Foreign workers: all but slaves in Quebec
Maria Mourani has an important column Wednesday about the harsh treatment of foreign workers here in Quebec. Whole sectors of our economy are propped up by foreign workers, who are not treated as our equals. It’s a factor about which politicians (and everyone else) lives in denial.
Ephraim 16:24 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
Are foreign workers allowed to come if they can’t speak French within 6 months of arrival? Or is this the workd-around for the fact that we won’t have immigrants anymore?
Blork 16:41 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
It’s an important topic, but I’m not so sure this is an important article. Problems include:
No sources cited. There have been plenty of in-depth articles and reports written about this, but she doesn’t point to a single one.
No data cited. While it’s certain that some migrant workers suffer indignities and worse, what’s the percentage? Are 80% of migrant workers mistreated? 40%? 10%? 1%? By not giving a sense of the scope of the problem, it gives the impression to some that ALL migrant workers suffer like this, while it gives the impression to others that this is just pearl-clutching and hyperbole.
Which brings us to… hyperbole. It’s a bit much to invoke slavery. While there have been cases of migrant workers reduced to near slave-like conditions, this is (AFAIK) quite rare. Mistreatment of lesser types is not so rare, but by painting the whole industry as “SLAVERY!” it just throws the whole article’s credibility out the window.
One-sided. How about hearing from migrant workers? I’ve seen plenty of articles in the past about how many of these workers (mostly from Mexico and Central America) come back year after year because it’s decent (but hard) work, provides income for the families back home, provides a sense of community among the workers, and in general is way better than doing the same work in the US.
That last part is not meant to dismiss the legitimate issue of mistreatment of migrant workers, but this particular article does a poor job of putting a spotlight on it.
Kate 16:44 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
Blork, I cut her slack because the Journal isn’t Le Devoir. The word count on most of their stories is really short, and they don’t run to footnotes.