Media sources as disparate as the Calgary
Herald and the CBC
have both written stories in the past few days about Canada's Foreign Worker
Program. They both say the same thing. They have suggested that the program, which
was designed to help Canadian companies in the short term find workers for
specific jobs for which there were no Canadian workers available, is being used
to find cheap labour from other countries in spite of the fact that there are
Canadian workers available and capable.
The Foreign Worker program has always made some sense from
the perspective of both industry and most Canadians because the imported
workers were doing jobs that Canadians generally did not want. Picking fruit is
a prime example. The farmer only needs workers for a short period of time, it
is hard work and Canadians are generally not prepared to work for low wages and
long hours. From the workers point of view however, it has not always been a
great deal. Yes they get to come to Canada for a while and make what must seem to
them like a fair amount of money; money that they can take home and support
their families. But various advocacy groups have argued for years that the
working and living conditions are substandard and that in spite of the fact
that the foreign workers are obliged to pay into Employment Insurance (what an
oxymoron that phrase is!) they are seldom eligible to collect it. As well they
may not be eligible for health care depending upon how long they are in the
country. While they may (according to Citizen and Immigration
Canada's website) have full access to all of the protection that
Canada offers to its citizens, one wonders how easily the information is
available to those whose first language is not English or French and who may
not have internet access. However the issues that have been raised most recently
are not related to the protection of those temporary workers but rather to the
protection of good long term jobs for Canadians. Bank employees and miners have
both been affected the Foreign Worker Program.
If I understand the story, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
has hired a company to supply IT workers from another country and has required
its own employees to train those new workers before being laid off. It would be
logical to assume that the bank was doing so because it needed to save money.
Not a good reason or even one that is legal but it would be sort of understandable.
Except that according to the Huff
Post "the personal and commercial banking segment earned a record $1.1
billion, up 11 per cent from the same quarter last year". Nope they don't
need the money. They are just being greedy.
On the West Coast, CTV
news (amongst other media sources) has discussed the case of 200 miners
from China who were allowed to enter Canada on temporary work visas because the
owners of the mine (who happen to be Chinese) said there were no suitably
trained Canadian miners. That is a bit hard to believe. There have to be 200
miners in Canada who would re-locate to the West Coast. What is unfortunately
less hard to believe is that our government allowed this to happen. I think the
important question is why?
For the companies in question it is a good deal. They are
allowed to pay 15% less to the imported workers. It is also a good deal for
both the companies and the government in that it is one more way that unions
are being broken. Quite clearly the
message is to Canadians - if you won't work for lower wages - we will import workers
who are so desperate for a job that they will accept reduced wages. And these
workers will have fewer rights and may
never know that they are allowed to complain about work conditions. Sweet deal
if you are a capitalist.
At the end of last year, CBC
presented a story about the treatment of foreign workers at Tim Horton's. Who knew that there were not enough students
who wanted to work at Timmies ? It couldn't be because those imported workers
would work for less...could it?
There is some good news. According to at least one employee
at the Royal Bank, since the story broke he has started to get offers from
other departments within the bank offering interviews. Brendan Behan (Irish
Author) once wrote - there is no
such thing as bad publicity" (The Quotation Page). It looks like he may have been wrong.
