The cleaning lady at work is from the Philippines. Work is holding on to her ARC and she can’t leave the school grounds without permission.
I feel terrible for her, but don’t know what to tell her. Obviously, she can report it. But wouldn’t that put her job in jeopardy?
Any advice is appreciated.
Matt
By who’s authority?
By who’s authority?[/quote]
School administrator’s. Let me also clarify a point… The school itself is not simply a building. It is made up of four different buildings, one of which also has several rooms in it - much like a dorm. The school is also surrounded by a gate - it’s a lot like living in a concrete prison. It’s a nice school unless you’re stuck there.
The only way to get in and out of the school grounds at night without setting off an alarm is through the garage door. So it’s not like at 9:30, she can make a run to the 7-11 to get something if she wants it. Since she doesn’t have an opener to the garage, there’s nothing she can really do.
In the current environment, yes, she will likely be fired and deported if anyone complains or causes trouble. Yes, it is illegal for the employer to hold the ARC and Passport. Yes, it is illegal to restrict what they can do when not working. But the CLA will do absolutely nothing if the employer decides to trot her off to the airport to put her on the next flight to Manila. If she’s been working less than a year then she will lose money by being fired and deported because she hasn’t yet paid off her brokerage fees.
It also bears mentioning that “school cleaning lady” is not a legal job for which one can get an ARC for. Likely she was hired as an elderly/disabled home care assistant on paper and the employer has decided to do other things with her. So even if she does have a valid case to complain, she is working illegally and the CLA could deport her for doing so. And yet she probably didn’t have any choice in the matter of what work she is assigned.
If you want to do something helpful, work at it from the angle of getting things changed so that policies do not put blue collar workers in impossible positions. Things like getting rid of rules and relationships that enforce an expensive broker relationship. Things like making the ‘minimum wage’ be her net take home, not the point where they start deducting brokerage and boarding fees.
Things like if they are granted a 3 year work permit that they have some sort of guarantee they can actually work that long. For example, if an employer wants to fire her or she wants to report an abusive employer, the CLA must allow her to seek legal employment in the same category of work through the end of the term of the work permit. This alone would pretty much stop the most common abuses because neither the CLA nor the employer could arbitrarily force them out of the country. The current policy means that nobody in their right mind will ever complain unless conditions are extremely dire.
But raising complaints about her particular case in the absence of any of the above legal changes will not do a damn thing to help her do anything but get a one way trip home.
[quote=“jlick”]If you want to do something helpful, work at it from the angle of getting things changed so that policies do not put blue collar workers in impossible positions. Things like getting rid of rules and relationships that enforce an expensive broker relationship. Things like making the ‘minimum wage’ be her net take home, not the point where they start deducting brokerage and boarding fees.
[/quote]
Ok. So how do I go about doing that? Is there an organization that is pushing any type of legislation for these things?
Matt