Harper gang back-pedalling on anti-worker agenda

Don't kid yourself; this isn't driven by principle; it's driven by the realization that the next federal election looms closer every day, and they might need your vote.

Just in case the slavish unquestioning support of everything Likud or anti-Russian doesn't do it for them.

So Jason Kenney just noticed that his Temporary Foreign Worker program was working just as it should; making Canadian workers more "flexible". He noticed this because some of the media big boys got on the case we've been making for well over two years, that the TFW program screws Canadian workers, which was the intention all along.

Now another favourite strategy of Harper's base is coming under scrutiny; the unpaid intern. That's where folks work for free in the hope of getting a foot in the door or a reference or something to put on their resume.

Work for free?

Isn't that slavery?

No, actually it's worse than that. In the bad old slavery days the slave owner had an obligation to feed and house his slaves.

Unpaid interns are on their own. Food and shelter is their problem; they cover it with their non-existent pay.

Or their parents cover it.

This obviously creates a situation where kids from the right part of town can afford to work for free and then segue into real jobs, whereas the rest of the kids can keep working at McDonald's.

So don't assume that the Harper gang is going soft. This back-pedalling is not about a new-found love for Canada's working class; it's about an election in the air and Harper needing your vote.

Do the right thing.

Canada's "immigration reforms" designed to screw Canadian workers

Thanks mainly to the CBC foregrounding the TFW abuse story that was always ignored by mainstream media, the Harperites have regrouped and refashioned their prized program to defuse the criticisms that it is designed to drive down the wages of Canadian workers.

Unctuous uber-turd Chris Alexander has made public the list of occupations that will qualify for "express entry" to Canada due to our imaginary labour shortage. If you heard his interview on CBC the other day, where after exhausting 101 ways to avoid answering a simple question he simply hung up the phone, you'll understand how he earned the "uber" for his turd badge.

But that's history. The interviewer was just trying to score some cheap points by exposing the vast gulf between Harper government rhetoric and the real world.

And while that is indeed a vast gulf, it's not the story we're following today.

Let's look at some of those 50 occupations that have alleged skills shortages.

Early childhood educators and assistants. Canada's community colleges crank out qualified ECE's by the tens of thousands. Most of them end up working for a wage that puts them well below the poverty line. That's why there's a shortage. Bringing in thousands of Filipinos helps who?

University professors and lecturers. Most freshly minted PhDs I know have trouble stitching together enough sessional work to even come close to the poverty line. THERE IS NO FUCKING SHORTAGE!!!

Investment dealers and brokers. Oh for fucks sakes! This can't be serious!? Virtually every investment house in Canada has been steadily downsizing at least since '08, if not before. Investment dealers need "express entry" to Canada because there is a shortage of qualified people?

Complete bullshit!

It goes on and on like that. There might be half a dozen occupations on that list of 50 that have legit shortages. Instrument technicians might be one; petroleum engineers might be another, and there might be a few more, but in every case these shortages could be readily remedied by educating Canadians who are unemployed or underemployed.

We don't need "workers" to fill a non-existent worker shortage. These programs are designed to drive down the wages and strip the benefits from Canadian workers, so that the multinational conglomerates who will be employing these workers can reduce their labour costs and increase their management bonuses.

What this list proves is that the Harper gang is not about "reforming" an anti-worker TFW program; they're about entrenching it and making things even worse for Canadian workers!

Jason Kenney hopes nobody notices his flaming trousers

Criticism of the Temporary Foreign Worker program has gone from a trickle to a tsunami recently as the media big boys take an interest in the story. It's no longer just fringe bloggers and union types who see a problem with bringing in hundreds of thousands of "temporary foreign workers" at a time when over a million Canadians don't have jobs.

After spending the last couple of years hoping the issue would go away, Kenney has finally been forced into action. The action he is taking meets the most obvious part of the media controversy head-on, namely the revelation that mega fast-food chains Tim Hortons and McDonalds have been bringing in workers by the thousands because no Canadians have the skills to pour coffee or flip burgers.

The Minister announced on Friday that the fast-food industry will be temporarily banned from using the program, until such time as people forget about it, whereupon it will be quietly resurrected. In making the announcement the Minister portrayed himself as the champion of ordinary Canadians. He was, he said with a straight face, giving the employers the message that they should "improve wages and benefits" of their Canadian workers!

Hopefully most Canadians are not that gullible. The exponential growth of the TFW program under the Harper government has been deliberately engineered to erode the wages and benefits of Canadian workers, and it has worked very well in achieving that objective.

Too bad those media busy-bodies had to shine their light on things...

Skilled welders wanted; $16/hour, or how to spot a Temporary Foreign Worker Program scam

An advert to that effect can frequently be seen in major Canadian newspapers.

Not that they're planning to hire any Canadians. The rate on offer is well under what I earned when I retired from welding over twenty years ago.

So why do we see these ads? Because they're not expecting to find any skilled welders reading those papers and calling that number. What those employers, or employment agencies working on their behalf are doing, is establishing the "fact" that suitable candidates for their welding jobs are nowhere to be found in all of Canada.

That's the essential component in getting the thumbs-up from Citizen and Immigration Canada to import foreign workers. If the employer can demonstrate that they couldn't find workers in Canada, the government will issue a Labour Market Opinion, the magic key that opens the door to bringing in foreign workers.

That's why we see those ads.

Welding isn't rocket science. Most people with reasonable hand-eye coordination can become relatively proficient in under a year. Blueprint reading and fit-up competence take a little longer. It's a universal trade. If you can weld in the Ukraine or China or Albania you can weld in Canada.

And you'd be happy to do it for $16/hr.

Which is why our government bends over backwards to facilitate the import of skilled workers instead of training Canadians to do the work.

Canada says bring in the Coolies!

Everything old is new again! Cheap Chinese labor to fatten the purses of Canadian capitalists...

It's all about a "labor shortage" don't you know.

A million and a half Canadians unemployed but we need to import Chinese workers to mine coal?

At least two thousand Chinese miners are expected to enter Canada under the Temporary Foreign Worker program to work the Murray River Coal Mine. That's the same program that funnels cheap overseas labor to the XL Meats plant in Alberta. There's a shortage of skilled meat cutters in Canada too!

Especially skilled meat-cutters willing to work for $11/hr. The Somali goat-herders and Mexican peasants think that a king's ransom. And of course it is, if you're from Somalia or Mexico!

The TFW program is a crime against the working people of Canada.