Immigrants and a Fair Wage

I wrote a strong article yesterday but I want to make it clear that I do not have anything against immigrants.  Immigrants help make a country strong even today when nations are already built.  My concern with immigration as I see it here in Canada is that many of the immigrants that are brought in are here to take menial jobs for insufficient wages.  In allowing certain types of jobs to be poorly paid the employees become second class citizens.  How many of you have heard or said “I don’t want to work at Walmart”.  The implication is clear that working at Walmart is the very lowest type of job because of the pay.  After all, we all appreciate it when a clerk in any store will assist us so clearly the services are needed.  If we knew that the clerk was paid, for example, $25 an hour and had a 40 hour week and full benefits, one would not look down on that clerk.

       Before 1993 and before the Safeway union was broken it was a respectable career to work in a grocery store.  The managers in any of the departments and even the cashiers had a well paid position and could expect a decent middle class lifestyle.  That isn’t the case today.  The people on the assembly line at Burns Foods in 1970 made more than double what the office workers earned and were able to afford a mortgage in a nice neighbourhood.   The Cargill and XL workers are lucky if they can afford rent.  Many of the employees are injured due to inhumane speed on the lines and insufficient rotation of duties. 

       A friend of mine told me the story of his wife’s experience at a bakery in Calgary.  When the employees began their work they were locked inside the bakery until noon.  They could not get out even for a bathroom break.  They were all immigrant workers with poor or no English and no knowledge of labour laws.  I was shocked that something like this was happening in the City of Calgary.  Another friend told me the story of her nephew working in the restaurant world, where he was made to work double shifts without any overtime pay.  He was afraid to object because he only had a working visa and was afraid he would be sent back home.  There have been worse infractions written up in the newspapers and yet the abuse of immigrant workers continues in part because our laws and our punishment are not sufficient deterrents. 

       How do we come to grips with economic disparity?