Loblaw joins the ranks of Corporate Job Churners

Did you catch the latest employment news this week for Canada?  Loblaw’s is laying off 500 Office workers but no worries since Loblaw’s intends to hire even more workers in the coming year than it is laying off today – yeah, really. CBC

Loblaw Companies Ltd. has begun laying off 500 people from offices across the country, even as the company says it plans to add jobs later this year.

"As part of a broad cost-control effort we have begun eliminating corporate office roles, including various executives, members of management and colleagues at all levels," spokesperson Kevin Groh said in a statement, adding that the move will have "no effect on hourly store jobs." …

"We will continue to invest and we will be a net job creator again this year," Groh said.

What annoys me is how those who are opponents of raising the minimum wage in Ontario use this type of corporate action to beat supporters who favour the coming rise in minimum wages, but it’s a twig and not a cudgel.  These were office workers and not minimum wage retail workers; they have skills and experience and probably make well over the minimum wage and who were received benefits and corporate pensions contributions. 

And ironically, no one has questioned Loblaw’s - as to how it is possible to be a ‘net job creator’  (for this year no less) – if they are laying off 500 skilled and experienced employees in the here and now.  In the past, when you saw thousands or hundreds of workers laid off you saw a company that was significantly downgrading their operations but Loblaw’s isn’t doing that. No one keeps 500 superfluous office workers  hanging around  without work – well, all except Loblaw’s - if they are to be believed.  If  I was a young and hungry litigator starting out I would be using social media to reach out to many of those laid off workers who were in striking distance of ‘retirement’ age. But I digress. 

On the face of it, the Loblaw’s announcement defies logic. 

That is, unless you take a detailed look at current Canadian corporate employment strategy.  Offshore as much of your operation to overseas workers and for those positions which cannot be off-shored; hire local contract temporary workers from a temporary agency.  In fact, it is far cheaper to hire contract temporary workers and pay an agency fee than to hire permanent workers.  Companies have no holiday pay, benefits or pension benefits to pay out with contract temporary workers and there are no time limits beyond the ‘contract’ period which can be renewed indefinitely and at the same rate.  Also, it is the temporary agency which assumes the majority of liability for workman’s compensation should a claim arise – a not so inconsiderable cost saving.

It’s win-win for situation for all corporate companies operating in Canada, and they are all doing it.  From manufacturing to fisheries, to insurance and banking, communication companies to grocers. Our labour laws are so woefully out of date to protect Canadian workers from our homegrown Crony capitalists who literally do nothing but lay awake at night coming up with new ways to game the system. 

And if you think anyone in the professional political class will protect you one day from the widespread corporate exploitation of Canadian workers, think again. The Conservative party is the party of Crony Capitalism, and has fine tuned crafting laws to help ease off-shoring and the rise of temporary agencies.  The Greens are too busy policing what is in your garbage can and what light bulbs you use. The NDP is too busy fighting the last millennium issues or promoting ‘open borders’ and economic rights of migrants regardless of how it depresses wages for millions of ordinary working class Canadians. And the Liberals, well Moneybags Morneau even went so far as to warn young workers to get use to the new ‘reality’.
 
Welcome to the new Feudal age. 

Economic Traitors

I voted against NAFTA. I thought it was a bad idea then, and nothing I have learned since, has made me change my mind. The innate inequalities between US and Canada were too vast. A higher standard of taxation, differing minimum wages, pollution controls, health and safety, costs of operating, standard benefits were literally worlds apart. I do not have enough hands to count all the people I knew who lost their decent jobs to companies relocating their manufacturing to the United States. Furniture, cabinetry makers, small appliances, electronics, shoes, clothing, food and auto industries were either decimated or hit hard in Canada. Then came, the expansion of NAFTA with the entry of Mexico, and the nightmare just rolled on.

Many of those workers never found replacement jobs that provided even close to the same standard of living. Many of those workers did ‘retrain’ but their age and educational level often worked against them. It’s amazing what the impact 3-4 years of low wage retail sector employment and accumulative debt will do to your financial future. The 90’s was all about being turning Canada into a technical tech hub so we trained our young to be techies since we had destroyed our manufacturing sector. Then came 2000’s and so began the rapid outsourcing of white collar and technical professionals. 

Everyone tells you globalization is here to stay. You cannot turn back the tide. It’s a lie but I understand whose interest it is in to prompt this myth and let me give you a hint; it is not ‘we the people’.

Rarely do we get a glimpse inside the modern day robber barons, but this video originally posted on Facebook gives us a glimpse of life behind the corporate veil. The video begins with a Carrier official addressing their workers. “It became clear that the best way to stay competitive, and protect the business for the long-term is to move production from our facility in Indianapolis to Monterey, Mexico.” No doubt notice was given in order for the company to be in compliance with the WARN ACT.

The Carrier official entreats the crowd to understand, it’s not personal, but the business, the thing must be protected at all costs. Their lives and fate are meaningless outside this Borg. This thing is what must be protected at all costs.

Carrier indianapolis plant is closing 2017
Posted by LaKeisha Austin on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

There is an act of irony here. Carrier is relocating to Mexico to produce a product for re-sale in the United States, a product, a thing, that these very American workers may not be able to purchase in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, Carrier was granted a US$5.1 million 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit in order to expend its Indianapolis operations. In a just state, this should be repaid in full with interest before it leaves the US. Instead, it’s ‘we the people’ who have underwritten the profit and shareholder value for this crony capitalist. Frankly, I would lose no sleep if the Carrier workers started to tar and feather these economic traders. Why any economic traitor should be allowed the safety and security of the Nation state at the expense of ‘we the people’. I never thought I would quote Pat Buchanan but he put it most succinctly, "Globalization is the economic treason that dare not speak its name."

There is a solution. A system of tariffs based on the equalization of wages, workers and human rights, subsidizations, health care, pensions, environment and health and safety standards for the importation of products made in countries who have no or lower standards than our own would go a long way to protect ‘we the people’. The only role for the nation state in the modern era is to protect and promote the well-being of ‘we, the people’. If the nation state does not protect ‘we the people’ then the Nation betrayed the social contract.

As for me, since adding shareholder value has become an all-encompassing pre-occupation with our business leaders, I am waiting for the day wherein, Boards all over the corporate world, recognize CEO’s can be outsourced to China, and a Chinese CEO can be had for USD$270,000 instead of millions.

Now that’s real shareholder value.

Being an American Ally really, really sucks.

The Atlantic quotes Obama's latest speech on Iran “every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support.”

But that's not true.  Canada has commented publicly about the deal and does not support it. 

Of course, Canada just happens to be one of America's oldest allies, which would explain why we don't count. Being an ally of the America really, really sucks. It has come to mean code for; America will screw you over first. Really - just ask the Israelis, Ukrainians, Murbarak, or even the Shah.

You know what else sucks; being the victim of human trafficking and expecting the Americans will not sell you out if there is a chance their corporations can make a fast buck.

A modern form of indentured servitude is a deeply flawed business model, but gee, how it does breed corporate entitlement.

As the outrage builds among Canadians against the Temporary Foreign Workers Program Corporate Canada goes on the offensive.

Restaurant Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses have all issues their threats – businesses will close, Canadians will lose jobs, the government will lose revenue – and the world as we know it will come to an end. Although, I am not sure how much of a revenue stream the government will lose given by placing a moratorium of Temporary Foreign Workers visas, given that I am taxed at a much higher rate than the current corporate tax rates of businesses in Alberta. But I digress.

What appalls me is this sense of entitlement that permeates throughout the business class of this country. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Globe and Mail's poster child of responsible corporate use of Temporary ForeignWorkers:

Uttam Dey, who owns the Green Chili chain of six Indian restaurants in Calgary, said almost all of his 22 cooks are temporary foreign workers – mainly with experience working in New Delhi and Dubai. With plans to open three new locations in the next year, the news that Ottawa is imposing a moratorium on restaurant hires of temporary foreign workers came as a shock.

“If I don’t get the visas, how am I going to open?” Mr. Dey said Friday. He said it’s almost impossible to find someone in Canada with skill as an Indian cook who’s not timid around his blisteringly hot 75,000 BTU clay ovens used to make naan bread and kabobs. He understands the concern if there’s abuses in the system, but said he plays by the rules and pays his workers fairly. “I’m not McDonald’s. I’m not Tim Hortons,” Mr. Dey said. “I’ve tried my level best to find Canadian cooks. I can’t find them.”

This is just so much wrong I am at a loss as to where to begin.

Green Chili operates a business in Canada, and allegedly wants Canadian customers to patronage his establishment using their hard earned Canadian wages to purchase his meals, but he is unable to find a single Canadian chef to hire to cook Indian cuisine out of a country of 37 million and must go outside the country to find chefs...who knew that Alberta lacks a single community college with a professional cooking program?

As incredulous as the above sounds, what galls me is the sense that the Canadian government must provide solutions for Mr. Dey's labour issues. It has somehow become the Canadian government's responsibility to ensure Mr. Dey has an adequate supply of his preferred chefs so he can continue to grow his business in the way he sees fit.


You know, there was a time when companies would think nothing of starting an apprenticeship program so that their business needs would always be met rather than relying on the government. Obviously, that is just old school thinking and is now completely without merit.

Mr. Dey claims he treats his Temporary foreign workers decently and pays them well, but fair treatment and decent pay are the kind of terms, which in my experience, are rather fluid by definition as in a beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder kind of way. 22 Chefs, and since, they have such a unique skill set, what's the going rate for decent pay?

Of course, if Mr. Dey, were to get sick or injured, he would probably thinking nothing of going to a local Canadian hospital and be treated by doctors licensed in Canada. And if, he had to get a prescription for medicine, he would expect to be able to go to a local drug store and buy medicine which was unexpired and duly regulated for sale in Canada by Health Canada. If a thief tried to rob his business, he would probably call 911 and expect Canadian police to attend his premises, and eventually prosecute the thief in the Canadian court system, but to hire a Canadian chef to cook in his restaurant...well, no.

We simply aren't up to his standards, and probably utterly untrainable besides. After all, it's our work ethics – not his.

Cognitive Dissonance and the Globe and Mail.

The Globe and Mail editorial board weighs in on Temporary Foreign workers program and it has to be one of the most scattered editorials I have ever read. It occurred to me that this was the most blatant examples of cognitive dissonance in print that I have read in the last ten years.

It starts off fairly strong, and underscores the most recent C.D. How Institute study to add moral heft to the beginning, and I quote the G& M's own words on thestudy:

A study released this week by the C.D. Howe Institute, titled “Temporary Foreign Workers: Are They Really Filling Labour Shortages?,” concludes that they aren’t, and the program actually raised unemployment levels in the two provinces examined, Alberta and British Columbia. The author, Simon Fraser University public policy professor Dominique M. Gross, also found that the steady ramping up of the program over the past decade occurred “even though there was little empirical evidence of shortages in many occupations.”

But the dissonance comes at the end:

There are economic reasons to rethink and scale back Canada’s temporary foreign worker program. But there’s also the question of the kind of society we want. Do we want a class of working strangers who come here, do our dirty work and then are forced to leave? Canada has always wanted something else: immigrants. People who cross the seas to become our neighbours and our fellow citizens. We don’t just want them to work for us. We want them to join us, as Canadians.

No, actually, I don't believe we want them to join as as Canadians. I would have thought the entire point of bringing in temporary foreign workers is to have them leave, which is why they are brought into the country under a temporary visa rather than as legal landed immigrants.

In fact, I would wage that most of the half million temporary foreign workers currently in this country do not even come close to matching the skill set necessary to enter Canada through the normal immigration channels. Given the destruction of manufacturing and factory in this country through free trade agreements and globalization; the last thing the country needs, is an influx of more unskilled workers – we have plenty of our own homegrown ones, and if the C.D. Howe study is to believed, the presence of these temporary foreign workers act only to suppress wages and keep our own citizens poor and unemployed.

The jobs Canadians won't do

There is a lie I hear over and over again. It has been repeated so often, and in so different venues, by some many different people that it is now taken for a bold-faced fact, when it is a nothing more than a bold-faced lie. In it's simplest form it is expressed as 'the jobs Canadians won't do'.

I am a Canadian, and there are very few jobs I haven't done at one time or another, based on the simplest of economic principle; need. I have been a waitress at a truck stop, chambermaid, retail sales clerk, and lumber broker – even if I was a disaster as a lumber broker – collections clerk, bindery manager, ballet dancer, bookkeeper, secretary, law clerk, project coordinator, writer, painter, but the point is, whatever I did, I gave it my best try. I showed for work every day, and I worked, often very hard, very long, and more often than I care to remember, for very little pay.

I never thought a job was beneath me when it came to paying my bills. After 50 odd years, I know very few Canadians who won't do the same. My oldest son, has been getting up every Saturday morning to be at work by 4:30am and stays on his feet until 6pm, and he has been doing it since he was 14. He's 21 now. My youngest son, works at a movie theatre, and often does closings – well after 1am – and that on school nights. My daughter is a neuro-scientist, who has spent the last 18 months working as a receptionist because she could not get a job in her field. Now she found a job in her field, so she gets up and leaves the house by 6:00 am so she can be in the operating room at 7am. Just a regular family of Canadian slackers are we.

I am sure we can all find the odd Canadian soul, who refuses to work, there is hardly a culture in the world that does have a few of those kicking around, scamming the system or running a con. But by and large, Canadians do work, and work hard. So when I read things like, well, what Doug Sanders wrote on the Temporary foreign worker program, my craw is crossed.

Doug Sanders is a journalist, and that allegedly makes him my intellectual superior and moral better, and he believes we there are jobs Canadians won't do, and that's why we have the Temporary Foreign Workers program in the first place - so we can import 500,000 million Nannies and Tim Horton's coffee servers/cashiers. If he just ended it there, I wouldn't be writing,but he just couldn't stop himself. He had to go on and suggest there should be a fast-track to citizenship for TFWs in Canada since they should be rewarded for all the pain and suffering they endure being separated from their families in order to pick up Canadian dirty laundry and pass out the Timmie's cups.

He does not bother to read reports his own paper published on abuses to the TFW program or even the most recent report from C.D. Howe Institute which suggested the TFW program actually worked to lower or suppressed wages, and helped increase unemployment in the two provinces the institute studied.

Sander's is living in a la-la-land where big lies live. How this program actually plays out is more like this:

The Alberta Federation of Labour is taking aim at the federal government, after Today discovered that 270 Canadian workers had been replaced with temporary foreign workers at Husky Energy’s Sunrise site.

The site – located 60 kilometres north of Fort McMurray – is the workplace for more than 1,500 people, however, the AFL estimates that less than one-third of those workers are Canadian citizens.

...In an exclusive article published Tuesday, Today discovered that the non-union Italian construction firm Saipem gave Toronto-based and unionized firm Black & MacDonald contracts to complete the project’s first phase. Husky says construction on the project was finishing, and Black & MacDonald reduced their workforce. However, Saipem replaced those workers with temporary foreign workers from Mexico, Italy, Portugal and Ireland to begin work on other projects. Many Canadian workers were told there shift was abruptly coming to an end during the Labour Day long weekend.

And not a single Nanny on sight at Husky Energy's Sunrise sit. Think this is a one-off? Think again.

Despite promises to rehire Canadians who were replaced by foreign workers last week, Pacer Promec Joint Venture still has not offered the affected workers their jobs back. According to the Alberta Federation of Labour, the company has not contacted any of the 65 ironworkers who were unceremoniously replaced with temporary foreign workers - mostly recruited from Croatia - on Feb. 4. The ironworkers were working at Imperial Oil’s Kearl Lake project north of Fort McMurray and were not given any prior warnings or notice. 

So what do North Calgary Massage Works, RC Contracting Roofing, Acess Taxi, Fas Gas, Cabon Construction Inc, Cardinal Coachlines -First Student Canada, Cavabien Hair Studio & Day Spa Ltd., CB Brothers Transportation Ltd, Continental Auto Body 1998 Ltd, D.R. Painting, Fraser Construction, Cassady Welding Services, Canadian Freight Solutions Ltd, Canyon Creek Toyota, SAM Associates Tax Consultants Inc, Divine Hair Salon, Saipem Construction Canada Inc., all have in common?


They all received positive Market Opinions (LMO) from the Integrity Division, Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. There is a pdf found here of a report run June 20, 2012 by the government. The report runs 475 pages and details every company in Alberta which started the process to import TFWs into Canada. I am not saying these companies did  bring in foreign workers, but they did begin the process. Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Wendy's Family Restaurants, are all there as well, but iron workers, welders, construction workers, tax consultants, hair stylists, truckers, roofers, commercial paintings and drywallers, taxi drivers, school bus drivers, auto body workers, and massage therapists are all jobs Canadians won't do? I don't believe it for a moment.

The point Sander's does not get it is twofold. Temporary Foreign Workers brought into this country do not meet the bench markets for legal immigration to Canada which is why they are brought into this country under the TFW visa program. One good recession, and they would become a burden on the already over-burdened Canadian tax payers. Furthermore, there is simply no guarantee if you fast-tracked the TFW into citizenship they would be able to keep their jobs. If your employer's deeply flawed business model relies on labour based on a modern form of indentured servitude, well, your former TFW would simply be SOL - just like the rest of us Canadians.

You know what would be nice to see? A Canadian journalist really start to dig into this story and ask these companies why they did not go to places of high unemployment in Canada to recruit workers, but instead, chose to raid every third world banana republic that spans the globe. Now that's a story I would even pay to read.

Economic Treason -Part 2

In the fall of 2008 I was writing about the pitfalls of bail-outsand the Royal Bank outsourcing – all of which goes to show there is nothing new under the sun...which probably explains why this Toronto Star editoral misses one salient and important point in calling for a review of the Temporary Foreign Workers program - and I quote. 

As a private company, RBC has the right to outsource work and deal with any ensuing fallout for giving Canadian jobs to lower-paid workers overseas. (Toronto Star)

Really now.  Just how ‘private’ is the Royal Bank of Canada?  All the Canadian banks have been coddled, feed and protected by government legislation from foreign competition for decades, and  in the last 5 years; the Royal Bank (like other Canadian Banks) have suckled the $114 Billion from the public teat to ensure the financial prosperity of those very banks which are currently outsourcing Canadian jobs to foreign countries. 

(graphic shamelessly stolen from Blazing Catfur)

If I were the Prime Minister of Canada and channeling my inner Maggie Thatcher I would order my Minister of Human Resources to do the following without wobbling. 

1.    1.    Immediately cancel all foreign worker and visa permits by companies whose business is to outsource labour from Canada or import cheap foreign labour into Canada.  There is simply no need for any consulting firm, such as iGate or the Tata Consulting Group, to import any to worker under a TFW permit to work for them in Canada. You can conduct business here, but you must hire Canadian workers for your Canada operations.

2. Any company which has laid- off workers in the last 24 month period is simply ineligible to hire anyone through the TFW program.

3. Any business which takes public funds or is protected from competition via government regulation is not allowed to hire anyone under a TFW program or allowed to ‘outsource’ their business operations outside of Canada in order to conduct business in Canada. In this way, IBM Canada cannot use IBM India to conduct business operations in Canada. IBM is welcome to build up their business in India for Indians but it cannot build prosperity for IBM India from the pockets or on the backs of Canadians.

4. Any firm which relies on no or low skilled workers is completely ineligible to hire anyone under a TFW permit with the exception of migrants in agricultural farming.  There is simply no excuse for Tim Horton's Bell and McDonald's to not hire local workers.  

5. Any business entity which hires a skilled foreign worker must prove there was no Canadian willing to fulfill the position after a six month national search and pay a TFW a salar;y 20% higher than the prevailing Canadian labour market rate for a similar job in their area. Furthermore, each employers must pay for extensive health care coverage and benefits for a TFW employee.

6. To be eligible to hire any skilled foreign worker under a TFW permit a company must prove there is already an in-house apprenticeship or training program in place for training locals for such skills.

7. Any Canadian corporation who has business operations outside of Canada must pay a supplemental corporate tax rate based on the percentage of its business interests currently operating outside of the country which directly contributes to its functioning as a business entity in Canada. 

For example, Bell Canada has moved its' Canadian call centers and billing operations to the Philippines. Let us pretend Call Centres and the Accounts Receivable department of Bell Canada makes up 17% of Bell's total workforce operations; so consequently, Bell Canada needs to pay an additional 17% surtax on corporate earned income in Canada. Don’t want to pay a 17% surtax – hire Canadian and keep your operations in Canada for Canadians. 

8. I realize that Stephen Harper has spent a great of time and money to sign free trade deals with everyone and their grandmother, but to safeguard Canadian industries;  let’s add an employee surtax for every good or service which needs to be imported into to Canada…I realize the Free Traders will be howling but there is no such thing as free trade with countries whose governments subsidize their industries and workers – think China.

All of which is all well and good – except the Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not any such actions because his government has been far too busy promoting the prosperity of foreign workers in the interests of his corporate crones to concern himself over the prosperity ordinary  Canadians….and I quote  -

Canada announced it would spend $15.5 million over four years to support job training of young people in the Philippines as well as help streamline the regulations around infrastructure projects. (the National Post)

While $15.5 Million over four years for job training of young people in the Philippines might not seem to buy a great deal of bang for your buck in Canada; this is huge money for the Philippines  - who incidentally just happen to benefit extraordinarily from the Temporary Foreign Workers program.  

But more importantly, ask yourself; why a Canadian Prime Minister is financially supporting the employment aspirations of non-Canadian young people during one of the most serious economic crisis Canada has faced since the Great Depression? And it is under this same Prime Minister’s watch that the Temporary Foreign Workers program has expanded just so damned dramatically.

I may have had to give back my Capitalist decoder ring and I have a number of people accusing me of being a liberal because I am firmly in the ‘anti-Harperite’ camp but it is my belief that there is nothing conservative about the Harperites other than their name.  In my defense, I can say at least I am not a liberal progressive and have to wrestle with progressive ‘values’ or feel conflicted by opting to choose the welfare of my fellow compatriots over all else.