Organized labour in B.C. is lambasting changes to the federally administered Temporary Foreign Workers Program, which accelerates skilled workers’ entry into B.C. and allows employers to pay workers up to 15% less than average regional wages for a high-skill occupation.
“It’s a public policy to drive down wages,” said Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour.
“If an employer has a choice of getting somebody at the going rate or 15% less [who is] indentured to your work site for up to two years, who do you pick?”
In the past weeks, the federal government has announced an accelerated Labour Market Opinion (LMO) initiative, set to speed entry of high-skilled workers into B.C. in management, professional and technical occupations.
Under the change, employers who have already been issued at least one positive LMO in the previous two years and have a clean record on labour issues will receive an LMO within 10 days.
A second change allows employers to pay temporary foreign workers (TFWs) up to 15% below the average regional wage for a high-skill occupation and 5% less for a low-skill job. Previously, employers had to pay TFWs at least the average wage for any occupation.
The federal government argued that the old system “in many cases” resulted in employers paying temporary foreign workers more than Canadians.
Sinclair disagrees.
“It’s never been a problem that I know of,” he said. “That’s absurd. You’re lowering the wages by 15% to help [workers]? Sorry – you’re helping employers. This is an employers’ government; everything they do is to help employers undercut wages.”
Sinclair called the temporary foreign workers program, as a whole, “disastrous labour market policy. It allows employers to avoid the real issue, which is we have tens of thousands of unemployed people in Canada who need training and skills upgrading and it’s not being done,” he said.
But while Sinclair argues fervently against the changes, they’re finding support among some B.C. industry groups.
Abigail Fulton is vice-president of the BC Construction Association (BCCA). She said the changes are good news for the construction industry, which is gearing up for a significant skills shortage in northern B.C.
Fulton added that the construction industry wants the LMO process changes to go further and include first-time applicants.
“There’s going to be a lot of companies who are just wading into this area, so it’ll be their first labour market opinion, so it’s not really an accelerated process for them, unfortunately.”
Fulton disagrees with Sinclair’s claim that the new wage structure will drive down B.C. wages.
“You’re only going offshore to hire people when there’s a shortage, and when there’s a shortage of workers, my experience is that wages are going to go up.”
Fulton added that the high-skilled workers in sectors like construction that are being targeted by the accelerated LMO process won’t come to Canada for a raw deal on wages. She said the BCCA recently participated in a job fair in Ireland in an attempt to draw Irish tradespeople to Canada.
“One of the first questions that any of these Irishmen asked at the job fair we were at was ‘What are the wages? I’m not working for anything less than what I’m able to get here,’” Fulton said.
“So they’re savvy people. This isn’t a question of bringing in low-skilled people who are being taken advantage of.”
Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of BC (BCBC), called the accelerated LMO process “a positive step” and said the BCSC believes the TFW program should continue to play a “modest” role in overall labour policy to address certain skills shortages.
But he argued that the program is no panacea. “Permanent immigration and efforts to educate and train the Canadian-born workforce are even more important,” he said. “There are limits to how many TFWs can be brought into the country.”
He added that economists expect wages to move higher as the population ages and the labour market tightens. “This kind of market-driven adjustment process is appropriate in an economy like ours,” he said. “Immigration policy should not be designed to prevent wages from adjusting.”
According to the federal government, there were 46,359 TFWs in B.C. in 2011. •
