Filipinos and farmworkers, Toronto and Vancouver!

Mexican farmworkers sent home from B.C. after
organizing union vote
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 CBC News


Union officials are outraged after a group of migrant farmworkers who were
harvesting vegetables in Abbotsford were sent back to Mexico after filing
papers to unionize. United Food and Commercial Workers Canada alleges
Floralia Plant Growers in Abbotsford put 14 migrant workers on a plane
back home the day after the owners found out about their plans to join the
union.

Problems started when 29 workers at Floralia Plant Growers filed an
application to unionize, according to UFCWC organizer Lucy Luna.

The men were scheduled to vote to certify the union on Monday, and their
contract with the farm was supposed to run until October, but Luna was
shocked when the men called her from Mexico instead, she told CBC News.

“The application was put in on September fourth. The workers were notified
late Friday night, which is September the fifth, that they were leaving on
Saturday at 1 p.m. … that fast,” said Luna.

B.C.’s Labour Relations Board is looking into whether the farm violated
the province’s Labour Code by sending the workers back before they could
vote. The case is expected to be heard at a hearing scheduled for later
this week.

The president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, Jim Sinclair, said those
working in B.C.’s agricultural industry on seasonal work visas deserve
more rights.

“People live in fear out there that their employer will find out that they
are going to stand up for their rights,” said Sinclair.

Floralia Plant Growers did not return calls for comment from CBC.

************


Exploited workers Canada’s ’slave trade’
August 30, 2008. Dale Brazao Toronto Star Staff Reporter

It was 5:30 in the morning when Edwin Canilang realized he had been bought
and sold. Crowded in the back of a van heading north of Toronto with four
other Filipino men last summer, the skilled welder faced another unpaid
day on a cleanup detail at a bottling plant.

He thought of his wife, who had just given birth to their third child back
home in San Carlos, a five-hour drive north of Manila. He thought of the
promises that lured him to Canada – $23 an hour, plus overtime, food and
lodging, to help build two icebreakers for the Canadian Arctic.

He thought of his first week in Canada, eight men in the basement of a
Toronto house sleeping four to a bed, their passports taken from them.
Then they were trucked north to their new home – a filthy, abandoned
farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Now, bumping down a dirt road in
August 2007, Canilang mustered the nerve to ask Bob De Rosa, his labour
boss, when the first paycheque was coming.

Don’t you guys know that I spent $4,000 to get you?” De Rosa snapped back.

What Canilang experienced last summer is an all too-common situation –
foreign workers brought to Canada under false pretences and exploited.
Federal officials call it the “modern-day slave trade” and warn of “People
for Sale in Canada” in a poster campaign in 17 languages, distributed
through Canadian missions around the globe.

At least 800 workers are trafficked into Canada yearly and another 1,000
or more pass through Canada and into the United States, according to the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Settling back in his seat, Canilang seethed. De Rosa headed east from
Elmvale to deliver his workers – welders and plumbers – to job sites in
Barrie and Orillia.

Some were pressed into service at a water bottling plant, run by De Rosa’s
family. Others dug ditches or picked up garbage around a large rural
estate where De Rosa lives. The workers, threatened with deportation, did
every menial job thrown at them. None of the work involved welding and
plumbing, the trades that brought them here.

Their ordeal ended six weeks later when welder Eric Martinez, fed up with
the squalid living conditions, long hours and no pay, bolted while on a
work detail near Hamilton.

Eventually, Martinez managed to contact Philippine embassy officials who
alerted ambassador Jose Brillantes to the deplorable situation. Days
later, the men were rescued by Filipino consular staff.

“We didn’t believe such scum existed here,” Canilang, 32, said recently
from the safety of a new home and job in Saskatoon. “Canada has such a
great reputation worldwide.”

“This was nothing short of slavery,” said Frank Luna, the labour attaché
with the Filipino consulate in Toronto. “This was a chain gang without the
chains.”

At the heart of the case of the Elmvale 11, as the men have been dubbed by
Filipino consular staff, are immigration documents called Labour Market
Opinions (LMO) issued by Service Canada.

These are Canadian gold cards for foreign workers. With an LMO, a foreign
national can get a temporary permit to work in Canada. The company that
wants the workers must first show Service Canada it made a reasonable –
but unsuccessful – effort to hire or train Canadians for the job. LMOs
stipulate the number of workers approved for the job. Copies are then sent
to the workers, who apply for work permits upon arrival in Canada.

Since the federal government relaxed LMO rules two years ago, the program
has expanded rapidly. In 2007, there were 201,057 temporary foreign
workers in Canada, up from 162,046 in 2006 and 142,705 in 2005.

South of the border, the U.S. State Department recently called Canada “a
destination for foreign victims trafficked for labour exploitation” and in
an annual report recommended Canada “intensify efforts to investigate,
prosecute and convict trafficking offenders.”

Canada’s justice department said the country is combating human
trafficking, with new training of RCMP officers and border officials.
Spokesperson Carole Saindon cautioned that the U.S. report is based on the
state department’s “own standards and its own perceptions of the situation
in Canada.”

A half dozen business people brought the Elmvale 11 to Canada. Most talked
to the Star – pointing fingers of blame at the others. Bob De Rosa, the
labour boss, refused numerous interview requests.

Here’s what happened, according to interviews with most of the players,
and documents including work permits, LMOs, invoices and correspondence.

Two years ago, Oakville labour supply company ComFact anticipated a
federal contract to supply labour to build two ocean-going icebreakers.
ComFact owner Robert McAllister said he decided to “bank” a workforce and,
after obtaining LMOs for more than a hundred workers, sent the paperwork
to the Philippines.

Two local recruiting companies in Manila, Cete Millenium, and Sanlee, ran
advertisements for jobs with McAllister’s company. Canilang and the other
workers signed up. They underwent medical exams, upgraded their
professional skills and took English lessons – at their own expense.

When they got word they had been approved, the men quit their jobs. Some
sold everything they owned and borrowed at loan-shark rates to make the
$12,000 payments to the recruiter for an LMO and to buy plane tickets.
They said goodbye to their families and flew to Toronto on June 29, 2007.

What they didn’t know was that the Canadian government had scrapped the
icebreaker contract and that ComFact had no jobs for them. McAllister said
his LMOs, which circulated like hard currency in Manila, were improperly
used to get the Elmvale 11 into Canada.

“They (recruiters in Manila) basically stole our workers from us and
spirited them away,” he said. “This is human trafficking, but we had
nothing to do with it.”

When Canilang and the other workers arrived at Pearson International
Airport, they were expecting a ComFact representative.

Instead, they were met by Susan Teng, a woman who said she worked for
ComFact but in reality was part of Cete Millenium, the recruiting company
in Manila.

A Taiwanese national in Canada on a visitor’s visa, Teng jammed the men
into two taxis and ferried them to a house in Scarborough near the Pacific
Mall. Eight arrived that day; three came a few days later.

Settling them into two sparse rooms in the basement, Teng demanded they
turn over their passports and work permits. She removed all telephones and
warned them not to try to phone relatives.

“We slept four people to a bed,” Canilang recalled. “It was awful.”

A week later, Teng told them ComFact had backed out of the deal. She said
a new company had work, but they would have to relocate.

In an interview, ComFact boss McAllister said this was untrue. He said he
had no idea these workers came to Canada using the LMOs he had obtained.
He later flew to Manila and told local recruiters to stop using the
ComFact LMOs.

The workers were picked up at the house by Susan Teng and another man,
Imtazur Rahman. Rahman said he was a lawyer and was there to help them. A
Star investigation (see tomorrow’s Star) found labour recruiter Rahman is
a twice-bankrupt businessman whose law degree is bogus.

The drive north to Elmvale took two hours. Teng and Rahman handed over
their human cargo to labour boss Bob De Rosa at an abandoned green and
white farmhouse on a country road outside of Elmvale.

“This is your new home boys,” De Rosa said.

Ronald Galang couldn’t believe his eyes. “Outside, the grass was five feet
tall. Inside there was mud on the floor everywhere. We had to spend a week
cleaning it up.”

Four used mattresses on the floor in two rooms in the attic, four more in
the living room. The sheets and towels were dirty. There was no food in
the fridge.

De Rosa put the men to work at various tasks. They would be paid
eventually, he told them.

The De Rosa family has many business interests, including real estate,
construction, and some production facilities. They also raise buffalo for
food. Bob De Rosa and his brother Vince made headlines in 2003 when police
raided two of their properties (one the former Molson Brewery in Barrie)
and busted a $120 million marijuana grow-op. Seven men involved later
pleaded guilty to production and possession of marijuana for the purpose
of trafficking and received sentences ranging from five years in prison to
two years’ house arrest. The De Rosas, who were not charged, told police
they had only leased the brewery space.

For the Filipino men working last summer for Bob De Rosa, a typical day
started at 5:15 a.m.

The Star interviewed the Filipino workers and read affidavits they
prepared at the request of their embassy, which called in the RCMP. “They
were living in deplorable conditions,” said Frank Luna, the labour attaché
who took part in the rescue and prepared a report for the Filipino
government.

Welder Ronald Galang worked a 17-day stretch, splitting his time between
an Orillia mechanical company and Aurora Beverage, owned by the De Rosas.

Worker Narciso Nicdao’s affidavit states his time sheets from last summer
show he did a 24-hour shift “cleaning beer cage” at Aurora Beverage.

Some of the Elmvale 11 worked at Moonstone Mechanical (not a De Rosa
company). While workers say they were not paid, Moonstone’s Ken Fraser
told the Star he paid De Rosa for the services of two men he subcontracted
to him. “All I know is that I paid off all my bills, if they didn’t get
paid I guess they have to go after Bob,” Fraser said.

Repeated attempts to interview De Rosa were eventually answered by a brief
email: “No comment. Please stop calling,” De Rosa wrote.

At the Elmvale home, food drop-offs were intermittent. One day, De Rosa
brought pasta and tomatoes. Another day, buffalo meat.

Two weeks into their harsh new life in Canada – broke, depressed and
anxious to contact their families in the Philippines – they wandered
across the road to a neighbour’s house. The farmer, a Barrie city cop,
took pity on them, took two into town, bought them soft drinks and a meal,
and gave them money to buy phone cards.

“They were strangers in this country, isolated, without a phone,” Sgt.
George Cabral said.

To combat boredom they constructed a pool table from scrap wood and rigged
an old black and white TV with rabbit ears. Finding two kids’ bikes in the
shed they patched the tires and took turns riding up and down the dirt
road.

They were never paid their agreed wages. After many complaints, some
received a pittance, always in cash.

Plumber Romero Bonete, for example, was paid only $200 by De Rosa. Bonete
now works in Lloydminster, Sask., in a maintenance job at a local hotel.
Others received $900 for six weeks of labour – far below the amount agreed
upon.

On Aug. 23, six weeks after they arrived, they muscled up the courage to
tell De Rosa they weren’t going to work for him any more.

“Bob de Rosa was so angry with us,” Galang recalled. “He said, `I am
warning you for the last time,’ then took off saying he was going to sign
our deportation order.”

Two hours later, Filipino consulate officials arrived at the farm and took
the men out.

A week after his entire Filipino workforce quit on him, De Rosa applied
for LMOs to hire 191 workers for a large construction project. He promised
$18 to $28 an hour and full benefits. The Canadian government denied the
application, saying he had not shown “sufficient efforts” to hire Canadian
workers.

So, who made money off the Elmvale 11? Documents suggest some of the
people involved have been selling the Canadian LMO documents – which is
illegal. For how much, and who was paid, is not known.

One memo from a Filipino recruitment agency said Toronto-based recruiter
Rahman would be paid “one thousand per head” for signing up a worker and
another $1,000 when the worker arrived in Canada. It’s not known if those
payments went through.

Rahman denies he received money. He said he got jobs for the Elmvale 11
“from the goodness of my heart.”

“Bob de Rosa asked me if I know any workers. I know this one girl have
some workers. So I put them together, that’s all.”

Susan Teng did not respond to requests for an interview.

Another person who touched the case was Nelma de Celis. ComFact’s
McAllister accuses her of selling his LMOs to agencies in the Philippines.
Tracked down to the modest Edmonton house she shares with several of her
Filipino clients, de Celis denies the charges. “You can’t sell LMOs,” she
bellows. “Those are government documents.”

A memo the Star obtained shows de Celis acknowledging receiving $12,000
cash as “partial payment of released LMOs.”

De Celis said any money she received was simply to cover her expenses.

Out west, the Elmvale 11 are spread among several job sites.

As he cooks dinner in the kitchen of the little house on the prairie,
Ronald Galang’s thoughts are with his wife and three children, including
his twin girls, back in the Philippines.

And he is worried.

Not only was he forced to sell his house and move his family to an
apartment in Manila before he left, he also borrowed hard to finance his
trip to Canada.

“I haven’t been able to pay anything on the loans and I am scared about
what these companies might do,” he says his voice trailing off. “We’re all
scared.”

But at least he and the others are in Canada. They have jobs, they have
contracts, and they have a future.

Facing deportation, Galang and four others were hired by Cover-All
Building Systems and now work as welders for that company in Saskatoon.

The rest of the 11 are in Canada also, working elsewhere in Saskatchewan,
or in Alberta and British Columbia.

“We want them to be Cover-All employees for life,” said Byron Hardy, the
company’s manager of human resources. “They are great workers. We are now
working on having their families join them.”

In the wake of the trafficking scam, the Filipino government closed down
Cete Millenium and Sanlee recruitment agencies.

After months of investigations by the RCMP and the Canada Border Services
Agency, no charges have been laid.

Amended in November 2005 to reflect the UN’s definition of human
trafficking, Canada’s criminal code says it’s a crime for anyone who
“recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, or harbours a person”
for the purpose of exploitation.

“The way exploitation is phrased in the criminal code, they have to fear
for their safety or their lives,” said RCMP Const. Julie Meeks, who
conducted the initial investigation. In her opinion, Meeks said “they just
didn’t have that fear.”

Edwin Canilang, for one hasn’t given up on getting the money he believes
is owed to him by De Rosa.

“Even slaves,” he says, “have some rights.”

HOW EMPLOYERS GET THE WORKERS
Canadian employers who want to bring in foreign workers for temporary jobs
must first prove that no Canadians are available to fill the positions. To
be granted a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) – needed to get a temporary
permit to work in Canada – for one worker or pre-approval for many,
employers must provide documents to show that:

• They made significant efforts to hire Canadians.

• The promised wages are consistent with Canadian wages.

• The working conditions meet provincial standards.

• That hiring a foreign worker could benefit Canada by transferring skills
and knowledge or even creating new jobs.

Once Service Canada, the federal human resources agency, is satisfied it
issues a LMO to the employer.

The employer then sends a copy to the prospective worker or workers
outside Canada. When those workers arrive in Canada, they submit (at the
border) the LMO as part of their application for a work permit.

Selling LMOs is illegal, a federal spokesperson told the Star.