Stop Temporary Foreign Workers

Does anyone know if there is a limit on foreign workers in a company? Eg. 20%-30%?

 

This summer, under public pressure, Employment Minister Jason Kenney placed a limit of 30% Temporary Foreign Workers in low wage workplaces. However, the limit is not retroactive, nor does it apply to trucking. A trucking company can replace every single Canadian worker with Temporary Foreign Workers. Stubborn Canadians who refuse to leave can be easily vanquished by a hiring a dispatcher who dispatches work in a language that only the Temporary Foreign Workers speak.

 

Listened to a little of nemo's show today and a caller,"Bill" spoke of the shear discrimination between Americans vs. Canadians in relation to changing domicile, yet Canadian immigrants seem to have little resistance between here and there.

 

I came to Canada on a temporary work permit back in 2009 and have long since become a permanent resident and am now married to a local Canadian girl. I like living in Canada (although I won't often admit that during winter!) but the way drivers are treated over here is absolutely diabolical.
I've now been here 5 and a half years and fully welcome the crackdown on the foreign worker program and while that may sound completely hypocritical because I came in on that program, I also fully understand that its keeping job standards rock bottom and I was a part of that in my own small way.
I've never come across any Canadian drivers actually being replaced, the companies here in New Brunswick will take anybody with a pulse and drivers get treated just as badly by the companies whether they're Canadian or foreign. The bottom line is that while the constant revolving door of endless foreign drivers allows these cowboy companies to continue operating with the "meat in the seat" mentality, nothing will change.
I fear that in the end the Canadian government will buckle under industry pressure and open the flood gates again but I do keep my fingers crossed for changing times where the job is worth doing and more importantly, once the job is worth doing, that local native Canadians are actually given the opportunity to enter the job and not by-passed because its quicker and cheaper to import someone in. Time will tell I suppose.

 

Yes there are thousands of youtube videos of foreign truckers who think so highly of themselves ,everything short of taking a dump they must make a video.Especially Russian.And you can translate the comments and they openly discuss the quickest routes to realizing the american dream of high paying trucking job.I have brought this too the attention of those who should care but they don't.

 

Welcome to the forum.

I'm pretty sure I posted this last month or so ...... anyway ...... I had the links then as well ..... there were 3 adds on Kijiji (Moncton, NB), all for drivers. Add 1 says it needs a class 5 (car) driver to deliver flowers - $16.00/hr. Next add says it needs a class 3 (small straight truck) driver - $17.00/hr. Next add is for a class 1 (semi) driver - $17.50 to $18.00 / hr DEPENDING ON EXPERIENCE !!!!

In certain areas of North America, it's getting harder and harder to be a good ol' fashioned truck driver. Period. Really. 6 or 8 weeks of school (or whatever it is now .... ) to get a CDL, and for what ? The same pay as the guy in the Hyundai delivering flowers .... and meanwhile watching for the DOT because you forgot to mark your 4 min fuel stop from earlier in your log book. Yep. $1.50 an hour more to spend all that money at school, push that large car thru traffic, do ALL that paperwork. Deal with all that pay day grief from the employeer ........... need I go on. Oh yeah ..... the guy in the Hyundai goes home every night for that same pay ..... and with no log book, he can go deliver pizza's that night AND MAKE MORE $$$ THEN YOU now !

Don't hold your breath with Ottawa ...... just look to see what all the lobbyists are lobbying for ........

 

Many thanks,

Its my experience in Canada, well in NB at least that once you become a truck driver you suddenly become a worthless piece of crap who is to be treated in the same way as a light bulb, on and off, on and off at the companies convenience, both with work and as a result with pay. As you say, you can get a job in Moncton for example working for Armour and be on about $17 per hour for city work, yet if you go down the road like I did for them for a few months, you're on mileage pay and where the city driver works 10-12 hours, gets paid for the whole thing, the mileage rate drivers sit around everywhere for hours a day/night and earn absolutely nothing for it and often take home a few hundred dollars a week less for more time spent at work.
In my opinion its mileage pay thats the root of all evil when it comes to working conditions in jobs here. Drivers are not in control of the work they're given or how quickly or slowly places load and unload and it just leads to the ridiculous situation we have now. Last week for example I only worked four days, I loaded in McCains in Florenceville, NB which took 5 hours (How the hell can it possibly take that long to put 23 kids on?!?!)....it then took another five hours to unload in Cleveland, Ohio (again, WTF?!?!) and because I refused to wait 24 hours for a reload nearby they sent me empty all the way to Albany, NY to load, which then ended up taking 4 and a half hours because they weren't expecting me so didn't have it ready. So in one week, or less in fact, I've sat 14 and a half hours for $60, we get $20 for each pick and drop....its not very good is it? No wonder local people don't want to do the job and why so many local drivers have gone to Alberta and New Brunswick companies only stay in business due to the endless supply of convenient foreign drivers.
If I could convince my Canadian wife to move back to England with me, I'd be gone tomorrow, not because I dont like living here, because I do, but because I'm sick of banging my head against a brick wall trying to make a living on mileage pay and being screwed over every step of the way by people on hourly pay or salary who don't give a ####. England has many problems but as workers you have far more rights and protection than drivers in Canada do, and lets not even mention how drivers are treated in the US!

 

Wells said,and with America's high unemployment rate there is a seemingly endless pool of suckers who will sit 20 or 30 hours a week babysitting a truck for no compensation. What you describe is no doubt become the rule rather than the exception.I have seen this industry go steady downhill for all my 30 years and its now coming to a head.Four hour load/unloads is quite common.

 

Im also from New Brunswick and I currently live there and fly back and forth to Alberta where I'm fluid hauling. I love the province but I plan on never working in it again. I'll fly back and forth forever if I have to. Almost 3 years I've been driving truck and 5 months of it was in NB doing 5 day long haul, home on weekends and I regret even going back home to do that. Way too many hours put in and nothing to show for it. Always worrying if your truck will break down again or if you'll even get enough miles to pay the bills so you can take care of your family. You'd be pretty lucky to find anything over 18/hr. It's pretty backwards when you have to work 4000 km away from home so you can actually be home with your family more weeks in a year, have an awesome stress free job, and even after paying for your own flights still take home more than three times as much. Probably would have made more sense if my wife and I had both worked full time at Tim Hortons or something instead of driving truck in NB which is sad. New Brunswick needs to figure out their work situation. No wonder all the companies need to hire people from other countries if everyone that lives there leaves for Alberta.

 

It seems to me that New Brunswickers are happy to stay a "have not" province. IIRC, they just recently voted AGAINST high paying jobs and a higher standard of living.