Have you worked in Canada as a temporary foreign worker?
A class action was launched in September 2024 regarding “employer-tying measures” imposed on temporary foreign workers, including employer-specific or “closed” work permits.
For more information please visit: https://dtmf-rhfw.org/en/strategic-litigation/
PDFs are available on the website in English, French, and Spanish.
The problem
Every year, Canada admits thousands of individuals into the country under foreign worker status, many of whom are employed in private households and on farms. These individuals face one or more measures restricting their right to resign and change employers – such as employer(s)-specific work permits or standard work contracts with clauses tying them to a specific employer in the country.
If the employment relationship ends with the employer-sponsor (or group of employers-sponsors), the individual’s right to work in Canada is automatically revoked. As such, workers tied to their employers are radically hesitant to quit or take any action that could put their jobs at risk. This includes declining unsafe work, demanding the respect of the contract or reporting a right violation.
Since employer-tying measures impose such serious consequences on workers who quit or resign (such as the risk of not being able to renew their work permit), these workers de facto end up, according to North American jurisprudence, in a legal condition of servitude.
In broader terms, when foreign worker admission programs incorporate employer-tying measures, they result in the consolidation of an unfree labour system, characterized by the reduced applicability of human rights, employment, labour, immigration, tax and anti-trust legislations – and a diminished application of the Rule of Law.
The action aims to end measures that bind workers to specific employers and obtain compensation for the harms done by, on the basis that these measures constitute unjustifiable violations, in a free and democratic society, of workers’ fundamental rights to life, liberty, and security of the person, and not to be discriminated based on the country of origin, etc. (in Canada protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedom sections 7 and 15).
