[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

Federal info for live-in care givers.

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CSAWP and the international conventions for migrant workers
While Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program adheres in many respects to international conventions regarding the treatment and rights of migrant workers, there are some areas where the CSAWP falls short of meeting international standards as set out in the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (effective July 2003) and four earlier conventions of the International Labour Organization. Canada has yet to ratify any of these instruments.(...)

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[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

You don't even technically need to have any kind of citizenship or residency or work permit to claim WSIB benefits, although it is more difficult to prove employment if there are no tax returns. But I have seen at least one recent decision where benefits were paid in that circumstance. As I recall there was some question whether full benefits should continue to be paid based on the Canadian wage rates, or if benefits should revert to the going rate in Jamaica at the point when the worker returned home at the end of his contract. Or that may have been a different case.

Anyway, the bigger hurdle for these workers or anyone else in that circumstance would be to establish causation for cancer related to normal use of household cleaning products.

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I was at a magazine launch last week (Labour, Capital and Society) at Concordia U. and a woman from PINAY, a Montreal-based Phillipine workers associatio,n told us that domestic migrant workers were not allowed to claim workmen's comensation/CSST benefits because Canada refused to sign an international convention on migrant workers rights.

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Martin, are you sure about this? I remembered efforts at unionization of migrant farm workers, and found this article from 2006:

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About 20,000 workers from Mexico and the Caribbean are brought to Canada to work on farms each year, where they plant and harvest fruit and vegetable crops.

Their contracts are set up bilaterally by their home country's governments and Canadian officials, under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.

The contracts offer basic agricultural wages and living standards along with minimal deductions and health care, but often workers aren't aware of it, said Roberto Nieto, who co-ordinates the Migrant Workers' Support Centre in Montreal.

"They don't even know they have the right to see a doctor, or that they have a medicare card, and that they're also covered by the CSST [Quebec's work and safety board], and that they're covered by private insurance for which they've paid," said Nieto.

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[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

live in care givers are not covered by the CSST in quebec because domestic work is not considered @work@ by the provincial board... (gender-class-race issues...)

migrant agricultural workers, on the other hand, are covered in theory by the CSST (the employers pay for this coverage)... in practice, they have little or no knowledge of this right and when they do, they rely on the employer and or the consular staff to walk them trough the process...

so it's not because live in care givers are migrants that they're not covered, but rather because of the CSST definition of a worker excludes them... if they want to get protection, they have to do it by themselves, as autonomous workers -which is ridiculous-

see you all,