Reporting temporary foreign worker program abuse

[WestCoastRunner]

To borrow a plank from Michael Hardner's platform, I think that transparency would really help here.

-k

I am all for transparency. Let's have a look at the rail car transparency.

[TimG]

That should be part of the deal in hiring TFWs. HRC displays your business name and address, the number of TFWs you have on hire, and the wage they are being paid, date of hire, date of expiry, and a link to the "Labor Market Opinion" that allowed them to hire the TFWs.

I would like to see the rules changed to require that employers pay 10% more than the prevailing wage to hire a TFW. The ones desperate to get a qualified machinist won't blink. The ones looking for cheaper alternative to paying more for Canadians will think twice.

[eyeball]

We're all for transparency like we're all for good weather.

[WestCoastRunner]

We're all for transparency like we're all for good weather.

Sometimes I don't get what you are really trying to say. Can you be more specific?

[kimmy]

Sometimes I don't get what you are really trying to say. Can you be more specific?

I think he's saying it's a motherhood issue that nobody would say they're against. Like, who's going to say "no, transparency is no good. Let's have more secrecy." Kind of like "democratic reform" or "accountability" and so on. Everybody supports the general principle, but when you get down to the brass tacks it's easier said than done.

-k

[WestCoastRunner]

I think he's saying it's a motherhood issue that nobody would say they're against. Like, who's going to say "no, transparency is no good. Let's have more secrecy." Kind of like "democratic reform" or "accountability" and so on. Everybody supports the general principle, but when you get down to the brass tacks it's easier said than done.

-k

Thank you!

[kimmy]

I would like to see the rules changed to require that employers pay 10% more than the prevailing wage to hire a TFW. The ones desperate to get a qualified machinist won't blink. The ones looking for cheaper alternative to paying more for Canadians will think twice.

I agree with what you're getting at. After reading some of these stories that have been coming out, though, I have to wonder if some of these employers would say "yep, still worth it."

-k

[eyeball]

Sometimes I don't get what you are really trying to say. Can you be more specific?

I've been beating a drum for monitoring politicians with cameras, outlawing lobbying in-camera and basically treating government secrecy the way government treats individual privacy for years.

I got to thinking this way when out fishing - while looking back at the cameras the government makes us install on our boats so they can monitor us. This is to ensure your interests as a Canadian owner of a valuable resource are protected from greedy rapacious fishermen.

I really do believe it might be a lot easier than most people think. Perhaps a political movement or party so committed to transparency that its members wire themselves to the Internet when in power.

Seriously though, I think we could monitor every official discussion and decision making process that leads to a public policy, audit this record for accuracy, and validate that what is delivered matches what the monitors observed. They audit 10% of my record and if too many discrepancies come up they sic a human observer on me...at my cost.

Edited May 9, 2014 by eyeball

[TimG]

I agree with what you're getting at. After reading some of these stories that have been coming out, though, I have to wonder if some of these employers would say "yep, still worth it."

They probably will but that is the point. The TFW exists because some employers really need it and they have exhausted all of their options for hiring locally. The trouble is some other employers are just using to keep their wage costs low. Forcing them to pay more than market for people would reduce or eliminate employers in the second group. Edited May 9, 2014 by TimG

[cybercoma]

I've been beating a drum for monitoring politicians with cameras, outlawing lobbying in-camera and basically treating government secrecy the way government treats individual privacy for years.

I'm pretty sure the camera deal wouldn't work. The lobbying would just happen in "back alleys."

[eyeball]

I'm pretty sure the camera deal wouldn't work. The lobbying would just happen in "back alleys."

If the camera deal doesn't work around the boat they make me take a human observer.

[GostHacked]

They probably will but that is the point. The TFW exists because some employers really need it and they have exhausted all of their options for hiring locally. The trouble is some other employers are just using to keep their wage costs low. Forcing them to pay more than market for people would reduce or eliminate employers in the second group.

A company like McDonalds does not need to hire anyone foreign. The skill level is not that high. And all you are getting at is that a company wants to cut costs wherever they can. My former employer replaced in house teams with contractors to save money. Lower wages and do not have to pay out benefits.

If these employers can resource a foreign country for workers, then they can try in Canada first. I am sure there are plenty of people willing to do those jobs that are already citizens of this country.

[monty16]

I think Shady didn't mean that, he just wants to call it something that it isn't. It doesn't go unnoticed that it's just politically motivated.

Which begs the question, what is it really that motivates Shady to support it?

[WestCoastRunner]

I got to thinking this way when out fishing - while looking back at the cameras the government makes us install on our boats so they can monitor us. This is to ensure your interests as a Canadian owner of a valuable resource are protected from greedy rapacious fishermen.

Seriously though, I think we could monitor every official discussion and decision making process that leads to a public policy, audit this record for accuracy, and validate that what is delivered matches what the monitors observed. They audit 10% of my record and if too many discrepancies come up they sic a human observer on me...at my cost.

I had no idea cameras are installed on fishing boats (at your cost). What happens if you turn them off? Can you?

[WestCoastRunner]

I had no idea cameras are installed on fishing boats (at your cost). What happens if you turn them off? Can you?

So why aren't cameras installed to monitor pilots of triple 7's?

[kimmy]

They probably will but that is the point. The TFW exists because some employers really need it and they have exhausted all of their options for hiring locally. The trouble is some other employers are just using to keep their wage costs low. Forcing them to pay more than market for people would reduce or eliminate employers in the second group.

I agree that making it more expensive to hire TFWs would reduce the temptation to abuse it. But some of the stories I've been reading suggest that saving money is only the part of the appeal. They also seem to like having employees who either don't know they have any rights, or are too afraid of their employers to exercise their rights. The email from the agency advising an employer to remind the employees that they can get deported if they start acting too "Canadianized" is a case in point.

As well there was a couple of cases about the housing conditions provided for TFWs. In one case, a group of 6 TFWs were being housed in an apartment in Edmonton. The employer was deducting $250 each, bi-weekly, from their paycheques, for a total of just over $3000 per month... but when the CBC checked with Boardwalk Properties, they found that the apartment actually costs $2400/month.

Or the case involving the employee who claimed his employer threatened to kill him. Obviously the death threats grabbed the headlines, but among the details of that case that got less press: the employer was arbitrarily deducting penalties from the employees' pay. Take your phone out of your pocket? That's a $50 deduction from your pay. The report showed one pay statement where the employee worked 112 hours and got 0 dollars in wages.

If you can charge your TFWs inflated rent and utilities, and if you can arbitrarily deduct from their wages, and if they're too uninformed or too afraid to complain about it, then it really wouldn't matter much if they're earning $11/hr instead of $10, would it?

-k

[TimG]

So why aren't cameras installed to monitor pilots of triple 7's?

They have black boxes that record all cockpit conversations. I don't think a camera would add much.

There are also cameras in many many workplaces (from banks to gas stations).

[WestCoastRunner]

They have black boxes that record all cockpit conversations. I don't think a camera would add much.

There are also cameras in many many workplaces (from banks to gas stations).

I think a camera would have added a lot to the missing Malaysian flight.

[WestCoastRunner]

They have black boxes th

There are also cameras in many many workplaces (from banks to gas stations).

I know cameras are rampant in most workplaces. I understand that.

[TimG]

They also seem to like having employees who either don't know they have any rights, or are too afraid of their employers to exercise their rights. The email from the agency advising an employer to remind the employees that they can get deported if they start acting too "Canadianized" is a case in point.

These are issues that could be addressed by balancing the power mismatch. e.g. issue lifetime prohibitions for corporations caught abusing the rules and make one of the rules a requirement that all TFWs be informed that the employer has something to lose if rules are broken.

[TimG]

I think a camera would have added a lot to the missing Malaysian flight.

Why? We don't have the black box and we would not have any camera footage either. If/when the black box is found it is unlikely that cameras would have added much information,

[WestCoastRunner]

Why? We don't have the black box and we would not have any camera footage either. If/when the black box is found it is unlikely that cameras would have added much information,

You don't really know if video would have not added value. If we have cameras in other workplaces, why not the cockpit? What is your argument against it?

[WestCoastRunner]

Of course, this is probably thread drift. Sorry.

[eyeball]

I had no idea cameras are installed on fishing boats (at your cost). What happens if you turn them off? Can you?

Sure, at penalty of a stiff fine and having to take a human observer.

The cameras start recording whenever you turn on the hydraulic equipment used for pulling gear aboard. The cameras record everything that comes over the side. A 'black-box' digitally stores the camera image along with GPS co-ordinates. Every single fish that I catch or throw back is recorded in my written log and has to match what auditors review in the camera record when they retrieve the black-box at the end of each trip. 10% of the camera log is randomly selected for auditing and if too many discrepancies arise between what the camera records and what I report the audit looks deeper - all at the fisherman's cost and peril of the cost of fines and additional costs of a human observer. My paper log of landed fish must also match what a validator counts when the fish come off the boat.

If you screw up too much paperwork and accounting or if you're sloppy and don't keep an eye on what your crew is doing and enough things miss your attention you pay the price - hence the reference to the trickle down theory of accountability. The captain is responsible for everything, there are no exceptions. It took a couple of years to develop the protocols for recording what was important without intruding into our privacy but secrecy has pretty much been purged from most of the real hands on business of catching fish at sea.

Now as for the decisions regarding fish quotas that are allocated in secret, usually after powerful lobbyists have had a go at the bureaucrats, deputy ministers and who knows who else behind closed doors - scoundrels like me and my scurvy crew are the least of your worries when it comes to sustainability of your resources not to mention the way your government and governance are being conducted.

I think a discussion and decision process for policy making not unlike what is described in Robert's Rules of Order where everything that is discussed that relates to the business at hand is recorded so that every decision can be tied directly to the discussion that led to it. No doubt there's already something not unlike that being done except we never find out anything and if we do its months or years after the fact when its too late.

[eyeball]

Of course, this is probably thread drift. Sorry.

Not at all, official transparency accountability and the lack thereof lay at the heart of many an issue discussed throughout this web-board. It's rarely ever off-topic.

Personally, I think this incapacity and inability to bring authority to heel is our civilization's Achilles's Heel and that it will almost certainly destroy us. But the funny thing is I'm coming to accept it and I think I'm okay with it. The path to enlightenment is painful but at least it's a path.

Edited May 10, 2014 by eyeball