Not One of the Family Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada

If You Have Come to Canada to Work as a Nanny or a maid, beware. As a non-citizen working in a private household, you are vulnerable to political, legal, and economic exploitation. And if you feel you are being used, the law will do little to protect you. This book explores how the system works and what you can do to stick up for yourself.In Not One of the Family, experts on foreign domestic workers and workers-turned-activists document how the Canadian system has institutionalized unequal treatment of citizen and non-citizen workers. They also draw on personal experience to demonstrate how workers can resist exploitation. Rights of citizenship for immigrant domestic workers in Canada have declined since the 1940s at the same time that the number of women recruited from Third World countries to work in Canadian homes has increased. The analysis in Not One of the Family moves from the theoretical to the practical, from framing ideologies of privacy, maternalism, familialism, and rights, to examining government policy, and labour organizing strategies.Not One of the Family is a springboard for rights in Canada. A key resource for all centres for women and immigrant workers, it is also essential reading for rights lawyers, labour groups, and government policy makers.Bakan, Abigail B. is the author of 'Not One of the Family Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada' with ISBN 9780802006424 and ISBN 0802006426.