BreadBros
21st September 2006, 07:21
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national...979&k=15702&p=1 (http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=1a2c2ef3-d4e9-4b61-b71b-c6a7ba03e979&k=15702&p=1)
"VANCOUVER (CP) - Unionized iron workers who walked off the job Wednesday to protest Ottawa's decision allowing foreign workers on a major project say qualified people across Canada are losing out to those who are being exploited.
Workers at a rainy rally in Vancouver said there are enough people in Canada to work on the Golden Ears Bridge east of the city, but the federal government is fast-tracking applications for cheap labour at the request of German contractor Bilfinger Berger.
B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair told the rally of more than 200 people that the practice of bringing in poorly paid workers will ultimately bring down wages for all construction workers and affect their standard of living.
"They're talking about bringing people here, making them second-class citizens, not giving them the right to have decent conditions and if they get in trouble we're talking about sending them back home," Sinclair told the crowd.
"Our battle isn't with workers, wherever they come from. Our battle is with companies that want to get around collective agreements that should be paying fair wages. Our battle's with the government that seems to have forgotten their first job was to protect you, not German multinational companies."
But a spokeswoman for Bilfinger Berger said the company is committed to hiring Canadians first and will only resort to importing foreign workers if there aren't enough local people to complete the Golden Ears Bridge by June 2009.
Patti Schom-Moffat also directly contradicted Sinclair's argument. She said anyone hired from outside Canada would be paid the same as workers in Canada.
Schom-Moffat said the company doesn't intend to exploit anyone and has an agreement with four unions to hire Canadian workers.
"There really isn't an advantage to us of hiring foreign workers from a wage point of view," she said.
"There may not be enough Canadian workers with the skills who are available to work on our project at a time that we need them to work and we want the flexibility to bring in (foreign) people who are available because we have a really tight time line."
She said Bilfinger's policy is to hire local and Canadian first. If that is not possible it wants the mechanisms in place to hire foreign workers.
So far, Bilfinger has hired 30 Canadian workers for various types of jobs on the six-lane toll bridge over the Fraser River, Schom-Moffat said.
Nine of them are from the Katzie First Nation, with whom Bilfinger has an agreement to provide jobs and training.
In June, British Columbia's construction trades unions alleged that foreign workers working on a major rapid transit line were being exploited with low wages and long hours.
That project will be added to the existing SkyTrain system and is planned to connect downtown Vancouver to the Vancouver International Airport and the city of Richmond, B.C., in time for 2010 Winter Olympics.
Iron worker Danny Mellish, a member of the Mohawk nation, told the rally that his father, grandfather and uncles were all iron workers.
"By bringing in foreign workers it threatens the future of our apprenticeships, our families, our wages, our unions and our way of life," he said to hooting and hollering from the protesters.
"We work hard with pride and tradition. The benefits plus wages that are being offered to foreign workers are well below the standards. How will our kids, our future, benefit from this? They won't."
Perley Holmes, business manager of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers, said foreign workers on the rapid transit line were being paid $3.47 an hour and were working up to 12 hours a day without a lunch break.
They didn't show up at the rally because "they'd be on the next plane back to their country" for leaving their jobs, he said.
Thirty per cent of iron workers in Nova Scotia are unemployed and want to work on the bridge, a job that would take almost two years, starting in a few months, Holmes said.
"The letters that I've got indicate probably about 1,500 iron workers in Eastern Canada" are unemployed.
He predicted major labour disruptions, especially affecting projects for the Olympics, if the issue of foreign workers isn't resolved.
"This is just a small indication of what will happen," he said, looking out at the crowd of people who'd left their jobs for the protest.
"I will do everything I can if they are bringing in foreign workers to do this work to destroy us."
© The Canadian Press 2006"
So what do people think? I can sympathize with them to a great degree, however I don't think I agree with their actions, it seems the whole "defending our way of life" bit is a bit nationalistic. Its a very contentious issue, what does everyone think?
"VANCOUVER (CP) - Unionized iron workers who walked off the job Wednesday to protest Ottawa's decision allowing foreign workers on a major project say qualified people across Canada are losing out to those who are being exploited.
Workers at a rainy rally in Vancouver said there are enough people in Canada to work on the Golden Ears Bridge east of the city, but the federal government is fast-tracking applications for cheap labour at the request of German contractor Bilfinger Berger.
B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair told the rally of more than 200 people that the practice of bringing in poorly paid workers will ultimately bring down wages for all construction workers and affect their standard of living.
"They're talking about bringing people here, making them second-class citizens, not giving them the right to have decent conditions and if they get in trouble we're talking about sending them back home," Sinclair told the crowd.
"Our battle isn't with workers, wherever they come from. Our battle is with companies that want to get around collective agreements that should be paying fair wages. Our battle's with the government that seems to have forgotten their first job was to protect you, not German multinational companies."
But a spokeswoman for Bilfinger Berger said the company is committed to hiring Canadians first and will only resort to importing foreign workers if there aren't enough local people to complete the Golden Ears Bridge by June 2009.
Patti Schom-Moffat also directly contradicted Sinclair's argument. She said anyone hired from outside Canada would be paid the same as workers in Canada.
Schom-Moffat said the company doesn't intend to exploit anyone and has an agreement with four unions to hire Canadian workers.
"There really isn't an advantage to us of hiring foreign workers from a wage point of view," she said.
"There may not be enough Canadian workers with the skills who are available to work on our project at a time that we need them to work and we want the flexibility to bring in (foreign) people who are available because we have a really tight time line."
She said Bilfinger's policy is to hire local and Canadian first. If that is not possible it wants the mechanisms in place to hire foreign workers.
So far, Bilfinger has hired 30 Canadian workers for various types of jobs on the six-lane toll bridge over the Fraser River, Schom-Moffat said.
Nine of them are from the Katzie First Nation, with whom Bilfinger has an agreement to provide jobs and training.
In June, British Columbia's construction trades unions alleged that foreign workers working on a major rapid transit line were being exploited with low wages and long hours.
That project will be added to the existing SkyTrain system and is planned to connect downtown Vancouver to the Vancouver International Airport and the city of Richmond, B.C., in time for 2010 Winter Olympics.
Iron worker Danny Mellish, a member of the Mohawk nation, told the rally that his father, grandfather and uncles were all iron workers.
"By bringing in foreign workers it threatens the future of our apprenticeships, our families, our wages, our unions and our way of life," he said to hooting and hollering from the protesters.
"We work hard with pride and tradition. The benefits plus wages that are being offered to foreign workers are well below the standards. How will our kids, our future, benefit from this? They won't."
Perley Holmes, business manager of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers, said foreign workers on the rapid transit line were being paid $3.47 an hour and were working up to 12 hours a day without a lunch break.
They didn't show up at the rally because "they'd be on the next plane back to their country" for leaving their jobs, he said.
Thirty per cent of iron workers in Nova Scotia are unemployed and want to work on the bridge, a job that would take almost two years, starting in a few months, Holmes said.
"The letters that I've got indicate probably about 1,500 iron workers in Eastern Canada" are unemployed.
He predicted major labour disruptions, especially affecting projects for the Olympics, if the issue of foreign workers isn't resolved.
"This is just a small indication of what will happen," he said, looking out at the crowd of people who'd left their jobs for the protest.
"I will do everything I can if they are bringing in foreign workers to do this work to destroy us."
© The Canadian Press 2006"
So what do people think? I can sympathize with them to a great degree, however I don't think I agree with their actions, it seems the whole "defending our way of life" bit is a bit nationalistic. Its a very contentious issue, what does everyone think?