Screwing Canadian workers to help Microsoft screw American workers

Here's a new twist on the "Temporary Foreign Worker" scam. The Canadian government has granted Microsoft an exemption from TFW rules to bring in foreign workers for "training."

The reason Microsoft wants to train their foreign workers in Canada as opposed to India or Bangladesh or wherever, is to make it easier to get around US immigration rules by eventually getting them into the US on intra-company transfers.

And does the US need foreign high-tech workers?

No! Here's a recent story from US News and World Report that claims US colleges turn out twice as many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) grads every year as can be absorbed by the industry.

So why does Microsoft need to import foreign workers into the US?

It's all about keeping wages low. IT wages in the US have been stagnant for 20 years. Flooding the workforce with foreigners delighted to work for ten bucks an hour will guarantee stagnant wages and a docile workforce in perpetuity!

Hey, Mr. Gates didn't get where he is without bending a few rules!

Socialists take over venerable right-wing think-tank

What else are we to make of a story emanating from the C.D. Howe Institute claiming that "temporary foreign workers" cause unemployment for Canadians?

The TFW program is doing exactly what it was intended to do; keeping uppity Canadian workers on their toes and saving their bosses oodles of boodle. Since when is this a problem for the Chamber of Commerce types at the C.D. Howe Institute?

Since now apparently, and this is not a good sign for the Harper gang. Once you're alienating your most ardent supporters, your days truly are numbered.

The other side of the TFW debate

 Nobody, but nobody, has been more vocal in the anti-TFW debate than me in the last couple of years. As becomes more evident every day, the Temporary Foreign Worker gig is obviously about cutting the ground out from under Canadian workers.

Why would a Canadian employer have to heed the call of his workers for improved wages and working conditions if they have the option of hiring a TFW crew that glories in the prospect of making twelve bucks an hour and living eight to a room owned by their employer?

The low-water mark of this entire debacle was when the Conservatives decreed that the TFW folks could be paid 15% less than the "prevailing rate."

That aspect of the TFW program has been rescinded thanks to the PR stink it evoked, but the rest of this vile anti-Canadian program continues to fester.

And make no mistake; it is vile, it is anti-worker, and it is anti-Canadian.

Having said that, let's look at a statement the Council of anti-Canadian Workers put out the other day.

Apparently, young Canadians, upon getting a job, want to come in to work when and if they feel like it, and while they are "on the job" as it were, they feel it is their right to check their text messages every five minutes. What employer wants to commit to an employee who has absolutely no sense of the most mundane requirements of what used to be a "job," i.e. getting there on time on a regular basis.

If and when they get to work, young Canadian workers consider it their right to maintain contact with the wider world via their electronic devices, every minute of the workday. Mom wants to know how the new job is working out? Well, she doesn't have to wait till five PM to find out. Luckily you can tell her at 9:30, barely into your orientation session.

What we should be asking ourselves is where young Canadians got this "work" ethic.

Well, take a look at where these young Canadian workers come from. They come from Canadian high schools.

What they learned there is that their "right" to text their Mom about the latest trivialities in their life takes precedence over anything the math or english teacher might have had in mind for that day. Most Canadian classrooms today will tolerate, if not facilitate, having the student text their Mom, Dad, brother, sister, friend, enemy, frenemy, etc. during class time.

And in most Canadian high schools, that bell that once signalled "starting time" is but a mere suggestion. Ya, it's nine o'clock, but don't worry about it. We recognize that you are a sensitive being midway into blossoming into something special and unique, so we are more than happy to accommodate your need to text your Mom, Dad, girlfriend, boyfriend, other girlfriend, etc., until such time as you are ready to join your math/english/geography/whatever class.

And when those work habits you learned in high school turn out to make you unemployable, we blame the employers who are desperate to find somebody who can put in a day of actual work.

Somebody from Mexico or Belize or the Phillipines...

How to hire foreign workers

If you're one of those employers who is sick to death of lazy-ass locals whining that the minimum wage you're offering isn't enough to live on, the Harper gang has good news for you!

Yes, Citizen and Immigration Canada has lots and lots of helpful websites, links, and thousands of helpful staffers to shepherd you through the process of importing hard-working Mexicans and Filipinos who think eleven dollars an hour is manna from heaven!

And it is, when you've spent your entire life in a one room unheated tin shack with an extended family of 19.

Here's the best part; once the Harper gang has helped you get them here, they're yours! Yessiree Bob, they can't just up and quit like the locals because somebody down the street offers them a couple of dollars more.

It's the best deal for employers since before Honest Abe abolished slavery!

You'll NEVER have to worry about Pablo whining about overtime pay, benefits, or working conditions!

And you'll never have to hire one of those lazy-ass Canadians again!

Pot-addled hillbilly blogger nails TFW story ONE YEAR before the media big boys

I should have been crowing about this months ago, but when you're a pot-addled hillbilly sometimes shit gets lost in the shuffle.

A year ago in April I had this to say about the Temporary Foreign Worker program.

Drives down wages. Great for employers; screws over workers.

Then a year later, April 2013, the RBC scandal comes to light.

Suddenly every mainstream journo wants to tell you that the TFW program drives down wages, is great for employers, and screws over Canadian workers!

Who knew?

Let's drink a toast to Lou Upper

Who the hell is Lou Upper?

Don't know. Never met the man. But according to the web-site of Niagara Steel he is now their guy in charge of special projects.

And here's why we're drinking that toast; Lou has been with the company since 1959!

Let me back up a bit. My journey to the Niagara Steel web-site started with a story about ADF Steel Fabricators being sued by the folks putting up the "Freedom Tower". That's the new build on the site of the 9/11 attacks.

Right away we've got interlinking stories that capture my attention. Canadian structural steel companies building American landmarks is way up there. As long-time readers will recall I was at Frankel Steel when we built the skeleton for Seven WTC, the building that inexplicably collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11.

So the Freedom Tower needs this Canadian steel that will bring it up to 1776 feet, which the hoary sentimentalists in charge of this stuff have deemed the appropriate height for the building.

ADF Steel isn't shipping until the developers pay up their outstanding tab.

That got me wondering about the state of employment opportunities in the steel fabrication trades. It's something I've been away from for awhile.

ADF is looking for fitters and welders.

Wondered what else was out there, and that's how I got to Niagara Steel. Seems they have some opportunities too.

And they've got Lou!

In these turbulent times this guy has managed to put in his entire working career with one employer. Well over fifty years.

I had my first steel fab job in the early seventies. Lou was an old hand by then. My experience was that welders and steel-fitters who were any good were always able to find a job and make a decent wage. I did that over twenty years and from the east coast to the west coast.

From what I hear from younger folks coming back from Alberta, it's still possible to make that decent wage today.

Mind you, there are some skills required. You can't bullshit welding and you can't bullshit fitting. At the end of the day you built it right or it ain't going to work.

If it doesn't work you'll be unemployed shortly.

Lou must have known his stuff. And Niagara must be a decent gig, because Lou would have had lots of opportunities to go elsewhere.

Looks to me like there are still lots of opportunities. I'm tempted to dust off my resume... I can smell those low-hydrogen rods sizzling already!

It disturbs me that the Harper gang is succumbing to the industry's call to allow foreign steel-fitters into the country. I've got nothing against immigrants; me and most of the guys I worked with were immigrants. All of them when you look at the big picture.

But bringing guys in from Hungary and Romania and Poland when you should be training young Canadians to do this work just isn't right.

I'd like to know what Lou thinks about that.