Temporary foreign workers and Canadian Mines

Disgusting, despicable, mean-spirited. 

All workers newed to get themselves into a union to stop people like RBC executives from preying on you like this.  Isn't that clear by now?

Ex-RBC foreign workers say contractor controlled their lives

Canadian bank insiders say outsourcing savings not worth the cost

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/11/bc-igate...

Oh, yea, another winner who is going to protect Canadian jobs. Not!

Quote:

But that apparent focus on Alberta didn’t really signal a long-odds regional push into Harper’s heartland. Trudeau’s main point in supporting the bid from China’s CNOOC for Calgary’s Nexen—and for talking up the resource sector more broadly—was to signal a pro-investment, pro-trade economic bent. “Why is the CNOOC-Nexen deal good for Canada? Because Chinese and other foreign investors will create middle-class Canadian jobs,” he wrote in that Nov. 19 op-ed. “Foreign investment raises productivity, and hence the living standards of Canadian families.”

 http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/12/centre-stage/

This thread would be better suited now to be in the National News Section, and the title needs to be changed to "Temporary Foreign Worker's Program has failed Canadian Workers".

Where is Jason Kenney? Why is Harper's heir apparent hiding from all this?

And of course here come the Liberals. Not a peep from them during this whole sordid mess before the TFW program blew up in the media recently over RBC. And by-the-way everyone, pull your financial dealings away from the RBC and use a locally-based credit union.

And what does the corporate media mean by "at risk" as if there is any quesyion this is a massive rip-off of Canadian workers, let alone the foreign workers?

Foreign worker program at risk of running amok

* HD Mining International is in court defending its 2012 decision to hire 201 miners from China to do specialized “long wall” coal mining.

The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 115, and the Construction and Specialized Workers Union, Local 116, claim the Tumbler Ridge jobs should have gone to some of the 300 Canadians who applied for the work.

The company notes it received a go-ahead from Ottawa for its hires, by way of a “labour market opinion” confirming a skills shortage. The company warns that Canada risks a black eye internationally by thwarting its business endeavour.

* RBC confirmed this week it’s in the process of contracting workers from India — through a California-based outsourcing company called iGate Corp. — for 45 IT-related jobs in Toronto. Again, the bank had received government sanction.

Such outsourcing is a common corporate practice as companies seek ways to lower labour costs.

As unions and affected employees come forward, many are wondering whether the foreign workers program, which serves a legitimate purpose and mirrors similar initiatives in Europe and the U.S., has run amok through a lack of government policing.

They’re questioning whether Ottawa has too freely issued compliant labour market opinions. And why companies aren’t either training locals for the jobs on offer or offering better wages to attract homegrown workers. After all, Canada’s jobless rate stands at 7.2 per cent.

There’s also concern about the government’s expansion of the program.

In 2002, Conservatives began fast-tracking the program for “regional occupations under pressure.” Then last year, they started allowing employers to pay foreign workers 15 per cent less than Canadian workers.

At one time, the program was geared to finding labour for arduous jobs Canadians often wouldn’t perform, in tobacco fields and orchards, or positions so highly specialized that skilled Canadians weren’t available.

But now foreign workers are coming to Canada to work in fast-food outlets, flipping burgers and pouring coffee.

Indeed, the number of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada has doubled in the past decade, to nearly 340,000. That’s more people than live in the City of Victoria.

“They’re being used in every sector of the economy now because employers are figuring out, boy, it’s really fast and really cheap,” B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair told reporters this week. “And that’s wrong.”

The federal Human Resources Department website declares: “Employing temporary foreign workers can be an essential part of a company’s business strategy.”

Canadians might be inclined to believe that employing domestic workers can be an essential part of the country’s well-being.

Already feeling economically vulnerable, voters will view the lax application of program rules as a failure by their government to protect their interests.

And in politics, there are few worse sins.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Yaffe+Foreign+worker+pro...

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5100

Former outsourcer describes how job destruction works:

An insider explains how Canada’s big banks contract out good jobs to make even more money.

A highly trained, university-educated professional, Arlene has been at the centre of the action. She is frustrated by the media coverage of the RBC affair. She says those who focus on Ottawa’s foreign temporary worker program miss the point.

The big banks she has worked for under contract don’t bring in temporary foreign workers to take Canadian jobs. Rather they send those jobs abroad through what they call “preferred vendors,” such as the India-based outsourcing firm iGate.

True, these preferred vendors may temporarily import foreign managers to organize the job drain. But typically, such managers do not stay long.

More to the point, the lower-paid foreigners who will eventually do the actual work rarely, if ever, set foot in Canada.

Arlene says any outsourcing scheme begins with the institution’s senior management. Usually, she says, the aim is to transfer about 60 per cent of the affected jobs — often in back-shop areas like information technology — to India where wages are a fraction of those paid in Canada.

The remaining 40 per cent, which generally require more local support, are outsourced to third-party firms in Canada. They in turn, subcontract the jobs to individual Canadians.

The aim here, Arlene says, is to not only to save the bank money but ensure that it is legally insulated from those who work for it.

Technically, those Canadians doing outsourced work are viewed as self-employed. That means that the bank no longer has to pay statutory benefits such as Canada Pension Plan premiums.

In most cases, subcontracts with Canadian workers are renewed for up to two years. Then, in order to maintain the fiction that they are not real bank employees, they are let go. After a few weeks, they are rehired on another set of short-term contracts.

“It’s sad,” says Arlene. “Really and truly sad. If you’re on contract you have no security. You do exactly what you’re told or you’re gone. You look the wrong way at someone and you’re gone. If you even question someone, you’re gone.”

Foreign outsourcing works slightly differently.

In this case, the financial institution will hire not only someone like Arlene but a foreign preferred vendor like iGate. “We work side by side in the bank,” she says.

Her job might involve bundling the tasks to be outsourced. Her foreign counterpart then arranges with his home office in, say, India to have its low-wage employees do the tasks.

The foreign outsourcer might use Canadians from its Toronto office to manage what corporations euphemistically call “the transition.” Or it might bring in employees from abroad under one of several visa arrangements permitted by Ottawa.

Typically, any foreigners brought in are tasked not with doing the work being outsourced but with learning how to train others who are already abroad to do that work.

In that sense, they are not replacing qualified Canadian workers. They are merely executing a job-killing decision already made by the bank.

The corporate world has invented various phrases to describe this drive to cheap labour. Some versions are referred to as “organizational redevelopment.” Others are called “process reengineering.”

In most cases, employees about to be fired are compelled to explain how their jobs work so that cheaper workers can take over. Arlene recalls one instance where senior directors broke down in tears as they spelled out how best they could be replaced.

“One was a single mother,” she recalls. “Another had two kids . . . usually they get rid of the directors first before outsourcing the entire unit.”

Typically, she says, employees are instructed to explain their work processes before they receive their pink slips. This causes less fuss.

In the Royal Bank case, information technology professionals were given notice before being required to detail their jobs to RBC’s Indian partner. That led some to complain publicly.

“Perhaps bad planning,” says Arlene.

The former outsourcer says she now thinks outsourcing is monstrous. She says she left the field because she couldn’t bear it any more. She says she has seen too much damage up close.

She says outsourcing, either domestically or abroad, is destroying the dreams of young Canadians. She has a child of her own. She wants government to crack down on companies that, just to make a buck, deliberately kill good jobs. Her words spill out.

“This isn’t my Canada,” she says. “It’s not fair. It’s like that television show Survivor.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/12/former_outsourcer_describe...

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McDonald's foreign workers call it slavery

Quote:

Foreign workers recruited from Belize are accusing McDonald’s Canada of treating them like "slaves," by effectively forcing them to share an expensive apartment – then deducting almost half their take-home pay as rent.

“When we arrived at the airport, they said, ‘We already have an apartment for you,’ so at that point we already know we don’t have a choice of where to live,” said Jaime Montero, who came to Edmonton with four others in September to work at McDonald’s.

As usual, the NDP response comes up short.  It's as if upon having smoke pointed out to them, checking for fire is never a concern.  If McDonald's is doing this, then the entire TFW program and the corporations that benefit from it should be the subject of scrutiny.  All this says is 'look at us, we're opposing see!"  There's no concern at all being expressed regarding the widespread practices that have been going on for years, so long as they get to check their own box and present it as opposiiton.

Quote:

NDP employment critic Jinny Sims said in light of all the recent Go Public reports about McDonald’s practices, the government should suspend all pending foreign work permits for its restaurants.

Why am I not surprised?

Foreigners approved to fill hockey coaching positions in Canada

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/foreigners-approved-to-fill...