05) LABOUR MOVEMENT SLAMS ANTI-WORKER MEASURES

PV Vancouver Bureau

     The labour movement has sharply condemned new anti-working class measures announced by the Harper Conservative federal government.

     At the heart of the Harper government's 2012 budget is a "pay‑less wage model" that is unfair to temporary workers from abroad and is designed to provide business with a pool of low‑paid employees, Canadian Labour Congress representatives and other activists said at an Ottawa news conference on May 15.

     Effective immediately, the far‑reaching changes to Employment Insurance (EI) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) are buried in the federal government's controversial omnibus budget legislation being pushed through Parliament by the Tories.

     The changes to TFWP permit employers to pay migrant workers up to 15% less, and employer applications for these workers will be fast-tracked.

     "Allowing employers faster access to migrant workers and paying them less for their labour sends a message that this government believes migrant workers are not equal," said Hassan Yussuff, Secretary‑Treasurer of the CLC. Yussuff said the new measures will exert a "terrible downward pressure" on all workers' wages.

     "Employers will benefit by having a pliable workforce available at a moment's notice," commented Naveen Mehta, director of human rights with United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW), who warned that the main thrust of the budget changes is to help business.

     "Rather than further skewing Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program to unfairly serve employers' interests," said Mehta, "what is needed are stronger compliance, monitoring and enforcement measures to protect migrant workers' rights."

     Alfredo Barahona, Migrant and Indigenous Rights Program Coordinator with KAIROS, added, "Instead of focusing on filling long‑term labour needs with short‑term workers who don't enjoy the same rights and protections as other workers, Canada should be nation‑building by bringing in workers as permanent residents."

     While the full details have been slow to emerge, the changes quickly raised alarms.

     The new regulations will allow employers to pay temporary highly‑skilled foreign workers up to 15 per cent less (for low‑skilled workers, up to 5 per cent less) than the prevailing local wage under some circumstances. So far, the reduced wage threshold measures do not apply to temporary farm workers.

     Human Resources Minister Diane Finley says the lower wages can be paid to temporary foreign workers only if other Canadian employees accept the same pay. But government officials admit that if a company once had Canadian employees who were being paid below the average local wage, but no longer has Canadian workers, temporary foreign workers can be brought in as needed and paid at up to 15 per cent below the local going rate.

     The labour movement says the government is creating an unwieldy, confusing and unfair system for determining the wages of temporary foreign workers, and that the new approach discriminates.

     "Canada's laws don't support wage discrimination based on where you come from," said Yasmeen Khan of MIGRANTE‑Canada, an alliance of organizations supporting Filipino migrants, who comprise the largest number of temporary workers in Canada. "Many people recognize the majority of migrant workers are people of colour and oppose wage discrimination based on race."

     Union representatives argue that the federal government should be expanding immigration quotas to allow skilled foreign employees to stay permanently. Canada's economic prospects are not improved by training thousands of foreign workers and then throwing them out of the country after three or four years, said the UFCW's Mehta.

     The news conference also raised concerns about measures in the budget legislation to pressure EI recipients to lower their criteria for employment. The Tories want the changes to "clamp down" on EI claimants, despite the fact that less than 40% of unemployed workers are eligible for EI.

     Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says that recipients who pass up "reasonable" job offers could lose their EI benefits.

     Claiming that "there is no bad job", Flaherty says he has "little sympathy" for EI recipients. He has used his own personal history to make this argument, claiming that he once worked as a taxi driver and a hockey referee.

     Conservative cabinet ministers have frequently claimed that Canadians are passing up jobs such as Christmas tree harvesting, forcing employers to bring in foreign workers.

     But NDP MPs have demanded more information on the planned changes, which would compel the unemployed to take jobs well below their skill level and previous earnings.

     NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair asked in the Commons, "Does the prime minister actually agree that our teachers and our nurses should be taking jobs driving taxis rather than being given a chance to look for work in their own field?"

     In reply, PM Harper has ignored the fact that 1.4 million Canadians are officially unemployed, claiming that Canada's job-creation record is among the best in the industrialized world, and that there will be an ongoing labour shortage for years to come.

     Finley has sent a slightly different message, downplaying concerns that unemployed workers will be pressured to take distant, unskilled jobs. "Canadians will be expected to take jobs appropriate to their skill level - in their area," Finley said. But big questions remain about how the new policies will be implemented.

(The above article is from the June 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)