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Dear friends,

I send below news of a wildcat strike now being staged in Simcoe Ontario by migrant farm workers. As would be expected, rather than looking into the matter of unpaid wages and substandard living quarters – key reasons for the strike – the Canadian state is responding by facilitating the employer’s moves to deport the workers as of tomorrow, November 25.

Please circulate this news as widely as possible to spread the word on 1) the unfair treatment of workers by Ghesquiere Plants Ltd., and 2) a strike that is a major risk most Canadians would not believe migrant workers would be willing to take.

In solidarity,
SV

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages: Employer responds with deportation

November 23, 2010

(Simcoe, Ontario) Over a 100 migrant farm workers employed at Ghesquiere Plants Ltd. are facing imminent repatriation (deportation) after staging a wildcat strike to demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.

The migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados came together across racial, linguistic and ethnic lines to organize this wild cat strike and strengthen their collective power. The workers employed by this farm described numerous rights violations and complaints about their living conditions including the following:

• Workers are each owed from $1000 to $6000 in unpaid wages
• Workers are to be evicted and will be homeless as of Thursday, November 25th, 2010
• Most of the Mexican and Trinidadian workers will be repatriated by this Thursday. All Jamaican
workers have been repatriated.
• Electricity and heat has been cut off in one bunk
• Deplorable and very crowed living conditions

Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a grassroots advocacy migrant rights organization, calls for the immediate payment of all wages owing to workers. Migrant workers employed at Ghesquiere Plant Ltd. are being forced to return home and cannot provide for their families. Repatriation denies them access to pursue legal avenues under federal and provincial laws, basic protections accorded to permanent residents in Canada thus J4MW calls on both levels of government to intervene to protect migrants and prosecute employers who denied these workers basic rights. J4MW stresses that Temporary Foreign Worker Programs such as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program denies migrant workers the ability to exert their rights and are in need of an urgent and complete overhaul.

J4MW Contacts

Chris Ramsaroop 1-647-834-4932 or ramsaroopchris@gmail.com
Carolina Alvarado Zuniga 1-647-296-6753

Justicia for Migrant Workers
c/o Workers’ Action Centre
720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223
Toronto ON M5S 2T9

http://www.facebook.com/l/ef9beV32-HKbbLYpBmAxDdNshJw;www.justicia4migrantworkers.org

http://www.facebook.com/l/ef9beZR58Z0nbAizkEVwFOtz2oQ;www.twitter.com/j4mw

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The concert will feature performances from some amazing local and international hip hop artists:

An Open Letter from the Canadian Network of Metropolis Centers

Canada should keep its Census mandatory and maintain its status as a public resource

For more than a century, Canada has had two features in its Censuses that have enormous public value. First, all households have been required to fill out the Census, and for the past 40 years, a subset of households has been required to fill out a more detailed Census, called the -long form-. The long form responses represent our best data on small populations, including ethnic minorities, linguistic communities, immigrant groups and Aboriginal peoples, and so are vitally important to our collective growth and aspirations as a cohesive and diverse society. Second, all census data has been made public after 92 years. This makes it possible for individuals to trace their family histories, and allows historians to study Canadian society over long periods of time. Read more…

(from the CERIS listserv)

Dear TIEDI partners,

Many of you will have read about the federal government’s plan to convert the ‘long form’ of the 2011 census into a voluntary survey, thereby significantly affecting the quality of social data that will be available in the years ahead. I won’t elaborate on the reasons why this is a bad idea – there have been many articles in the press over the last few days that make a variety of points. Here are a few, in case you haven’t seen them already: Read more…

Ms Rebick argues intelligently and passionately in defense of Klein’s position. It is also a position she holds – and I.

I was recently at an event in support of the aforementioned letter (see my post: http://buzzardpress.com/blog/2009/09/15/more-than-a-tiff/) that was interrupted by the Jewish Defense League. They were very politely escorted out. I also know the film maker who rescinded his film from the Toronto International Film Festival. I believe he took a very principled position which will, undoubtedly, cost him a great deal of funding for future movies.

What’s fair is fair and what’s right is right. If anything wrong pops up, we must smack it out of the way. Keep speaking out!

Read more…

forwarded by brother Ali Mallah
http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/555

Britain’s unions commit to a mass boycott movement of Israeli goods

Posted by RORCoalition on Thu, 09/17/2009 – 13:40

17 September 2009 [Palestine Solidarity Campaign]
In a landmark decision, Britain’s trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians. Read more…