Mexican Migrant Workers Rights Analysis

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Mexican migrant workers in the Leamington community are deprived from rights that are universally granted to migrant workers and lack the feeling of membership within a community. Throughout this essay I will be demonstrating all the rights that migrant workers are entitled to but are unable to exercise their rights due to the lack of knowledge of the legal framework and communication skills. Mexican migrant workers are also unable to obtain their rights because of the lack of support from others as a result of within the community. Although the government has put in place many programs to help migrant workers have the sense of belonging, there are too many factors of exclusion that outweighs Mexican migrant workers’ feelings of belonging. In the article Post-national Citizenship, Social Exclusion and Migrant Rights: Mexican Seasonal Workers in Canada by Tanya Basok, she explains many factors that contribute to the deprivation of Mexican migrant workers’ rights which are the lack of knowledge of the legal framework, communication skills lack of support from the community. The first is the lack of knowledge regards to the legal framework. Mexican workers do not exercise many of their rights because they are unaware of what they are entitled to in the first place. Mexican migrant workers who are employed in Ontario are covered under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, Ontario Human Rights Code, Occupational Health and Safety Act and Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Migrant workers also entitled to Employment Insurance and Canadian Pension Plan because of the income taxes that they pay. There are some restrictions that migrant workers face such as they are not eligible for regular employment insura... ... middle of paper ... ...dies Depression Scale (CES-D) is one of the most widely used measures of psychological distress in community samples and has been found to have good internal reliability and construct validity among Mexican Americans. The Migrant Farm Workers Stress Inventory (MFWSI) is a validated, standardized instrument used to measure stress associated with Mexican migrant farmworkers. There are also several limitations in this study. First, researchers did not distinguish between migrant and seasonal workers. Second, this population may lack basic standardized testing skills, and as a result participants may not have fully comprehended. Third, the process was not consistent; half of the participants chose not to have the surveys read aloud to them. It also appeared that many participants were hesitant to ask for assistance even when they may not have understood the questions.

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