Labour Exploitation
For weeks this past summer, IJB reporters fanned out across farming regions of the B.C. interior and southwestern Ontario to document the lives of temporary foreign workers who harvest and produce our food. At local shopping malls, soccer tournaments, while riding shuttle buses between farms, inside ramshackle housing or leaning on fence posts at the end of 12-hour days, they told their stories.
Nearly 80,000 migrants labour in Canada’s farms and food-processing facilities each year, often with little to no stability, for a chance to feed their families back home in the global south. Though these migrant workers have become a vital resource in Canada’s agricultural industry, advocates and watchdogs have been sounding the alarm on how Canada’s temporary foreign worker program leaves workers vulnerable to abuse.
At the core is a controversial work permit system that binds them to a single employer in Canada.
Women walk outside the Eastman Exports factory in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. Provided by Sarosh Kuruvilla.
This deal has cut violence against women on factory floors, but many clothing brands won’t sign on
The vast majority of garment workers in the global $2.5 trillion-dollar CAD apparel industry toil on factory floors through harsh treatment and low wages, producing the big-name brand T-shirts, jeans, jackets and other clothing sold on Canadian store shelves.
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Workers' rights advocates Lorena Ordonez and Navid Bayat talk with migrant workers. Photo by Darren Hull for Postmedia.
‘This is the new slavery’: Migrant farm workers underpaid, abused and injured
Nearly 80,000 migrants labour in Canada’s farms and food-processing facilities each year, often with little to no stability, for a chance to feed their families back home in the global south.
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VIDEO: Broken bones, chemical exposure, unpaid, labour, and "deplorable" housing conditions.
Migrant farm workers’ experiences reveal why critics compare this government program to “the new slavery.”
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Inspections were promised to stop the rampant abuse inside sweatshops. So why are workers’ conditions ‘worse than ever before?’
The promise of equitable working conditions and wages for those who make our clothes has been more a triumph of messaging than meaningful reform, joint investigation finds.
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The COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented levels of poverty, indebtedness and exploitative conditions in the garment industry. EYERUSALEM JIREGNA / AFP via GETTY IMAGES
What is the most ethical way to purchase clothes?
Working conditions are getting worse for many of those who make our clothing.
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Workers operate sewing machines in a garment factory at the Hawassa Industrial Park in Hawassa, southern Ethiopia. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered unprecedented levels of poverty, indebtedness and exploitative conditions in the garment industry, according to a new survey of 1,140 garment workers in Ethiopia and three other countries. EYERUSALEM JIREGNA / Toronto Star
Unpaid wages. Abuse. Restrictions on bathroom breaks. Inside the worsening conditions of the garment factories that make the clothes in your closet
The pandemic triggered unprecedented levels of indebtedness and exploitative conditions in the garment industry, according to a new survey of 1,140 garment workers.
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