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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:49 am
Time: 11:49 am
Results for undocumented workers (toronto, canada)
1 results foundAuthor: Gastaldo, Denise Title: Entangled in a Web of Exploitation and Solidarity: Latin American Undocumented Workers in the Greater Toronto Area Summary: This e-book describes key findings of a three-year research project on the health consequences of undocumented work in the largest urban area in Canada – the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This report has been written to reach a general audience and includes several features of workers’ trajectories because most aspects of people’s health are socially constructed through everyday life. In doing so, we hope to contribute to a social dialogue informed by research findings, that moves beyond moral arguments regarding “deserving and undeserving migrants” which frequently characterize discussions on migration issues. We propose that the experiences of undocumented workers in Canada are embedded in a complex web or matrix of simultaneously oppressive and supportive structures that transcend the sphere of home, work, and community. Several international and national players are intertwined in this web which ultimately functions to create a flexible and cheap workforce for Canadian businesses and constrains workers’ physical, economic and personal mobility once in Canada, with severe consequences for their health and well-being. We explore this central concept through four interrelated chapters and conclude with key messages to stimulate dialogue among a range of stakeholders. In Chapter 1, we explore the reasons why people migrate to Canada, the conditions that make such journeys possible, and the material and subjective reasons for why they stay, despite having limited legal and social protections. We also illustrate the complex pathways in which people fall out of status, and examine the manner in which undocumented migration, as a global phenomenon, is simultaneously created and maintained by global and national level policies, macro-economic and labour market trends and personal level interests that are deeply entrenched in dominant structures of power. In Chapter 2, we untangle the ways in which undocumented migrants report going about their lives in Canada and link their everyday life circumstances to their precarious employment relations and working conditions. We advance the notion of the existence of a web of solidarity and exploitation to characterize the daily life of workers and the challenges they face as they try to resettle and obtain work in a new land. In Chapter 3, we discuss the “tactics” they employ for coping and resisting exploitative conditions, and for functional aspects of their lives such as keeping a job and staying busy. We explore the role of workers’ individual agency and the much related role of hope and spirituality in the coping process. Finally, in chapter 4, we discuss some of the impacts of lack of status of citizenship. We examine the impact of fear on mental health and the production of institutional and interpersonal forms of social exclusion that exacerbate poor health among this population. We also explore the linkages between the types of jobs held by these workers and their health needs, including emergency care and long term health. We explore workers’ experiences of (in) access and to health and social services and critique the role of citizenship in the provision of rights and entitlements. Details: Toronto: University of Toronto, 2012. 160p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 23, 2012 at: http://www.migrationhealth.ca/sites/default/files/Entangled_in_a_web_of_exploitation_and_solidarity_LQ.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Canada URL: http://www.migrationhealth.ca/sites/default/files/Entangled_in_a_web_of_exploitation_and_solidarity_LQ.pdf Shelf Number: 126982 Keywords: Health CareIllegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant ExploitationUndocumented Workers (Toronto, Canada) |