Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers

by Marcello Di Cintio

Winner of the 2024 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award

A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents.

In 2023, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata spent two weeks in Canada, meeting with representatives from federal and provincial governments and human rights commissions, trade unions, civil society organizations, and academics—as well as migrants working in agriculture, caregiving, food processing, and sex work. His the country’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” “I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” Obotaka said in a statement. Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being denied access to health care, language courses, and other social services; of being physically abused, intimidated, sexually harassed; of the overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. In response, some farm owners and their advocates, angry at Obokata’s comparison to slavery, defended the program, citing long standing relationships with workers who returned to their operations year after year. “If the program is so damned bad,” one farmer advocate asked, “why do these guys keep coming back?”

In the Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio seeks the answers to both the question and illuminates the charges that compelled it, researching the history of Canada’s migrant labour program and speaking with migrant workers across industries and across the country to understand who, in this global elaborate enterprise, stands to gain, who to lose, and how a system that depends on the vulnerability of its most disenfranchised actors can—or can’t—become more just.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Canada

342 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Marcello Di Cintio traveled to West Africa in 1997. He taught biology in a Ghanaian village for three months, then traveled through western and northern Africa for nine months more. Di Cintio’s time in Africa resulted in his first published stories and, eventually, his first book, Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa.

In 2003 and 2004, Di Cintio traveled to Iran to discover the connection between Persian poets and traditional wrestlers. Knopf Canada published the resulting book, Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran, in 2006.

In February 2008, Di Cintio flew into the Algerian desert to begin nearly five years of travel and research for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades chronicles Di Cintio's journeys along some of the world's most disputed and unfriendly edges. The book tries to answer the question: What does it mean to live in the shadow of a wall?

Di Cintio's 4th book, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, reveals life in contemporary Palestine as seen through the lens of the region's rich literary culture.

Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers will appear in May 2021. This book will reveal the fascinating backstories of the men and women who drive us around.

Reviews

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Governments aren’t willing to enforce labor laws that will anger both employers and consumers to benefit migrant workers who can’t even vote. They are nonexistent in terms of elections. The only two constituencies that matter to the government are the employers who want cheap migrant labor, and consumers who want the lowest possible price for goods and services.”
—
I’m not Canadian, but I did grow up in a farming community in Michigan that relied heavily on migrant labor. My father often was employed my these farms to do plumbing work to their migrant trailers and I was dragged along in the summer and I remember seeing the way these workers lived and being ashamed.

This book dissected immigrant labor in a multitude of ways that I had never even fathomed. It brought up the injustices of the system that was never built to consider these people as anything other than labor. It was engaging and it made me want to be engaged and more informed on policy regarding immigrant work (which is my favorite way to feel after a book!).

[Ainsley Jeffery · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most relevant, heartbreaking, and necessary reads of contemporary Canadian non-fiction

[Carol Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

He shatters the view Canadians have about themselves concerning migrant workers in our country. I wonder how many Canadians actually know how they are treated? I wonder how many Canadians stop to think about the plight is workers who harvest our food? Clean our hotel rooms or pour our coffee. This book certainly is informative and at the same time disturbing.

[Anne Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like to focus on non-fiction in January, mainly because I’m following the ‘self-help’ trend that annually emerges after the gluttony of Christmas vacation; I’m whipping both my brain, and body back into shape. But in recent years I’ve stretched this self-help category to basically include any non-fiction, and the older I get the more I find myself fascinated with stories of other lives. This is why I picked up Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy read – who wants to be faced with the daily strife of those who are struggling to become Canadian, something I was lucky enough to be simply be born into? But I’ve read and enjoyed Di Cintio’s work in the past, (whom I know personally) plus, I love supporting local writers, so this was a challenge I was up for.

Book Summary

Di Cintio travels across Canada in search of the stories of migrant workers. He juxtaposes these very humane, often emotionally fraught tales with detailed explanations of government policy that has controlled the movements and actions of these very same people. He tells the stories of those from Mexico, the Philippines, South America and beyond, all travelling to and working in Canada in search of better pay, financial security for family members back home, physical safety, permanent residency here, or all of the above. He gives a history of migrant work in Canada and how it has changed over the years, stemming from racist policies that limited the immigrant of non-whites, to the situation that we find ourselves in today; a broken system that enables employers to abuse, threaten, and blackmail this vulnerable population. But there is also hope in these stories. Di Cintio often refers back to his own family, his grandfather coming from Italy to make a better life for his family. Similar to his last book he also includes humourous asides, and strives to show the humanity behind these often staggering statistics. He also details his efforts to meet with and learn from organizations and individuals that advocate for migrant workers, and the somewhat confusing politics they are forced to navigate. A short conclusion summarizes Di Cintio’s thoughts succinctly, followed by an extensive index that demonstrates that significant work done in researching this book.

My Thoughts

Not only is the topic a challenging subject to read about, but the text itself is quite dense with explanations of the evolving migrant policies of the Canadian government. Di Cintio points out that part of the problem with this system is the fact that it’s constantly changing, so when folks who speak English as a second language are subject to these policy changes, and vulnerable to any government slow downs, the effects can be devastating, not to mention frustrating. For that reason, I’m less likely to blame Di Cintio for the confusing rhetoric and more annoyed with my government for making this so hard, even for an English speaker like myself to navigate. Jargon is difficult for anyone to wrap their heads around, regardless of their first language.

Di Cintio’s personal opinion of this system is obvious throughout the book, but I think anyone with a heart and conscience would agree with him that the obstacles migrant workers are forced through is simply unfair. His conclusion is the most impactful and the easiest to read and understand, with very clear reasons why this system is harmful, and must change:

“Nearly all the workers I spoke to, even those like Javier and Evangeline who’d been through a unique brand of hell here, felt their trials were worth it. But this doesn’t absolve migrant labour structures of their crimes. Just because workers might emerge grateful from the gauntlet we’ve constructed, doesn’t mean the gauntlet should persist. Their Canadian wages might allow them to live
“like a king” back home, as Brett Schuyler said, but this doesn’t justify treating them like slaves here” (p. 306 of Precarious by Marcello Di Cintio).

This book unflinchingly presents an inequitable Canadian system that contradicts what we consider Canadian values of kindness and acceptance. And although it was difficult to read about, it had two positive effects on me; first, it made me SO grateful to be born into a first world country that has a stable economy in which I can make a decent living. I think most can agree this is a privilege that not many people are currently experiencing. Secondly, it reminded me of how important it is to be kind to strangers that I engage with on a daily basis, because you can never know how difficult people’s personal lives are. The idea of leaving my family for months on end to simply pay the bills is a terrible thought I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around: this is the power of an individual’s story.

To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In what is probably my longest review ever on Goodreads, I encourage you to read Precarious. That is the TL;DR version.

The longer read starts with the label of modern-day slavery from a UN report by Professor Tomoya Obokata on migrant worker conditions in Canada: “Obokata, a Japanese scholar of international law and human rights, described our country’s temporary foreign worker structure as ‘a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery’. The United Nations appointed Obokata, as its special rapporteur on modern slavery in March 2020”. (p.6). Marcello Di Cintio ensures readers are well aware of the book they are getting into early on. It was well-researched and expertly written, ensuring the stories of migrant workers are the focus as much as possible. Released in 2025, it ought to be among every Greenbelt politician's reading lists for its staggering work of Canadian journalistic importance.

The treatment of migrant workers hasn’t escaped me where I’ve worked alongside them and adjacent to them, though I never had the first-person perspective of it that Precarious provides. I worked alongside some migrant workers while working a summer job during my undergrad, at a greenhouse in Niagara. I was up around 5 or 5:30am in order to be ready to punch in at the farm at exactly 7am after being picked up by the side of highway 406 in St. Catharines. I cleaned so many geraniums of rotting leaves that the smell was pungent and headache-inducing for a few years afterwards; We were also on our knees several times a day or crouching/squatting constantly, cleaning other flowers, and I was bagging potted plants headed for Home Depot, Lowes, and Rona by the hundreds at times. It was frowned upon as well, when I had to use the washroom as it looked like I was trying to sidestep working because the walk to the washroom could take up to 5 minutes each way if you were at the far end of the greenhouse. It wasn’t unheard of to be derided for bio breaks, or Latine or Mexican workers to be alluded to as lazy for needing them. The work was very hard on my back, and I was nearly always dehydrated, but I was not overstimulated, and among plants. I reasoned that I wasn’t going to be paid much more anywhere else, and it was only for a few short months. There were migrant workers around me there, and after reading Di Cintio, I wonder if I couldn’t have gotten to know some of them better. I could’ve provided meals or some relief if I had known more of their potential living conditions, but at 18 I had no awareness of these issues or a capacity to help in the way I do now.

Fast forward to 2020, and the pandemic: I graduated from a Master’s program with zero job prospects, no network to help me outside the city in the rural area I was living at the time, difficulty managing C-PTSD, was recently covid-laid off from a job in a field I love (public libraries), and had a spiraling immune system; My partner at the time was also dealing with a resurgence of her cancer during the pandemic, requiring routine surgeries and trips to Sunnybrook every few months. I opted to take a part-time job driving a tractor for tours on a pick-your-own fruit farm (I found out the minimum I could make without messing with my Covid benefits, then got to work, asking the farm to keep me within those exact part time limits). The lament in the farming community as I encountered it was not with the reports of migrant workers dying or falling ill en masse in Ontario because of working, living, and nearly non-existent quarantine conditions or minimal access to healthcare. It was “I didn’t get my Mexicans this year!” (yes, someone actually said that to me). The person told me that a farm visitor was upset with their overheard comment, who told the farmer how disrespectful it was to speak that way, and it was shared with me months later, out of bewilderment and anger that it was a problematic perspective.

My tractor job on that farm wasn’t even difficult. I drove an enclosed tractor on a pre-determined route outside, with breaks, air conditioning, and sat for extended periods of time while being able to use the washroom whenever I needed. But I got a glimpse of the lonely and precarious orbit a migrant worker might make around their hope for a better life, as well as how deeply embedded a plantation logic is in the consciousness of farming as the Canadian government has allowed it to flourish. It literally took a global pandemic, C-PTSD, a crappy immune system, and a former partner with cancer to reproduce those stresses, financial precarity, and isolation for me where for others, as Precarious notes, it is just another work season. Despite the oft-quoted axiom, “farmers feed cities”, it seems that it is more migrant workers who feed them, not necessarily “farmers” to whom the government has indentured them. Exceptionalism doesn’t seem an apt excuse for the Canadian government, and Di Cintio’s book is a powerful reminder that farmers can only work with the awareness and support they’ve been given. I share my story in this review to say that I’ve seen and experienced a small fraction of what migrant workers experience and there is no justifiable reason why we cannot infuse more dignity into our dollar through work that is equitable for permanent residents, and migrant workers.

Of the Canadian exceptionalism dynamic he writes that for workers, “Something catastrophic pushed them to our borders. Canadians profit from these traumas. We take the migrant’s sweat and labour and convince ourselves we’re being kind” (p.114). I quote it because I could not say that more succinctly if I tried. He also notes of the resistance to better labour regulations for migrant workers that, “imposing significant punishments on non-compliant employers will result in bankruptcies, especially since many of the businesses that hire migrants already have low profit margins. And forcing employers to improve living and working conditions for their migrant employees will raise labour costs, which in turn will increase the price of goods and service” (p.76). Marcello Di Cintio’s is an important book for advocacy purposes, and for any Canadian who cares about the underpinnings of their economy, notably the underclasses it produces, then relies upon to function while claiming its difference in the world on the basis of its reputation for “inclusion” in other, more well-funded industries.

If there are labour issues, it would fall to the government to course-correct through policy, education, and amended Temporary Migrant Worker policies but none of these, as was illuminated by Di Cintio, has happened. Nor does it seem to be a priority. It would seem that despite its friendly red and pearly white, Canada has razor sharp teeth that chew up and spit out migrant workers as part of its general economic and labour policy (not a few bad actors as is often reported). As Precarious notes: “Canadian employers–and, to a large extent, the Canadian economy–not only rely on migrant workers for their labour but also depend on their vulnerability. Enforcing labour standards for migrant workers, paying them fairly, and punishing abusive employers would spike labour costs” (p. 22). It is, in other words, one hell of a systemic problem that only the government can begin to fix, and from the ground up because the roots of migrant work in the Canadian economy are rotted right through. When farmers are rewarded and encouraged to view migrant workers as property, a country has a slavery consciousness problem, not a labour problem to mediate or correctively fine.

The solutions are not just eating local to sidestep acquiescence to large scale farming operations where worker abuses seem likelier to run rampant. It is also understanding what farms “Ontario Grown” branding refers to. I don’t know the answer to that question yet, but it is one I am more interested in researching to find the answer to. I’m not in a position to pay premium produce prices because of the cost of living; Even if I do find out something that might impact moral purchases otherwise, my hands are tied. It is ultimately another demonstration of how embedded poorly remunerated migrant work is in the Canadian economy: Sometimes there are very few truly impactful choices I can make as a consumer. The book highlights why political parties with labour policies that help migrant workers are profoundly important to vote for, where democracy is the last bastion of actionable ways those towing the line of lower middle classes, and the working class post-Covid might be able to intervene to make migrant worker lives equitable and just.

Precarious is an important, if not essential volume of Canadian journalism to read for anyone interested in “farm to table” conversations, and particularly for vegetarians like myself who are interested in eating ethically. It is not just the violence of eating meat to be concerned with, but the violence towards the workers whose work puts produce on my plate to replace meat. I’m so grateful to Di Cintio for staying with the trouble (as Donna Haraway would say), of trying to find interviewees to tell their vitally important stories. It is a breathtaking dissonance for Canada to call itself a kind of immigration “melting pot” of multiculturalism (part of my disdain for national narratives of multiculturalism absent of policy changes that benefit immigrants), and yet provide conditions equating to modern slavery in the obtainment of that title. It seems an interesting extension of colonialism where the global superpowers had the ability to pursue colonial interests, and now middling-powers in the modern global north economies are extending them through temporary or seasonal migrant worker programs. Migrant workers are not the means to a national tourism and skilled worker branding end. They are the story of Canada’s economic present and futures if readers are compelled to care enough to read about it, learn what changes are required, then vote and work for it. Precarious by Marcello Di Cintio is a fantastic place to start.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Thought I Was Outside This Story

How did the book make me feel/think?

Precarious made me sad—not for anything I’ve done directly, but for being unknowingly part of something I believed I stood outside of.

I grew up thinking Canadians were better than this. Kinder. Fairer. Less exploitative. We’re not. We’re as flawed and compromised as the corporate systems we benefit from. We’ve traded our souls for lower prices and told ourselves comforting stories about who we are.

I always sensed this. I always knew the idea of Canada as a “white nation” was a lie we refuse to interrogate—and that every Canadian has a responsibility to break that conditioning. Most don’t. It’s easier to believe the advantage is deserved than to accept it’s inherited through systemic rot.

I’ve spent my life trying to evolve. I’ve lived a hard life, but I also understand I’ve been granted advantages others were denied. Precarious reopened my eyes to why that awareness can’t stop—it has to deepen, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Racism is everywhere if you listen. “They’re taking our jobs.” Casual slurs. Lazy ignorance layered over dependence. The foreign workers people mock are the same ones keeping food affordable, doing work others won’t, while being denied safety, privacy, medical care, and justice.

This book shows how foreign workers are trapped—economically, legally, emotionally—inside a country that wants their labour but not their presence. What struck me most wasn’t just the exploitation, but the loneliness of being invisible in a place that prides itself on being welcoming.

I’m 65, recently fired by a giant corporation for nothing I did. That experience taught me how vulnerability and lack of options can hollow a person out. Different circumstances—but the same machinery.
​
Precarious is essential reading. Because most people, everywhere, want the same things: love, health, dignity, and a chance at happiness. We can’t pretend not to know that anymore.

WRITTEN: 25 December 2025

[Calissa Daly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely topical and an overall important read. This book exposes how Canada has built a system that exploits, traffics, and abandons migrant workers to unsafe conditions, all while most Canadians happily subscribe to the narrative that we’re inherently “better” than other countries, or even better as people. Especially in the age of Trumpism and nationalist rhetoric, it’s easy to buy into the story that Canada is fundamentally virtuous — but this book rips that illusion apart.

Di Cintio highlights the invisibility that is inherent to the TFWP system “apologizing to migrants would entail acknowledging they exist”, which reiterates the fact that invisibility is baked into the system. “Canadians would rather not contend with the reality that hundreds of thousands of workers toil for low wages in often unsafe conditions to support a country they aren’t welcome to stay in… Keeping them invisible means we don’t have to see ourselves reflected in their plight.”

Even our idea of being a “good Canadian” is disturbingly low: “All an employer needs to do… is to treat migrant workers with the most basic humanity. The system expects so little from us and tolerates so much.” Policies aren’t designed to help workers—they exist to serve the economy: “The policies aren’t meant to give, but to take.”

Reading this made me angry, frustrated, and deeply aware of how long Canada’s flaws have been hiding in plain sight. It’s not an easy read, but it’s essential.

[Bryant William · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one ever wondered about the lives of foreign workers in Canada, this book will answer a lot of questions. And it should make you upset. From the legislation and history of the various waves of immigrants/workers/temporary workers to several in depth examples of various lives, Di Cintio gives a damning indictment of the way these people are treated in Canada. The negatives of the book is it gets a little slow in the legal details at times and sometimes the author’s own biases get in the way of his writing.

[anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

i actually really enjoyed this book. there was a lot of really good information about migrant workers in canada. the book leaves me with more questions about globalisation and the havoc the western world was laid globally which in turn causes the great migrations we see today. but this book was not about that

[Kristina Toporkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re Canadian or live in Canada—this affects you, I promise. This book cuts through the bullshit of our dearly loved myth of being a kind and welcoming nation and instead illuminates the horrors of the cheap, exploitative labour we import and all benefit from.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

the effort the author put into actually speaking with migrants from across Canada and in many industries is admirable

[Safina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading, especially for Canadian-born citizens.

[Talia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely eye-opening as a Canadian.

[Colleen Cavanaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent. Although heartbreaking at times gives great insight into the lives of Migrant Workers.