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Obviously, some companies use temporary foreign workers on a scale that demonstrates they are not just filling in during Canadian labour shortages. “One company, LMS Reinforcing Steel, managed to get a huge amount of TFWs,” Leighs said. Temporary foreign workers not only displace Canadian workers, they also drive down the wages of working Canadians. “They effectively set the price of labour. The TFWs come at a guaranteed price so companies can bid with a fixed cost of labour. Everybody else has to regress in wages and bidding prices to those of the TFW employers to be competitive,” Leighs said. “The TFW program basically destroyed the wages of ironworkers in the reinforcing industry.” Ironwork is hard work, so good wages and benefits are critical to attracting Canadians to careers in the trade. “When you are paid well, it makes sense, but if you are not paid better (than someone who is unskilled), you are not going to do the trade,” Leighs said. “So there was a decline in people going into the trade and there was also a decline in getting certified, because what is the point of getting your Red Seal?” A big part of the problem is that employers are advertising jobs at such low rates of pay that no Canadians will take them, said Leighs, and when a contractor doesn’t get any applications, they use that as justification to bring in temporary foreign workers. That could be fixed if they used contracts unions negotiated with employers to set the wages for advertising jobs, said Leighs. Ironworkers are lobbying to have the Temporary Foreign Worker program ended for the construction industry.
“As it is written right now, we are saying it needs to stop in the construction industry,” Leighs said. Only a complete redesign of the program would make it worth saving. “For now, the program is fundamentally broken,” Leighs said. Ironworkers Local 97 started an online campaign this past spring – Our Workers, Our Future – to lobby Ottawa to scrap the TFW program in construction. The Labourers International Union of North America (LiUNA) has also been at the forefront of investigating abuses in the foreign worker program and fighting to protect both Canadian and foreign workers. While the TFW program has been the source of scandals for years, LiUNA research shows the International Mobility Program (IMP) is also used increasingly to bring foreign workers into Canada. “As bad as the TFW program is, the International Mobility Program is even worse,” said Western Canada regional manager Mark Olsen. “The difference is the IMP does not require a labour market impact assessment. There is zero paperwork that the company has to file with the government, zero.” “After the 2014 changes that came in with the federal Conservatives, we have seen a growth in the IMP and a lessening in the TFW program.” In 2013, 66 per cent of foreign workers in B.C. were under the IMP. By 2016, that 66 per cent had gone up to 75 per cent of foreign workers. “None of these streams were designed for the construction industry, but that is clearly what has been happening since 2014,” said Olsen, who was a member of a union and government committee examining the impact of the Temporary Foreign Worker program on the construction industry.
Ironworkers Local 97 has launched a campaign at OurWorkers.ca to end the Temporary Foreign Worker program for construction. IMAGE FROM OURWORKERS.CA
8 | tradetalk Fall 2021
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