Of course Mr. Kelly is being disingenuous. He statement tries to blame razor thin margins as the catalyst of the current situation. What he is essentially saying is this, \u201cWe have to hire temporary foreign workers because Canadians would want higher wages and we cannot afford that because we charge too little for our products already.\u201d Why is it the responsibility of the Canadian government if a restaurant is charging too little for its product to stay in business? Essentially, he is saying that his members are poor managers.<\/p>\n
The big argument I always hear is how greedy Canadian workers are. How they don\u2019t want to do anything or expect the world on a silver platter. That is generally not my experience. Canadians are hard workers, and all they ask of their job is that it pays a living wage. Sure, we have some stragglers, but all societies do. Mostly all Canadians want is a sense of fairness. Pay me what I deserve for a job well done and I\u2019ll do it. And there is the problem, that deal has been broken.<\/p>\n
Around here, the example brought up is our local hog processing plant. It is often stated how hard it is for the facility to find local workers, and that is why a foreign worker program was needed. In fact, our Mayor goes on about that in an article from Saturday\u2019s National Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of day shift at Maple Leaf\u2019s Brandon facility was staffed with local and regional hires, but there was never quite enough employees to run the plant at optimum efficiency, and no capacity within the regional labour force to staff a second shift, which was essential for the plant\u2019s viability. There was no doubt that the local and regional labour market was not going to provide the workers needed for this demanding, physical work, regardless of how much the company paid, or how many additional benefits were offered.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I do find it interesting that the exact same scenario has played out in town after town since Iowa Beef Packers, now Tyson Fresh Meats, first started lowering meat packing wages in the 1960s.<\/p>\n See: <\/strong>The Chain Never Stops by Eric Schlosser – Mother Jones<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing that really bothers me about this program, and the Mayor\u2019s love letter to Maple Leaf in the National Post, it goes against her self-claimed NDP roots. I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone in the NDP can support the TFWP.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not talking about just our local situation here, all I see with this program is a continuation of the exploitation of the foreign worker that has been going on since the day of the building of the trans-continental railroad. You bring in a foreign worker to do a job. Sure, you pay them minimum wage or just above to do the job, so you feel good about yourself. To me that\u2019s not enough. Many of these workers must stay in the job that they came over to do, even if someone was to offer them a job that paid more, was more in their field, or that fit them better. If the worker cannot leave the current employer for a better position, then how is that not indebted servitude? Just because you are paying someone does not mean you\u2019re not treating them as a slave.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/brandon.ca\/images\/stories\/councillors\/mayor.jpg\")
<\/a>So, what Mayor Decter Hirst seems to be claiming here is that either the company didn\u2019t have any foresight into the realities of the Brandon and Westman labour market, or that they did know and were planning on recruiting elsewhere from the start. I personally have no idea what Maple Leaf Foods plans were for Brandon and area, and I would like to think that they truly believed that they could find enough workers here. Was their research of the Brandon labour market that flawed? Did it exist? Were they just going by assurances of the local politicians at the time?<\/p>\n