Chinese Worker
Organizing Project
华裔工人组织项目
Our Chinese Workers Organizing Project aims to empower Chinese workers. Specifically through direct outreach, organizing meetings, justice-based workshops and campaign involvement we aim to work alongside Chinese workers to create systemic change that benefits all. Our work aims to connect marginalized Chinese workers with the larger labour movement and to empower them with knowledge and tools to take action improving individual and collective working conditions.
As part of our Workers Organizing Project, CCNCTO and members support policy change, including campaigns such as Status for All, fairer labour laws including paid sick leave and raising the minimum hourly wage.
For more information, please read our community-lead research report: Our Lives Are Essential: Chinese Canadian Frontline Workers Pandemic Report.
If you are interested in joining our organizing project, please sign up as a CCNCTO volunteer here https://forms.gle/YJJQMPQ9kfAfKxU69. Also, to stay up to date with our latest initiatives and events, please follow us on Instagram @CCNCTO, add us on WeChat @Ccnctoronto, email us at info@ccnctoronto.ca, and/or subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.
我们的华裔工人组织项目旨在赋予华裔工人权力。具体来说,通过直接的外展活动、组织会议、以公正为基础的工作坊和政治活动参与,我们旨在与华裔工人并肩工作,创造有利于所有人的系统性变化。我们的工作旨在将边缘化的华裔工人与更大的劳工运动联系起来,并赋予他们知识和工具,以采取行动改善个人和集体的工作条件。
作为我们工人组织项目的一部分,平权会和成员支持政策变革,包括“人人有身份”、更公平的劳动法,包括带薪病假和提高最低时薪等运动。
欲了解更多信息,请阅读我们的以社群为领导的研究报告:《我们的生命至关重要:加拿大华裔前线工人疫情期间经历报告》。
如果你有兴趣参与我们的组织项目,请在这里登记成为平权会的志愿者https://forms.gle/YJJQMPQ9kfAfKxU69。此外,为了及时了解我们的最新举措和活动,请在Instagram上关注我们@CCNCTO,在微信上添加我们@Ccnctoronto,给我们发电子邮件: info@ccnctoronto.ca,或在这里订阅我们的电子月报。
Migrant Workers Alliance for Change -
Rally Full Speech (6min)
Full Speech Transcript:
Dear friends, //my human /and non-human kins, //[亲爱的父老乡亲们]
My name is Hex. I am a Chinese international student at the University of Toronto. When I got here last January, I had no friends, no families, no relatives. 初到多伦多时,我在这儿没有朋友,没有家人,也没有亲戚。I knew no one, and I was no one.
When I tried to move out of the little room // that I paid twelve hundred dollars for every month, I found myself shut away from the housing market, like many other migrants have been. Without a SIN number /or a credit history, I could only find housing in a secluded market of landlords // who specifically target international students and newcomers, who are well-aware of their vulnerability.
Anti-Asian racism / and the exploitation of migrants in housing / is not new; instead, Chinatowns are the very result of excluding Chinese immigrants from secure housing. 反亚裔歧视和剥削华裔移民并不是什么新鲜事。唐人街就是华裔移民无法获取安全住房的证明和产物。 Exploitation through loopholes in the housing market continues today. How many of us / have had to pay several months of rent up-front? How many of us have lived in illegal and unsafe housing conditions? 试问我们中有多少人得预付几个月的房租就为了有个地方住?又有多少人遭受过违法驱逐? While these loopholes allow individuals and corporations to take advantage of Asian migrants, anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments frame us as the villains in the housing market. We are blamed for the lack of affordable housing. These beliefs suggest that if it isn’t rich / foreign Chinese buyers impacting the housing market, it’s the large number of Chinese migrants who are competing for, and “stealing,” housing resources. 说我们偷资源。 For decades, organizations such as CCNCTO, Butterfly, and Friends of Chinatown have been working with low-income and working class Chinese and Southeast Asian migrants, // including students, refugees, and undocumented people. In their work, they have seen how anti-Asian racism is widely experienced. Among Chinese workers, wage theft is extremely common, as employers take advantage of the knowledge and service gap impacting Asian migrants.雇主常利用信息差和社保服务上的缺口来剥削亚裔移民,因此华裔工人遭遇薪资盗窃的情况尤为常见。 How can this be happening in Canada,// a country that prides itself for multiculturalism and diversity? 自诩“爱多元,重人权”的加拿大政府怎么能够容许这种事情发生?How can migrants be experiencing racism and xenophobia in all aspects of life? The answer is that this is intentional and systemic. You see, by creating a second class of citizens, made up of migrants, international students, refugees, and undocumented people, the government creates an effective target for scapegoating. Instead of addressing housing and employment crises, racism and xenophobia become a convenient tool for the government to avoid responsibility and further justify discrimination. An old Chinese poem reads 四海皆兄弟,谁为行路人, which means “Everyone within the four seas is my brethren, no one is an isolated passerby.” Now, I know someone, and I am someone, through the CCNCTO community, where my experience feels valid again, because many of us share it. I came to understand that this society pushes migrant workers to the margins while demanding our compliance and labor. My comrades, 我的同胞们, it’s up to us to speak up and abolish the second-class citizenship in Canada/ that justifies anti-Asian and anti-immigrant beliefs and policies. While Parliament promised permanent resident status and regularization of all undocumented people, the very fact that many of us are barred from citizenship and voting reinforces the status quo. 尽管议会许诺赋予所有 无证人群 永居身份,没有公民权和投票权,我们无法改变移民被边缘化的现状。 PARLIAMENT is returning tomorrow. JOIN US in speaking up and DEMANDING PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU TO implement permanent resident status AND regularization for all undocumented people. This second-class citizenship has to stop. We want status for all. Let’s not forget that we, yes, you and me, we have power too, through social organizing.
We hope that by sharing a print-friendly version of this calendar, we can continue spreading awareness about economic injustices facing Chinese workers and help empower and protect folks in precarious work everywhere! Folks can print this calendar at home by clicking the button above. When printing the document, make sure to adjust your print properties so that the paper size matches your printer (A4 is standard) and adjust the print scale to "fit to printable area". The calendar should print to 28 pages. The calendar information is more legible if printed in colour ink, but you can adjust to black and white to print at home as well.
我们希望通过分享这个日历的打印版本,我们可以继续传播对华裔工人所面临的经济上不公平的认识,并帮助授权和保护各地从事不稳定工作的人们。 大家可以通过点击上面的按钮在家里打印这个日历。打印该文件时,请确保调整你的打印属性,使纸张大小与你的打印机相匹配(A4为标准),并将打印比例调整为 "适合可打印区域"。日历应该打印成28页。如果用彩色墨水打印,日历信息会更清晰,但你也可以调整为黑白打印,在家里也可以打印。