Aside from labor and immigration issues, these organizations, Diocson said, also campaign for national freedom and democracy in the Philippines.

Filipino organizations in Canada have four areas of concerns: economic marginalization; systemic racism; sectoral issues; and the youth.

Filipino organizers go to different Filipino communities within Canada where they gather and share experiences, and conduct studies and campaigns on issues facing Filipinos.

Through their outreach efforts, these organizations were able to help Filipinos who could not exercise their professions or are being abused by their employers. For example, nurses have to wait for at least a year to be accredited. Others are subjected to deprofessionalization like engineers who are categorized and hired as engineer technicians.

“Nasaan ang mga Pilipino? You go to the malls, naglilinis o nasa delivery” (Where are the Filipinos? You go to the malls and they are there cleaning or doing deliveries.), said the concerned organizer. “Sa ospital, nasa housekeeping o laundry department.” (In hospitals they are in housekeeping or in the laundry department.)

Diocson said that Filipinos are among the first to lose their jobs during lay offs because they are in the bottom rung of jobs. She said that during the privatization of the health care system in 2000 called regionalization, several Filipino workers were laid off.

The laid-off employees were forced to seek the help of agencies to deploy them to other hospitals or other companies even in low-paying jobs.

Worse, Diocson said, is the effect of the lowering economic status of Filipino parents on their children who are also in Canada.

Diocson said there is a disturbing trend of Filipino youth dropping out of school. She said that many children of Filipino domestic workers were forced to drop out of high school after their parents ended up working in lower-paying jobs. Children, she added, are also not exempt from racial profiling by the police and the racism of Canadian youth. Studies conducted by the UKPC revealed that drop out rates of Filipino-Canadian children are high in Vancouver, Quebec, Montreal, and BC.

As a result, she said, out-of-school youth tend to join gangs that are prone to trouble.

Live-in caregivers

A high percentage of Filipino contract workers who came as domestic workers, called live-in caregivers, in the 1980s became immigrants after two years as overseas contract workers (OCWs).

About 70 percent of these workers are women. Thus, there arose a need to organize on the basis of women migrant issues.

Diocson said live-in caregivers are not covered by the Labor Protection Act. They were covered by the Employment Standard Act only in 1995.

Worse off are Filipino live-in caregivers who entered Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). In 2003 alone, 1, 811 Filipino caregivers entered Canada. Because of this, Diocson said, Filipinos already constitute the majority of temporary workers in Canada.

Introduced in 1992, the LCP is a federal program that allows the recruitment of foreign nationals to work in Canada as live-in caregivers. It is part of Canada’s immigration policy that aims to fill up the acute shortage of domestic workers and to provide childcare alternatives for well-off Canadian families. Under the LCP, live-in caregivers provide childcare, senior home support care, or care of the disabled in private homes.

The LCP’s two provisions – the mandatory live-in requirement and temporary immigration status – are “the seeds that bring forth numerous cases of abuse, exploitation and violations on the rights of caregivers,” said Diocson who chairs the NAPWC.

Immigration problems

Filipinos face not only work-related problems but also immigration issues.

Live-in caregivers are subject to arbitrary and unjust deportation for failure to complete the requirements of the LCP, which includes 24 months of live-in work within three years upon entering Canada. Those who entered Canada under the LCP can apply for immigrant status only after three years.

In some cases, Diocson added, those facing deportation are given an extension of their working visas under the temporary worker program. But under the latter program, they could not apply for permanent residency.

A migrant worker served with a deportation notice should leave the country within a month. Because some have debts in the Philippines and have not yet saved money, Diocson said, they go into hiding and work as illegal aliens. They survive by working in the “underground economy” as baby sitters or domestic cleaners, she said.

“Now, we are feeling the trauma of migration,” she said. “In the 70’s, there were a lot of jobs available even for migrant workers. But because of neoliberal globalization, there were retrenchments even in Canada leading to more competition for jobs. Thus, Filipinos and other migrant workers are relegated to low-paying jobs.”

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