2013-01-22
Peter O'Neil
Labour critic Shane Simpson said the NDP, if elected, would make it easier for foreign workers to report abuse.
The Vancouver Sun
OTTAWA — The provincial New Democratic Party, motivated in part by reports of abuse of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker program, plans to toughen enforcement of workers’ rights and perhaps revamp B.C.’s Employment Standards Act if the party wins the May election.
“We’re going to do a better job” at the Employment Standards Branch, NDP labour critic Shane Simpson said in an interview. “And we’re looking at whether that will require additional resources, and I expect it does.”
Simpson also said an NDP government would ensure the branch has “more tools to do their job.”
He said he doesn’t believe the changes would affect B.C.’s ranking as the jurisdiction with the least red tape in Canada. That ranking came Tuesday from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which gave B.C. an A, the federal government a B-minus, and put four jurisdictions in a tie for last with a D-minus — Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.
“I think for the vast majority of businesses are acting appropriately, and they don’t have a problem,” he said.
The B.C. New Democrats are considering emulating Manitoba’s NDP government, which requires employers using the temporary foreign worker program to register with the province.
“Employers register for a whole lot of things, and the idea that you register when you bring employees in from a foreign country to work in Canada,” Simpson said. “I don’t think that’s a very untoward approach.”
The B.C. Liberal government under Gordon Campbell made big changes to employer-employee relations in 2002-03, amending the Employment Standards Act, cutting staff at the Employment Standards Branch by a third and closing almost half the branch’s offices.
The Campbell government also increased fines to $500 for a first offence and $10,000 for a third offence. But employees were required to formally complain to their employers before going to the Employment Standards Branch to file a grievance.
Since 2002, the number of temporary foreign workers coming to Canada has soared, reaching a record 190,842 in 2011. B.C. gets almost a quarter of the national total.
Several advocacy groups and academics have warned of growing exploitation of such workers. The issue came to the public’s attention last fall when it was disclosed that a consortium of mostly Chinese companies planned to use exclusively Chinese workers in four underground coal mines in B.C.
In December, The Vancouver Sun reported that an owner of two fast food franchises was requesting payments from TFWs of close to $20,000 to get minimum-wage jobs. The provincial Employment Standards Branch and federal Canada Border Services Agency are looking into that allegation.
Simpson said temporary foreign workers are vulnerable to exploitation because their status in Canada is dependent on maintaining a good relationship with their sponsoring employer. For many unskilled foreigners, such a job is the only realistic way to get permanent resident status under the Provincial Nominee Program.
“They are almost indentured directly to their employer, so they don’t have the ability to say, ‘I’m not enjoying it here and I’m going down the road where someone else will hire me.”
Simpson said the NDP will consider some of the changes proposed in October by the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition, which represents labour organizations, advocacy groups, legal aid societies, lawyers and academics.
The coalition’s proposals included a multi-language telephone helpline for foreign workers.
The coalition also proposed the elimination of a requirement that workers who feel they’re being exploited — whether foreign or Canadian — first confront their boss before they file a complaint with employment standards.
Simpson said he agrees with both recommendations, as well as the coalition’s call for a provincial standards branch with the capacity and will to launch investigations and audits rather than just respond to complaints.
“We need to probably go back to the more conventional model, where you actually had resources and did investigations.”
While federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney suggested last month that B.C.’s fines are too low, Simpson said he’d do more consultation before changing them. He said, for instance, that the size of fines might be tied to a company’s assets.
But he also said Ottawa and the provinces have to figure out a better way to police the temporary foreign worker program. The B.C. Employment Standards Coalition’s report called it a “jurisdictional maze.”
The federal government, Simpson said, gives companies permission to import foreign workers, but provinces are left to police the system despite lacking information about these workers.
B.C. Jobs Minister Pat Bell has refused several requests from The Vancouver Sun to comment on employment standards’ monitoring of temporary workers in B.C..
Food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations
Policymakers, Public awareness, Unions, and NGOs/community groups/solidarity networks
British Columbia
Political science
English
