Making Work Safer for Racialized Immigrant Women

PressProgress Sources

Racialized immigrant women are some of the most disadvantaged workers in Canada, with an employment rate significantly lower than racialized immigrant men and non-racialized immigrant women. Often, certifications and work experience from their home countries aren’t recognized, pushing many into low-wage, precarious jobs. If they experience harassment or unsafe working conditions, reaching out for help is made more complicated by language barriers, systemic racism and unfamiliar bureaucracy.

Community-based researchers with City in Colour Cooperative, based in Surrey, BC, created the Safer Workplaces project to better understand the unsafe and exploitative working conditions many racialized immigrant women face, and how unions and workers' compensation boards can better support them.

In this episode of Sources, you’ll hear directly from Safer Workplaces participants who shared their stories. Then, Rahil Adeli, community-based researcher for City in Colour, joins PressProgress Labour Reporter Emma Arkell to discuss the systemic barriers to workplace justice encountered by racialized immigrant women in Canada.

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