“Temporary” foreign workers policy drives down all wages

RBC outsourcing controvery heralds introduction of new form of serfdom.

by Ish Theilheimer, with files and video from Samantha Bayard

Although recent revelations that the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program is being used to outsource Canadian bank and mining jobs have ignited public fury; in fact outsourcing is only the tip of the Conservative iceberg.

Officially, the program is intended to supplement labour supply where Canadian workers just can't, or won't, fill a need. In practice, it is being used to drive down wages and working conditions for all Canadian workers. At the same time, it breaks Canada's traditional promise to a hungry world, that even if we can't take everyone, we'll take in as many dedicated offshore workers as we can, to help them build better lives for themselves and the entire nation.

Since the growth of the TFW program, under Stephen Harper, Canada has hedged on that promise. TFWs have few rights. If they complain, they can lose their jobs and be deported. Their work as TFWs doesn't qualify them to immigrate, so they don't have a chance to establish homes and families in Canada. Employers can pay them 15 percent less than the minimum wage. For all practical purposes, they are like serfs.

Tom Mulcair: The Temporary Foreign Worker program is part of a bigger plan to drive down wages and working conditions for all Canadians

For the nobility, having serfs is great. But if you're a worker, the presence of serfs is detrimental to your own job. Although statistics are hard to confirm, apparently thousands of TFWs are working in fast food outlets in Alberta, for example, where 23,000 are working in Calgary alone. They do work other Canadians won't do — for less. Without these serfs, fast food outlets would be forced to pay Canadian workers competitive wages. More money would circulate. Small businesses would thrive.

The outsourcing controversy represents the tip of the TFW iceberg. As NDP leader Tom Mulcair told SGNews, the program "is an example of the constant downward pressure that the Conservatives are putting on the working conditions of Canadians. You have to move somewhere else otherwise they'll cut your employment insurance by 30 percent. Fifteen percent cheaper to get a temporary foreign worker — that puts downward pressure on Canadians' jobs."

In Prince George, BC, Mulcair met with workers who had lost their mining jobs because their employer was training TFWs in China. "This is the overall approach of the Conservatives to reduce working conditions. That's part of their plan," said Mulcair.

Much work done by TFWs is not temporary. As NDP immigration critic Jinny Sims told us, "People should be coming in as landed immigrants or as permanent residents, but the system is being used and abused and the rules are being elasticized in order to get cheap labour."

TFWs face many kinds of abuse, Sims said, including "substandard housing, pressure on the family if there's a husband-and-wife team, that the other one has to work for free, lack of coverage like medical coverage for many of them and fear to report anything, but also always living in fear that you'd better do just what the employer tells you because if you don't, you could lose your employment and be shipped back home."

Sims explains how TFW have become "the victims in many ways"

In the House last week, Liberal Rodger Cuzner introduced a motion to set up a special committee on the TFW program. As he pointed out, Canadian youth have been big losers in the exploitation of TFWs. "The youth unemployment rate now stands two points higher than it did seven years ago. There is actually a net loss of 50,000 youth jobs over that same period. The government trumpets its youth employment strategy, yet it supports almost 50,000 fewer student positions now than in the last year that the Liberal government was in power….  The Conservatives have placed a higher priority on outsourcing Canadian jobs to foreign workers than on training our youth."

The story of Canada is a story of immigrants working together to build a nation. It's good to see the opposition parties cooperating to spotlight the abuses and damages of a program that rewrites Canadian history. The abuse of foreign and Canadian workers under the TFW program must end.

© Copyright 2013 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca