Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
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In Canada -- just so you don't feel mislead.

The story is finally blowing up because of prospective and former Canadian fast food and restaurant workers speaking out. Long story short, Canadian citizens are being replaced by Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) meant to fill in for a shortage of workers with special skills. I think the equivalent is the H1B Visa in the US of A.

Original story:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ccused-of-favouring-foreign-workers-1.2598684

At another restaurant:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...of-cheating-filipino-workers-for-ot-1.2451512

And another restaurant:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...chewan-lose-jobs-to-foreign-workers-1.2615157

One TFW's experience:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/mcdonald-s-foreign-workers-call-it-slavery-1.2612659

Canadian CEO's reaction in conference call:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mcdon...foreign-worker-controversy-bullshit-1.2621151

Story one year ago of I.T. workers being replaced:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...canadian-staff-with-foreign-workers-1.1315008

The government is finally, tonight, doing something about it:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ast-food-sector-suspended-by-ottawa-1.2621385


Just putting it out there. Oh, and the news site linked to above is nationally funded. It jus gott its funding cut again by the government. These are great times we live in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/08/cbc-job-cuts-layoffs_n_5110329.html
 

michal1980

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2003
8,019
43
91
theres no worker shortage. Theres only a salary shortage. I love CEO's that come out and complain they cant find engineers, or welders. Then lay off hundreds of them.
 

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
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This is what the CEO and government apparently think:

In a recording of the call given to the CBC, McDonald's Canada CEO John Betts discusses recent CBC stories on the company's use of temporary foreign workers and his resulting meeting with federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney.​

"This has been an attack on our brand. This has been an attack on our system. This is an attack on our people. It’s bullshit OK! I used those words when I described my conversation with the minister last week. He gets it."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mcdon...foreign-worker-controversy-bullshit-1.2621151

I love McDs, but see ya. I should do the same with the rest of them since most fast food restaurants probably use them at one level or another.
 

stormkroe

Golden Member
May 28, 2011
1,550
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theres no worker shortage. Theres only a salary shortage. I love CEO's that come out and complain they cant find engineers, or welders. Then lay off hundreds of them.

The layoffs are only a part of the oil boom cycle. Oil is big, contractor rates climb up to unsustainable levels, the big companies like husky and cnrl pull in their wings and shut it down. Layoffs happen, rates drop, the cycle starts all over again. Unsurprisingly the oil Co.s make money in both directions.
Right now, in Alberta, we're about 2 years past where it should have fallen off, I'm not sure why this peak is lasting so long.
Finally, to say there's no worker shortage in Canada, ESPECIALLY Alberta, proves that you have no idea what you're talking about.
 

michal1980

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2003
8,019
43
91
The layoffs are only a part of the oil boom cycle. Oil is big, contractor rates climb up to unsustainable levels, the big companies like husky and cnrl pull in their wings and shut it down. Layoffs happen, rates drop, the cycle starts all over again. Unsurprisingly the oil Co.s make money in both directions.
Right now, in Alberta, we're about 2 years past where it should have fallen off, I'm not sure why this peak is lasting so long.
Finally, to say there's no worker shortage in Canada, ESPECIALLY Alberta, proves that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I was speaking in broad terms.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
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why are they hiring them if they aren't paying them less?

That's what I was wondering, until I read the article where they were implying that McD's was actually making money off the employees by taking more money from their checks for rent than what they actually were paying in rent to the landlord. If indeed the allegations can be substantiated, I'd hope there would be a major smackdown of those practices along with a hefty penalty.
 

Anarchist420

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2010
8,645
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www.facebook.com
Immigrants dont steal jobs because they save everyone money if they work for less and because people need jobs to serve them. It is also good to have more illegal aliens because you have more workers not paying taxes.
 

Newell Steamer

Diamond Member
Jan 27, 2014
6,894
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Well, if the Canadian work force wasn't so demanding in salary, this wouldn't be a problem!!

What, they can't live on that salary? Well, they should stop getting abortions, taking drugs, buying iPhones and whatever other fantasy naysayers think these people are wasting their money on.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
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LOL. Temporary?

Just get your government to toss out all immigration laws and you can make it permanant. And for all jobs.

It fascinates me how people can't figure out how to make their own labor hold value.

A "shortage" of workers means "your labor is more valuable!!" You can charge more for it. There's a "shortage" of rocket scientists, brain surgeons, etc.

If you're a fast food worker, you should want your labor to be more valuable. There's not really a shortage... your employer simply can't find enough people to replace you at a moments notice and so might *gasp* have to compensate you better in order to keep you around. In this case "shortage" roughly translates to "people willing and able to do what you do aren't just falling out of trees. You should be paid more."

See, ideally, every job should have this situation.

And see, allowing your employer to team up with government and relieve this "shortage" IE ability to easily replace you with others streaming in willing to do whatever for whatever wage... is about the DUMBEST thing you could allow to happen to the value of your labor.

If you're like we've become in our country, you do this to all sorts of jobs from agriculture to construction to childcare to delivery to food services to auto repair etc etc.... then you whine for the same govt that's "eliminated the 'shortage'" to artificially force your employer to artificially jack up your wage (even as both of them have been in cahoots to make you more replaceable).
 

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
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why are they hiring them if they aren't paying them less?

One of the stories in the OP talks about one worker who quit because he claims that the owner was deducting "rent" from his paycheck. In that story, I believe the owner rented out a suite to house a bunch of fellow TFWs -- five to a suite.

This one:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/mcdonald-s-foreign-workers-call-it-slavery-1.2612659

However, I have heard stories (anecdotal) about TFWs being housed in units owned by the employer. Whatever they get paid, a chunk of it goes right back into the employer's pocket that way. Pay a citizen the same and you'd lose the rent.

You hire some Canadian at minimum wage they will give you minimum effort.

You hire some poor foreigner at minimum wage you can work their ass off.

And if they complain, fire them. Then they'll probably be sent home. Nice incentive not to complain.
 

finglobes

Senior member
Dec 13, 2010
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"theres no worker shortage. Theres only a salary shortage. I love CEO's that come out and complain they cant find engineers, or welders. Then lay off hundreds of them."




I was reading that most HB1 visa don't go to engineers etc - the jobs where there is supposed to be a "shortage". Seems most visas go to offhsore outsourcers


"The tech industry wants more skilled workers — from overseas. Companies are lobbying hard for Congress to raise the limit on H-1B visas — visas for people with specialized skills — researchers, for instance, or software engineers.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, recently told NPR that more H-1B visas can't help but be good for the country.

"We need to continue to attract some of the best and brightest people in the world to come and join us in world-leading [research and development] efforts," Smith said.

But that "best-and-brightest" argument doesn't quite match up with reality — especially when you look at which companies are using the most H-1Bs.

If you scroll through the government's visa data, you notice something surprising. The biggest employer of foreign tech workers is not Microsoft — not by a long shot. Nor is it Google, Facebook or any other name-brand tech company. The biggest users of H-1Bs are consulting companies, or as Ron Hira calls them, "offshore-outsourcing firms."

"The top 10 recipients in [the] last fiscal year were all offshore-outsourcers. And they got 40,000 of the 85,000 visas — which is astonishing," he says...."What these firms have done is exploit the loopholes in the H-1B program to bring in on-site workers to learn the jobs [of] the Americans to then ship it back offshore," he says. "And also to bring in on-site workers who are cheaper on the H-1B and undercut American workers right here."


"Who's Hiring H-1B Visa Workers? It's Not Who You Might Think"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechcon...H1-B-Visa-Workers-Its-Not-Who-You-Might-Think
 

MooseNSquirrel

Platinum Member
Feb 26, 2009
2,587
318
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The H-1B program was created to lower the cost of hiring folks with PHDs, not to fill a shortage of workers.

US employers are lazy, don't want to train anyone or pay them a high enough wage to attract more talent.

If wages for engineers were 30-50% higher, you don't think that would fix the so called shortage?
 

Argo

Lifer
Apr 8, 2000
10,045
0
0
theres no worker shortage. Theres only a salary shortage. I love CEO's that come out and complain they cant find engineers, or welders. Then lay off hundreds of them.

Hmm, I don't know, I think there is shortage of engineers (and salaries do reflect that). Tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft are having hard time hiring good engineers, with median salaries *well* into 6 figures (I worked for 2 of those 4 companies, with several friends in other 2).