Unions Push Chinese Workers Issue to Court
Monday, November 5, 2012 @ 9:01 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Two Unions are asking the Federal Court to overturn the permits that cleared the way for HD Mining International to bring 201 Chinese workers into B.C. to work on the mine project in the Murray River area.
The application was filed by the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 115, and the Construction and Specialized Workers Union Local 1611. In their application, they say foreign workers are only allowed into the country when there is a labour shortage but the unions say there are 474 miners out of work in this province, and nearly a quarter of that number are in the area where the mine is proposed.
The unions also have issue over wages, claiming the mining company posted one job at rate that was about $10 an hour lower than the current rate in the Province. The Federal rules also call for foreign workers to be paid the same wage as Canadian workers.
The B.C. Federation of Labour has called for the temporary work permits to be revoked.
Comments
Good for the unions ! Glad someone is out to protect the interests of Canadians. The politicians are selling us out way too fast !
Good to see!
Ridiculous. You want to come over to our country and mine our resources for your own benefit? Then you’ve got to use Canadian workers and pay them the going rate. Any politician who allows foreign workers to be employed here in Canada before Canadians should be imprisoned.
First we were alarmed because North American Corporations were outsourcing all of our manufacturing (and most of our jobs) to low-wage, low-tax havens all over the world. Now our resource industries are under attack. The Corporate boys can’t outsource our resources until they can insource cheap labour to do it leaving our nation an empty bag with no jobs, no tax revenues, and damned little royalties.
The mining industry simply wants cheap laborers that won’t complain, won’t raise safety issues and live in constant fear of being deported. Welcome to Conservative’s vision of a Dicken’s era workforce!
Next : CN and CP twin tracks Line, hirers Chinese Workers !
It will be interesting to see how the courts rule on this one. :-).
Good.
But really, what were people expecting when they voted a pro-China Tory government couple with a pro-China provincial Liberal crew?
Canadians don’t have anyone to blame but themselves.
“Canadians don’t have anyone to blame but themselves.” BS .. when we vote in a party we don’t give them carte blanche to do everything they please. The are STILL supposed to be working for the publics’ good and looking out for our interestes. How does first outsourcing virtually all our manufacturing and now insourcing our labour supposed to be good for us? I would argue if you had said at election time those are the things you were in favour of and would implement you probably would not have gotten elected in the first place. Allowing poiticians to do as they please after they get elected without any form or accountability pretty much makes the democratic system obsolete. And beleive me, a lot of what is happening these days seems to be geared to that.
I still think they should outsource our penal system and a lot of our judicial system….think of the potential savings. ;-)
Posted by: tingbudong on November 5 2012 10:47 AM
But really, what were people expecting when they voted a pro-China Tory government couple with a pro-China provincial Liberal crew?
——————-
There’s a much bigger issue here; this really has nothing to do with an alleged “pro China” government.
There is a race going on between the Chinese and the Americans for control of the world’s finite natural resources; oil being the biggest one. The Chinese are slowly buying up as much as they can while the Americans are still relying on brute force. Either way, we are a puny little country who really has no say in anything.
“Ridiculous. You want to come over to our country and mine our resources for your own benefit? Then you’ve got to use Canadian workers and pay them the going rate..”
Who wants to be a long wall coal miner in 3 foot high stope…??? Any takers..? Anyone qualifed to do this..? Perhaps you guys should recomend this job to your kids/grand kids when the opertunity presents itslef..
This is the issue here.. The reason there is a lack of trained people to do this work in Canada is because there is no interest to do this..Even if there was intersest the prospects would be minimal and you would still have to bring in QUALIFED underground coal miners from other places.
I have to laugh when people talk about ‘pro-China’ as being a bad thing.
We may say one thing, but vote with our wallets differently every day. Think about it.
Defections of the miners might become an uncomfortable trend. I will wait and see.
“I still think they should outsource our penal system “
The Brits and the French used to do that.
The Brits outsourced them directly to Australia and the French to Devils island.
Now Austalia is beating them at their own game…. LOL
China is terrible, China will be the end of us! Now get in the car Mable, lets get up to Walmart. I refuse to pay $40 for a shirt, Walmart has them for $15!
“China is terrible, China will be the end of us! Now get in the car Mable, lets get up to Walmart. I refuse to pay $40 for a shirt, Walmart has them for $15!”
Bingo!
Exactly. We all benefit from reasonable prices on everyday goods that come from China. What are we to do? there is not a whole lot of manufacturing going on in North America anymore, compared to how it used to be. Even General Motors has sold out to China ( another case of “if you can’t beat them then join them” perhaps?)
This trend started decades ago, long before China began to ascend. Anyone here ever buy a product made by the J.A. Pan company?
Back to the topic of discussion; I am glad that two unions have decided to take this issue to the courts. We may not win this one, but hopefully there will be a few basic rules enforced which will give the chinese masters less of a free ride.
metalman.
All the other unions will sit back and say it’s not there problem until it affects them. Same as always.
I’ve been looking but haven’t been able to find much in the way of Canadian made clothing. Stanfields underwear and Farwest clothing are the only ones I have found. Could we possibly start a list of Canadian manufacturers. It would be hard to convince most to pay a little more for Canadian or North American made clothing . Some of us would.
I do understand that we send raw materials and China in return sends a finished product back. I would like to have a choice though.
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