300 Canadians laid off, replaced by temp. foreign workers

[Liquidnails]

http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/2013/1 ... gn-workers

A nice Labour day announcement...

As hundreds of pipefitters and welders arrived at Husky Energy’s Sunrise project for their weeks-long shifts, a company spokesperson told the crew of approximately 270 this would be their last.

Their replacements?

An equal number of temporary foreign workers brought in by Saipem, an Italian non-union contracting company specializing in the oil and gas industry.

Over the next 30 days, dozens of temporary foreign workers from Mexico, Ireland, Portugal and Italy were arriving at the site 60 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, waiting for turnover.

By Sept. 27, the original workers —all contractors with Toronto-based Black & MacDonald— were gone.

“Layoffs are pretty standard when there’s no work to be done, but there was plenty of work for us to do out there,” said Louis, a commuter from Napanee, Ont. and an active member of Pipefitters Local 488 in Edmonton. “Plain and simple, a bunch of qualified Canadian citizens who needed work were replaced.”...

[Sn0man]

That's been happening for some time now. Obviously, companies are starting to get braver about it - which is good in a sense because now it'll start getting some attention. The kind of attention businesses don't want.

[hobbyguy]

I've always said that free trade policies would import poverty. These jobs have been the last refuge of many Canadian workers looking for a good paying job. Without those jobs, Canadian workers will go where???

[grammafreddy]

This is just sooooooooo wrong in all ways.

[Rwede]

One need only surmise that the union was the downfall of the 270 workers, and one would be right. The unionized contractor simply can't compete on productivity with the non-unionized contractor.

What is not highlighted in the story is that contracts are won and lost daily. Husky didn't lay anyone off. Their original contractor lost the job, and another contractor took over. The unionized workers for contractor A just weren't able to keep the company competitive enough to hold on to the contract.

[Atomoa]

Who knew that when the government was talking about "Canada's Economic Action Plan" and the importance of developing the oilsands for job's - that they were talking about paper shufflers at foreign worker employment firms?

The union was the downfall? Let's see. I bet I can find some people in Africa that will work for less that these foreign workers. Oh no, now its not the unions fault - its the greedy private sector and their "worker saftey" costs and "overtime". Race you to the bottom!

Taxdollars subsidize these companies and go towards promoting their wants and desires. For them to turn around and bring in foreign workers is basically theft.

[steven lloyd]

The union was the downfall?

Well we knew it wasn't going to take long for some *removed/ferri* to blame this one on the unions too.

[Captain Awesome]

That's just wrong.

[logicalview]

these unionized workers you guy are crying about won't be out of work for long, especially if they ditch their union...

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... htm#100479

The current shortage of skilled tradespeople in Western Canada is so dire that the BC Construction Association is returning to Ireland this month to hire 600 people, said the group's vice-president.

In fact, even if one-in-five students graduating from high school in BC during the next three years were to pursue a trade, there still wouldn't be enough workers to fill shortages in the province's construction industry, said Abigail Fulton.

Not everybody agrees with the recruitment drive, especially the province's labour leaders who argue employers can find skilled, unionized Canadian workers to fill immediate, vacant positions.

Yet, a consensus is developing that there will be a shortage of skilled workers in the coming decade, as proponents of the liquefied natural-gas industry, hydro-electric projects and oil and gas pipelines push their proposals forward.

"There's lots of evidence to suggest we're not doing enough to train construction workers in skilled trades in British Columbia, and if even half these projects come through we're going to have a crisis unless we start now to deal with the problem," said Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour.

The provincial government's own statistics indicate there will be more than one-million job openings over the next decade, and more than 153,000 of those will be among trades, transport, equipment operators and related occupations. Retirements will be responsible for two-thirds of the vacancies, and new economic growth will be behind the remaining third, states the British Columbia Labour Market Outlook 2010-2020.

In the BC construction industry, about 30,500 jobs were expected to go unfilled by 2012, according to the association's own statistics.

To address some of the problem, the association is organizing and hosting the Western Canada Construction Job Expo Oct. 31 in Belfast and Nov. 2 in Dublin, where it will represent about 30 employers, half of them from BC, said Fulton.

Wanted will be workers in more than 50 construction trades, from bricklayers to framing carpenters, power-line technicians to welders. Even architects and structural engineers are in demand.

Two employees of the provincial nominee program, which allows the BC government to nominate individuals to immigrate to Canada, will attend, said Skills Training Minister Shirley Bond in an email statement.

"Our staff will be providing seminars on working, living and investing in BC, and will provide important on-the-ground expertise and advice on immigration matters," she said.

Bond said the program is critical in helping BC address the impending labour shortage and offers an accelerated pathway to permanent residence for eligible skilled foreign workers, international graduates, and qualified entrepreneurs and their family members who intend to settle in BC.

The trip won't be the first for the association, which made its first visit in March 2012.

Fulton said the association learned the Irish apprenticeship system was one of the best, and skilled trades people would be able to transition to Canada and earn their Red Seal, an interprovincial standard of excellence in the trades.

She said the association also learned there was an abundance of trades' people.

The Irish economy crashed in 2008 and still hasn't recovered, and last year's job expo drew 20,000 people, she said, adding unemployed tradespeople lined up outside the job fair, down the street and around the corner for as long as two days.

"Listen, these folk are over there, we know their apprenticeship system is excellent, they're looking for work and we need workers," she said.

But the province's labour leaders aren't as excited as Fulton about the expo.

"There are British Columbians and Canadians that probably could do those jobs," said Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the British Columbia and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council.

He said skilled, unionized workers are available, but some companies don't want to hire union workers, so they turn to other sources.

Sinclair also questioned why businesses are turning to the Irish who he alleged are ending up as indentured workers, especially if they are coming to Canada on temporary visas.

"A guy ... who owns a business, a construction business, said to me, 'I like Irish workers because they have to work for me for two years and can't quit.' I mean and I've had that said to me by other employers, too," said Sinclair.

since you've all shown how much you hate Mexicans, Italians and Portuguese, who apparently aren't people according to you, how much do you hate the Irish as well?

[maryjane48]

welcome to the brave new world according to harper , forget creating and retaining jobs for canadians , lets bring in the cheapist labour :)

[grammafreddy]

Have Canadian union workers priced themselves out of work?

[logicalview]

Have Canadian union workers priced themselves out of work?

Yes

[logicalview]

welcome to the brave new world according to harper , forget creating and retaining jobs for canadians , lets bring in the cheapist labour :)

LOL. I just post an article about how there aren't enough labourers to meet the demand, and you ignore it to make yet another nonsensical remark about Harper. The funny thing is that if your beloved NDP were ever elected there wouldn't be an issue with foreign labour, as there wouldn't be any jobs.

[steven lloyd]

Have Canadian union workers priced themselves out of work?

While there is more than enough money to be made to pay all workers adequately and fairly, it would be better if there were no unions, no minimal training and skill qualification levels set, no enforcement of safety or employment standards, etc. These jobs (pipeline and natural gas field construction, etc.) are important to our economy and worth doing right. These projects are even more worth it for a small group that have gone great lengths to promote union busting ideology amongst the smaller percentage of short-sighted, small-minded troglodytes that exist among us. Sometimes enough just isn’t enough and screw my neighbor if I can find a way to screw him over and I can get an even bigger piece of the pie. It’s unlikely these Irish workers will be as placidly subservient as the Chinese workers they were trying to import in and that might surprise and disappoint some. However, in the race to the bottom it seems we are still set on winning.

[hobbyguy]

Canadian workers have not priced themselves out of the marketplace. Conservative government policies, starting with (cash in an envelope please) Mulroney have set us up to import poverty.

The ghost of John Diefenbaker is saying, "I told you so."