(Montreal) An international company specializing in catering for airlines and a Quebec recruitment company allegedly lured foreign workers to Canada under false pretenses and exploited them, according to a request for class action, filed Tuesday.
The Center for Immigrant Workers (CTI), located in Montreal, is requesting authorization to initiate a class action against the investment company Trésor, of Laval, and the airline catering company Newrest, as well as several affiliated companies.
The Center acts on behalf of more than 400 people, since 2021, who Trésor allegedly falsely promised they would receive work permits and legitimate jobs in Canada, but were instead encouraged to work illegally.
“The defendants treated the group members as objects: controllable, disposable, replaceable and exploitable. These experiences were profoundly degrading and dehumanizing for the members of the group, and called into question their dignity, their psychological safety and their self-esteem,” we read in the collective action request filed by the lawyers of the Montreal firm. Trudel Johnston & Lspérance.
“In particular, the express or implicit threats of expulsion and criminalization brandished by the defendants terrorize the members of the group. Their irregular status – a situation orchestrated by the defendants despite members’ efforts to obtain legal permits – remains a profound source of stress and anxiety,” the document also states.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers allege that Trésor recruited workers from Spanish-speaking countries, encouraging some of them to come to Canada as visitors. Others were already in Canada on visitor visas, lawyers say.
“Members of the class are fraudulently induced to work during a “probationary period”, a period during which the members do not, in fact, have a valid work permit. Trésor assures the members of the group that it is completely normal for them to start working in the meantime, since the regulatory process of obtaining permits has been initiated,” states the collective action request.
However, few workers will obtain a permit, the document points out.
CTI’s Benoit Scowen said a small number of plaintiffs received permits after working for the companies for several months. Others, he said, worked for almost a year without ever receiving a permit.
“What the workers understood was that to obtain this work permit, they had to continue working under their visitor status and that they did not have the option of stopping working and waiting for the arrival of their work permits,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that many workers believed that if they were fired, they would be expelled from the country.
Paid less than minimum wage
Most of the workers recruited by Trésor were placed in Newrest’s production facilities, where they prepared meals for flights departing from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport. The proposed class action alleges that Newrest knew full well that the workers did not have permits and that the vast majority would never obtain them.
“Jointly, the defendants take advantage of the vulnerability of the members of the group and the legal precariousness that they have created to enrich themselves. All members of the class were defrauded, had their fundamental rights violated, and suffered serious harm,” the petition states.
The workers, who were paid by Treasury, often received less than minimum wage, were not properly compensated for overtime, and did not have professional and health insurance, the complaint alleges.
The suit also alleges that the workers were not properly trained or equipped for the physical labor they were required to perform, and that they were forced to work in unsanitary and dangerous conditions.
Guillermo Montiel, Treasury’s president, said he had not seen the court filing but was “stunned” by the allegations.
“We are an agency that has been operating legally since 2013. We have never offered employment to anyone who did not have a license,” said Mr. Montiel, who is named in the complaint.
Newrest did not respond to a request for comment on the matter on Tuesday.
The request, which has not yet been approved by a judge, a required step for all class actions, seeks unspecified damages from the companies.
Mr. Scowen noted that his organization’s legal clinic has been helping a growing number of workers facing similar situations since the federal government in 2020 began allowing people on visitor visas to transition to permits. work without having to leave the country.
Foreign workers on closed work permits – who are tied to a single employer – can apply for a one-year open permit if they are victims of abuse. However, unlicensed people have little recourse when their employers mistreat them, Mr. Scowen said.
“This practice basically creates a new class of migrant workers who do not have easy access to the existing protection mechanism, which allows employers to demand more from them, exploit them more, underpay them, abuse them psychologically or physically,” he said.