Immigration: Personnel Recruitment

Recruitment Company Dept: "I told my friends 'We cannot work here like this, like pigs.' So we quit our jobs," Ma, 46, told reporters Tuesday, reacting to a Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ruling awarding her and 14 other former workers at the Calego International backpack manufacturing company $10,000 each in moral and punitive damages. The tribunal said there was "clear, convincing and credible evidence" that the workers were discriminated against because of their race in a dispute on July 11, 2006, with Calego president Stephen Rapps and Vincent Agostino, owner of Agence Vincent, a personnel recruitment company, according to Montreal Gazette. The ruling says that "the remarks on personal hygiene to the Chinese workers were in an arrogant, condescending and disrespectful tone. They were harmful, humiliating and degrading and related to the national origin of these Chinese workers and, consequently, they were discriminatory." Years after she and her colleagues say they were told at their Montreal workplace that "You Chinese eat like pigs," Xiang Ma is easily transported back to the moment, and the humiliation she felt before her pride kicked in. The employees, who worked with about 40 other seasonal immigrant employees in jobs that paid about $6 an hour, allege they were told by Rapps that a dirty kitchen and toilet at the warehouse was their fault and that "this is Canada, not China. We take showers and shampoo every day, wash hands with soap, flush the toilet after use ... You Chinese eat like pigs." As reported in the news.
@t quebec human rights, human rights tribunal