Human Rights for Workers & People with Disabilities

Groundbreaking Human Rights Award: Temporary Foreign Worker Rights

Foreign Canada Line workers win multi-million dollar human rights case

By Kelly Sinoski (December 3, 2008). The Vancouver Sun.

VANCOUVER -- A group of temporary foreign workers who helped build the Canada Line have won a multi-million dollar discrimination award from the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The tribunal on Wednesday ordered the group's employers SELI Canada and SNC Lavalin to pay every member of the complainant group — who were all Latin Americans — $10,000 each as compensation for injurity to dignity, feelings and self-respect.
It noted that for two years, the treatment conveyed to the workers was that they were “worth less and less worthy than other employees because they were Latin American.”

The workers were paid substantially less than their European counterparts, forced to live in a motel rather than upscale condos close to the job site and made to account for any reimbursements received rather than receiving a monthly allowance to do with that they pleased, the tribunal noted.

“While the feelings and the self-respect of the Latin Americans was impacted, this case is primarily about dignity,” the tribunal ruled. “They worked side by side with Europeans who were paid substaintially more than they were for performing subtantially the same work.”

The tribunal noted that as foreign workers who spoke no English, they were “uniquely vulnerable.” “So long as they continued to work on the Canada Line project, they were unable to escape the discriminatory treatment that pervaded every aspect of the working and leisure lives.”

SELI Canada and SNC Lavalin, which were boring parallel tunnels under downtown Vancouver, have been under the microscope since early last year after a series of complaints to the Labour Relations Board, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and the provincial Employment Standards Branch over its treatment of foreign workers.
The Construction and Specialized Workers Union Local 1611 had alleged the employer, which was originally paying the 39 mostly Latin American workers $12,000 US per year, unilaterally altered their contract to raise their pay to $20,000 US after they joined the union in mid-2006.

That undermined the union's bargaining powers and let the employer set a wage that was below local labour standards, said the union in its filings. The workers were netting about $20,000 US per year, roughly $14 an hour, plus room and board — about three times what they would make in their own countries but $10 per hour less than the $23 to $24 an hour, plus $4-per-hour benefits, being paid to most local union workers, the union says.

SELI Canada and SNC Lavalin denied allegations that they fraudulently altered the workers' contracts and then covered it up.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

BCHRT Final Decision

Construction and Specialized Workers' Union Local 1611 obo Foreign Workers v. SELI Canada Inc., SNCP-SELI Joint Venture and SNC Lavalin Constructors (Pacific) Inc. (No. 8)
(Final Decision - Grounds: Race, Colour, Ancestry and Place of Origin - Area: Section 13 - Employment)
2008 BCHRT 436

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International Day of Persons with Disabilities – December 3rd

3 December 2008 -- The International Day of Disabled Persons was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992. The annual observance of the Day aims to increase awareness and understanding of disability issues and trends, and to mobilise support for practical action at all levels, by, with and for persons with disabilities.

With the coming into force on 3 May 2008 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, advocates for disability rights have a powerful tool at their disposal. The 13 December 2006 adoption of the Convention by the UN General Assembly reflected an attitudinal change towards people with disabilities, to a recognition that persons with disabilities have the same inherent dignity, are capable of claiming their rights, and should be participating members of society. However, most countries have not yet ratified the Convention.

- Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons

- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

- Convention on the Rights of the Child

- ILO Code of Practice on Managing Disability in the Workplace

Study guide on the rights of persons with disabilities
A quick introduction in the human rights of persons with disabilities, and ways to promote and protect them.

Guide to Disability Rights (and dealing with the system)
(The Council for Disability Rights)
This guide provides practical information on employment, free medication, social security benefits, special education, and tax benefits.

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