'It's like a cage': Foreign workers who quit Canadian Tire speak out about feeling trapped by work permits
'It's like a cage': Foreign workers who quit Canadian Tire speak out about feeling trapped by work permits
Rowell Pailan spends his days applying for jobs in factories, in restaurants, in shops. He's ready to take any kind of work.
Last September, Pailan quit his job with the company he came to Canada to work for over what he says are disputes about his treatment, including hours and wages. Now, he can't find an employer willing to do the paperwork to change his closed work permit — a standard part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program that ties workers to specific companies.
He knows the end date on that work permit means time is ticking on his Canadian dream.
"I'm still asking myself, what I am doing here, what I'm doing here in Canada," he said in a recent interview in his Wolfville, N.S., apartment.
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I will never forget or forgive our governments and these companies for screwing over both Canadians and people around the world for what they did with the TFW program. Instead of bringing highly skilled people to our country we got cheap foreign labor to suppress wages and worsen the already really bad housing crisis.
I came over on the TFW.
On a closed permit specifically?
Yes, wasn't allowed to change to a new employer without starting the process over again and getting a new work permit (which might have needed a new LMIA to be applied for and all that hassle).
Ouf, well I'm glad you made it through. I do wish that visa type didn't exist mostly because (while you were working under it) you pretty much had no ability to bargain for a promotion. If you're locked to a single employer you can't shop around for a different job or use a competing job offer as leverage for a raise... you're stuck with whatever the fuck your boss offers you.
I'd much prefer all immigrants being able to freely change jobs for everyone's benefit.
Thanks! I do recall well the frustration back then w.r.t. promotions and pay raise bargaining (or rather, complete lack thereof). Once here, unless there's a way to convert to an open permit, it's very tough to find a new employer willing to sponsor under the system. At least that was my experience - when I finally got out of that restriction it was like a compete reversal.
I sometimes wonder if Canada needs something like the 491 visa that Australia has. Under this visa, you get rated the same as you would for PR, but you need fewer points to qualify, and once you get it, it is an open permit.
It also promotes regionalism as you're tied to a specific province, but it's otherwise open in that you can work for anyone you want. (Actually, it's even more open than that, as there's also no restrictions on studying etc that you'd have on a Canadian work permit.)