Yessy Byl

Foreign workers. Temporary workers. Migrant workers.

What’s the difference?

Yessy Byl explains. As an advocate with the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), she’s had a front row view of the problems within Canada’s ‘Temporary Foreign Workers Program’.

Yessy sheds light on the oft-hidden problem of ‘recruiters’ – intermediaries who match foreign workers with local employers – who in many cases, bypass the system for a quick buck, sometimes charging immigrants exorbitant fees for jobs:

“The really tragic thing is people … spend their life savings [believing it a way to] eventually immigrate to Canada.”

The creation of her position by the AFL in early 2007 was an attempt to provide much-needed support to foreign workers in dealing with employers and/or employment brokers. No one could have imagined the overwhelming response to this services – Yessy oversees a massive intake, helping workers file complaints, deal with health and safety or immigration issues, understand their rights, and navigate provincial and federal bureaucracies.

Even after ten years experience in labour law, Yessy is still surprised by what she found in this latest work:

“… there is far more racism in this province than I had realized, but the system breeds it.

Hear more of Yessy’s reflections in a recent interview with CBC radio. http://www.cbc.ca/edmonton/features/disposableworkers/MT/2008/06/foreign...

Most of these people are coming because they believe this is an opportunity to immigrate to Canada … [yet] unskilled workers have very little likelihood of being able to immigrate.