. Migrant workers around the world are some of the first to feel the brunt of the global crisis. Even before the crisis, migrants have already been made vulnerable to exploitation by the various laws set by host countries to limit their rights. Now with the crisis, hundreds of thousands are laid off from their jobs and summarily deported back to their home countries. After years of benefiting from migrant labor, businesses and labor-importing states now have no hesitation in letting go of migrant laborers.

Undocumented migrants are also hard hit by the economic slump. Border control of host countries are made even tighter and thousands of undocumented are regularly rounded up and are arrested, detained and eventually deported. They are treated as no more than criminals despite the fact their economies have benefited much from their cheap labor. The EU Return Directive is exemplary of the draconian methods used by states to violate the basic social and democratic rights of migrants.

The million-strong protest action of immigrants and undocumented workers in US in 2006 showcased the dire condition of undocumented migrants that is expected to get even worse in the near future. Xenophobia and racism is also fanned to shift public opinion in favor of mass termination of migrant workers and the crafting of labor policies that are detrimental to the rights of migrants. As what happens every time economic crisis sets in, migrant workers are made scapegoats for the rising unemployment among local workers that causes a divide among the working class – migrants and locals – in many countries.

In labour-exporting countries, migration has become the main industry that sustains their economies. Migrant remittances and income from government charges have been the steady sources of dollars and funds for these countries. On top of the economic gains, labor export has also helped in stopping the social volcano that is always on the brink of exploding in crisis-ridden countries that export workers.

Currently, even migration is being integrated in the framework of neoliberal globalization. Through the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) that is in the grip of powerful countries – considering that it is a product of the OECD – migrant workers are transformed into commodities and migration is molded to produce the biggest profits for host countries, sending countries and monopoly-capitalist banks.

Remittance is the main concern of the GFMD. The billions of dollars that migrant workers remit is an irresistible well of funds sorely needed by monopolists in their relentless drive for capital accumulation. Though the GFMD coats itself with motherhood statements on the rights of migrants, its major concern is still unmasked by its very own aim of “making migration work for development” – it is using remittances and other income from migration for the kind of development that is actually not for the grassroots.

IMA stands with the migrants and all the toiling people of the world in further exposing and opposing neoliberal globalization and those that push for it like the G20. We call for jobs in our homeland, we call for equality and livelihoods for social justice for the oppressed and exploited. Such will not be had with the G20. Such can only be achieved through struggle and people’s international solidarity.

Jobs in our Homeland!
Livelihoods for Social and Democratic Justice!

Reference: Teresa Gutierrez, IMA Deputy Secretary General, May 1st Coalition Co-Coordinator

** What is the G 20? -- On September 24-25, 2009 the city of Pittsburgh will host the next summit of the G20, a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from the world’s largest economies who meet twice yearly to discuss and coordinate the international financial system. Around 1,500 delegates, including heads of state, will be attending along with more than 2,000 members of the media, and thousands of police and security agents tasked with squelching dissent.

This summit, and the predecessor meetings in April 2009 in London, occurs on the heels of the worldwide financial meltdown that has been severely impacting hundreds of millions around the world. Since its inception, the G20 has been a tool used to promote a world vision based on the ability of capital to move as it pleases, at the expense of labour, human rights and the environment.

Pushing for fundamental changes in the Live-in Caregiver Program - Migrante-Ontario

Migrante-Ontario
Press Release
September 14, 2009

Reaction to Government of Canada’s response to proposed recommendations by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

Migrante-Ontario is extremely disappointed at the Conservative Government of Canada’s response to the recommendations presented by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in its May 2009 report Temporary Foreign Workers and Non-Status Workers. (*Photos care of Migrante Ontario)

In its response released August 19th, the Conservative Government issued a sweeping blow against the hope of many foreign temporary workers including live-in caregivers. The Government through Minister Jason Kenney of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, outlined its strong opposition to proposed changes in the Live-in Caregiver Program.

The government has opposed the following vital recommendations of the Standing Committee: 1) “provide for a possible one-year extension of the three-year period during which a live-in caregiver must complete 24 months of employment in order to be eligible to apply for permanent resident status;” 2) the implementation of the “Juana Tejada Law;” and the 3) removal of the ‘live-in’ requirement.

This almost blanket opposition to vital recommendations reflects the government’s lack of understanding of what caregivers have been going through all these years. It was a slap on the face of all caregivers who suffered and are suffering from cruel conditions that LCP brings. By opposing the proposed fundamental changes, the government has done a great disservice to the most vulnerable workers in Canadian society.

The Conservative Government also opposed the possibility of granting all foreign temporary workers a “pathway to permanent residency” arguing that “labour needs are not all permanent” and “some other needs fluctuate with the economy and are sometimes unpredictable.”

We think however that the government fails to see the importance of labour in the context of human necessity. We need to understand that many of these foreign workers have left their country in search of a better life in Canada, hoping that they would stay long enough to provide for their families. If the government does not provide them with the opportunity of becoming permanent residents, many of them may just soon go back again to ground zero in terms of providing their families even with very basic needs. This minority government should stop treating its foreign temporary workers like disposable goods.

Many caregivers and advocates including us were thrilled when the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration released its recommendations last May followed by another report in June entitled Migrant Workers and Ghost Consultants. The timing then was perfect as it happened after the Ruby Dhalla scandal. But we know that a lot of politics comes into play in the process of pushing for policy reforms in the legislative setting. We also understand that the reports need the approval of the majority in the House of Commons.

But the hopes that caregivers and advocates have clung to for a long time may just have been dashed once more. With the negative response from the Harper government, the fate of the two landmark reports has become unclear. The impending threat of election makes it more difficult for caregivers and advocates to expect the passage of the reports.

Should there be an election soon, we can expect the various political leaders to include the issue of fundamental changes to the LCP in their platforms. They will take this opportunity to commit to certain reforms in favour of caregivers and other foreign temporary workers.

For us – the community – this is a time to reassert our basic demands such as to allow caregivers to come as landed immigrants without conditions; implement the “Juana Tejada Law” or the removal of the second medical exam when caregivers apply for permanent residence; make the work permit job-specific instead of employer specific; and remove the mandatory live-in requirement. This is a time for us to insist on solid commitments from the candidates, and to make a case against political leaders who deal with us through false and broken promises. ##

Reference:
Maru Maesa
Spokesperson
Tel: +1 416-831-3372
Migrante Ontario blog

All migrants, refugees, advocates and friends invited to 2nd International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees, Athens, Greece, Nov. 1-4, 2009

The 2nd International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR2) in Athens, Greece is quickly approaching. The first IAMR was successfully held in Manila, Philippines in November last year.

The IAMR is the migrant and refugee challenge to the inter-government-led Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) which is holding its third session in Athens, Greece, on Nov. 4-5, 2009, to continue discussions surrounding migration and development.

Tess Tesalona from the International Migrants Alliance - Canada (IMA-Canada) will be heading the delegation to IAMR2. She invites all interested migrants, refugees, advocates and friends who would like to attend this migrant-led conference to contact her and complete the accompanying documents as soon as possible.

The cost of the conference and accommodation is a very reasonable Euros 150.

For questions or comments please contact Tess Tesalona or Malcolm Guy at:
e-mail: ima.canada.2008@gmail.com
or by phone at +1 514 342-2111 (leave a message for Tess or Malcolm if necessary, please mention the IAMR)

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Please find below the links for IAMR2 documents in PDF format:

The participation form (with interactive form fields). All participants should immediately complete this form and send by e-mail: iamr2athens@gmail.com or Fax: +1 514 842-9858 :
IAMR2 PARTICIPATION FORM.pdf

Invitation to the 2nd International Assembly
of Migrants and Refugees in Athens, Greece
November 1-4, 2009 :
IAMR2 INVITATION.pdf

And the detailed list of workshops (as of September 15, 2009) :
WORKSHOP DETAILS.pdf

Visas for Greece: Canadians must have a valid passport (must be valid at least three months beyond period of intended stay). No visa is required for a stay of up to three months, provided coming for touristic purposes.