Temporary workers’ plight to be discussed

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This article was published 10/12/2010 (5486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FIRST there were the “three amigos,” now there are five.

Two more temporary workers in Manitoba are facing deportation back to the Philippines, said the organizer of a forum tonight to address their plight.

“I got a call about them from a farmer in southern Manitoba,” said Diwa Marcelino of Migrante Canada, a non-profit group pushing for fair treatment of temporary workers from the Philippines.

“He’s an honest, Mennonite farmer who just wants to get these guys to work,” said Marcelino, who had arranged a forum tonight on the “plight” of foreign workers in the province at the Philippine-Canadian Centre of Manitoba.

The meeting was to focus on the “three amigos” — the publicized case of three fathers from the Philippines who are no longer allowed to work in Canada to support their families. Arnisito Gaviola, Antonio Laroya and Ermie Zotomayor came to Canada with work permits but lost their jobs in Alberta and found new work in Thompson, Man. Without the proper work permits and approval, however, they are not allowed to work and face a deportation hearings set for Dec. 23.

Now the meeting will focus on two more workers in the same boat after their situation came to light this week, said Marcelino.

They both came to Canada with work permits. One man was employed by an Ontario company that went under and the other was employed in Manitoba but also lost his job. They found work on a southern Manitoba farm, but didn’t have proper new permits and approval, said Marcelino whose looking into their case.

“Now these guys are going to be sent home or arrested.” Marcelino said he expects they’ll be at the meeting tonight.

It starts at 6:30 p.m. at 737 Keewatin St.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca