The United Nations special rapporteur spoke of the presence of a danger of “modern slavery” here, in Quebec and Canada. The film crew Richelieu takes its turn to the front: its director and actors mobilize to improve the working conditions of temporary foreign workers, who find themselves at the mercy of employers with the power to send them back to their country of origin.
On this gray Sunday evening in November, the artisans of Richelieu came to attend a screening of their film for the benefit of the thousands of foreign workers who carry out the tasks that no one here wants to do. Around ten workers from Guatemala were in the small room of the Public cinema on rue Jean-Talon Est.
Tears and sighs arose during the fictional film, which recounts the setbacks of Latin American workers hired by a farm in Montérégie. The boss forces the guys to work 12 hours a day, and sometimes even at night. One of the workers gets injured. Surveillance cameras monitor their actions even in their apartment. A chicane breaks out. And it’s going from bad to worse.
“I recognized myself in the film. I was on the verge of tears. It describes our harsh reality,” said Rudy Samayoa, a Guatemalan worker who experienced the same Stations of the Cross as one of the characters in the film. Richelieu. A worker in a meat packing factory, he injured his hands, but his employer refused to recognize his injury as an occupational injury. The company forced him to work despite his injury, then wanted to send him back to his country.
Rudy Samayoa was able to stay here — and obtain justice — thanks to the Assistance Network for Migrant Agricultural Workers of Quebec (RATTMAQ). He is not the only temporary foreign worker to struggle to have his rights respected: in the last year, RATTMAQ received 172,000 requests for information and opened 578 files for non-compliance with labor standards, working hours unpaid, unrespected leave, unrecognized injuries, and so on.
” The film Richelieu describes exactly what is happening. Reality goes beyond fiction,” says Michel Pilon, founder of RATTMAQ. A true guardian angel of temporary foreign workers, he welcomes them at the airport and gives them a diary so that they can carefully record their working hours.
“A breeding ground for slavery”
Michel Pilon and Rudy Samayoa are among the Quebecers who were met in September by Tomoya Obokata, the United Nations rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, who came to investigate the federal program for temporary foreign workers. His report is expected in the coming months, but he has already declared that the program “constitutes a breeding ground for forms of modern slavery”.
A request for collective action was also launched this fall to eliminate closed work permits, which deprive temporary foreign workers of their fundamental rights, according to the Association for the Rights of Domestic and Farm Workers. Closed work permit holders do not have the right to change employers — so companies get the short end of the stick — and they are afraid to defend their rights.
“Employers think they bought us and can do whatever they want with us,” says Dany Lemus, originally from Guatemala. He came away emotional from the screening of the film Richelieu. He recalled his short experience as an apple and strawberry picker, in 2020 and 2021. He worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day, even though he had bad toothaches. With help, he eventually got treatment and improved his situation.
History of cheap labor
Pier-Philippe Chevigny, the director of Richelieu, came to support migrant workers during the screening of his film on Sunday evening. “I started working on this project 10 years ago, with the struggle of Filipino housekeepers. Since then, not much has changed,” he laments.
I started working on this project 10 years ago, with the struggle of Filipino housekeepers. Since then, not much has changed.
To make their reality known, he notably decided to lift the broadcasting rights for his film for schools or other groups wishing to screen the work.
The actor Hubert Proulx, one of the performers in the film, recalls the “duty to remember” of Quebec society: “Our grandparents experienced what temporary foreign workers experience. We have already been cheap labor. Two generations later, we reproduce the same pattern, but as dominants. »
Even in unionized workplaces, migrant workers holding a closed permit often have lower conditions than their colleagues, underlines Marie-Hélène Bonin, of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux. “Thousands of employers thus manage to evade labor laws and regulations. This creates absolutely unacceptable inequities between workers in the same unit. »