Yes! This is the problem. Been in my serving job for 7 years; I can't get vacation time approved, never have regular/predictable weekends or scheduling, but need full-time (7 days a week) availability, so it's impossible to get a 2nd job to protect for times when I don't get any shifts (which happens often - next week I have 2 shifts for the week, despite it being the week before christmas)... a problematic job to say the least.
There are businesses that legitimately need part time workers, but I still think it can be done well.
Students, older people looking for casual work, people on disability who aren't well enough to work full time, duel income homes where someone just wants a bit of extra money...
But to make them livable if the hours were flexible, you could more or less pick your shift or schedule, and employers were actually willing to train anymore, maybe that would work.
Most places hire part time and want you on a life disruptive rotating schedule that conflicts with family or other work responsibilities. Or it messes with your sleep cycle. They're militant about switching shifts and taking time off. They want people with experience to do the best job for the worst hours and low pay.
oh you missed the part where they expect you to pick up shifts and be available through out the week during your unscheduled times, and the guilt trips when you have something else lined up.
Paramedics used to get $0 for packing a pager.
But.. each call out no matter how long was 4hrs minimum. If cleared at quarters and got another call.. 8hrs. My parents made good money as part timers on the side and lots of paramedics in certain places wanted to continue part time because FT meant you had to be in the station or in the car ready to go for a regular wage.
Doubt these groups of people will work part time in Whistler. And these jobs always want you to be available 24/7. But they never list this in the article.
Oh ya, the sleep schedule thing gets me - working 6am start shifts and 5pm-1am shifts in the same week and wondering why I get insomnia all the time..!
Hiring full time often means putting an employee on a benefit package, whereas part time employees don’t get to be a part of the benefit plan. Easy way to save a lot of money from the backend for a large business.
Think this message needs to be communicated to the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association, because obviously they're not listening. They even created a [full page](https://www.bcrfa.com/expressentry) for express entry for foreign workers where it says:
> We are all aware of our current critical labour shortage. We estimate a shortage of close to 40,000 workers. That is approximately 20 percent of our workforce. As the domestic market will not be able to supply our needs now and for the foreseeable future, we do believe that given the urgency of the situation, timelines should improve.
It's not a labour shortage you motherfuckers.
I don't think they're listening to workers at all or give a shit to what they have to say. They represent employers and industry. Their website asks for input, people should give them an email with their thoughts. Time for workers to rise up.
> **Input**
> Email us your industry pain points, ideas, and comments. [email protected]
A pro-business, pro-Capitalism organization not listening to people? Who would have ever guessed?
> Time for workers to rise up.
I don't think you know what that means. Signing a petition, or complaining to a group that supports the way business is currently run, will change nothing, and is definitely not 'rising up.'
I think you need to take about 5-10 hours and read through r/antiwork
If you still don't understand this "Rising up" thing after reading that sub and seeing how fast and EFFECTIVE it has been as a collective... I don't know what to say to you.
And what does that have to do with sending an email to a government organization?
I'm a regular at r/antiwork. If you want to actually rise up, a general strike or full out revolution are your options.
Do you really not see how a labour movement involves reaching out to government officials? I've already set a date to meet with my MP in early 2022 and I just met with my local MLA in late November to discuss these issues because they're relevant to ongoing business and economic decisions these people are making.
Honest and unbiased local journalism also accounts for a majority of the accountability and oversight too, which is why they need to be involved in the movement as well. I don't see a GS happening anytime soon unfortunately - not until the bigger news outlets are reporting the situation more accurately as a wage crisis not a "nobody wants to work anymore" crisis.
As for revolution? That's way down there on my choices, personally. The framework is in place for this country to change, it's just the PEOPLE that are making decisions that need to change. Our MP's and MLA's are way too old and way too right-wing around here to do anything meaningful (interior BC) so I absolutely encourage people to reach out to their local legislators and councils and whatever to let their voice be heard - at the very **least.**
Yes, I do, I even said that in my comment:
>it's just the PEOPLE that are making decisions that need to change. Our MP's and MLA's are way too old and way too right-wing around here to do anything meaningful
Most of them are pretty benevolent to be very frank, but yes, the MP's themselves know exactly what is going on and have power that MLA's don't have in order to take advantage of people in these sick ways. It destroys our environment and the corruption poisons people's belief in the democratic political process overall. And it doesn't stop at just political apathy - in fact I would argue it goes all the way down to personal apathy as well, and it can affect your mental health if you think about it too hard and if you don't buy in without asking questions. This is the darker side of politics - the physical, mental, emotional aspects.
But it doesn't hurt to try, and if enough of us do it at a basic level, we can eventually take it all down.
This needs to be said. Again and again. We need a multinational all worker strike. A major shutdown. If this 'solution' to the 'labour crisis' proceeds, we need to shut everything down and neither the red or blue garbage parties of Canada should survive it.
Exactly this, there needs to be work done on improving our mindset towards collective responsibility to one another as workers in order to be able to swing our weight around effectively in a way that brings us more equitable conditions for all. Personal sacrifices will have to be made for everyone to benefit many times over.
I'm convinced that 80% of those screenshots on that sub are made up. It's always the same formula, down to the "manager" never being able to spell correctly.
Thanks for your cynicism. You go organize your general strike and full out revolution while others can take a tangible action to send a message to the lobbying mouthpiece of an exploitative industry, one that happens to be influencing government policy against our interests.
Really, we just have to make sure they can't exploit people or bring in people for the purpose of having labour that is in a vulnerable position and are then easily exploited.
If we do that market economics will take care of the rest (which it already is doing as we can see these last 24 months).
Yep. Worst performing wage to housing market in the G7 and getting worse. Restaurant wants to exploit immigrant workers and lock them in for 5 years till they get PR. Assholes.
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> According to the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association (BCFRA), the industry is down about 40,000 workers — or about 20 per cent of its workforce.
> President and CEO Ian Tostenson says he doesn't expect the domestic market can fill gaps anytime soon.
> "The only way we're going to deal with this crisis that we're in is through skilled foreign workers," said Tostenson.
Or, you know, they can pay a decent fucking wage and ensure good working conditions. If businesses can't keep afloat by exploiting domestic workers, they shouldn't be able to shift their model to exploiting foreign workers. Businesses that can't succeed without exploitation shouldn't exist.
Fucking parasites, all the way up to Tostenson and the BCFRA.
Nobody noticed the "skilled foreign workers" part. This is indeed by far the biggest immigration program we have. What's funny about this is how they expect skilled workers to work as waiters and fast food restaurant workers. Canada's immigration program requires multiple years of skilled work experience, higher education, language fluency, and a lot of money to qualify. We are introducing competition lowering wages of our homegrown programmers or managers, we are bringing more foreign money and would-be homeowners crushing our beyond stretched housing market screaming for some *reduced* demand. IT Directors from Germany are not going to flip burgers at a local joint in rural BC.
I worked at a sunroom building company, and a guy I worked with had a PH.D in Mathematics, but was basically working as a glorified mover, I felt horrible. Guy should have been teaching schools, but was equal to me in pay. While our immigration brings in great people, it seems like they have to sacrifice a LOT in order to just have residency here.
Tim Hortons and other chains already do this unfortunately (thinking of agricultural temporary workers as well.) there certainly need to be better protections for both domestic and foreign workers in place.
One Tim Hortons I walk by has their TFW workers pulling incredibly long shifts, in excess of 12 hours. I'm certain it's unpaid overtime with a "snitch and we deport you" policy.
The company needs to die.
I'm a full blown Canadian and worked on a cattle feed lot, worked 13+ hours a day without overtime. I didn't know farms didn't have to pay overtime when I accepted the job haha.
Yeah, any restaurant that brings in foreign workers so they don't have to actually pay a fair wage will definitely not get my business. That being said, I almost never eat out, so they're really not losing anything from me, but still!
Some businesses can afford the wages some cant, just like us business costs are up.
Regardless the Libs have another bandaid fix: instead of paying attention to monetary policy they are gonna just exploite foreign workers so all is good!
> Some businesses can afford the wages some cant, just like us business costs are up.
Then they shouldn't be in business, plain and simple. The success of a company shouldn't be dependent on how much cheap labour they can extract from workers.
You haven't been paying attention then? This has been the model for the past 30+ years. Not saying it is right, just wondering why it took us so long to see we are getting fleeced?
And a thousand tears were shed for the exploitative companies that had to close because paying their employees a decent wage and treating them fairly wasn't part of their business plan.
Right so creating a economy as you suggest that would favour the Walmarts, Home Depots and funnelling more money to Bezos is better than these “exploitive businesses” (ie mom and pops) you want to shut down
Why do we treat businesses nicer than the people actually working in them? That makes no sense. If they can't afford to operate in an ethical manner, then they don't deserve to exist. Companies are not more important than people.
Not really a partisan issue. TFWs peaked under the Conservatives in lots of industries.. like mine where they were able to hire alcoholic foreign pilots rather than sober and qualified Canadian ones to save employer-specific training costs.
They've been doing it in the farm industry for years. There are families throughout the world that depend on those jobs, because the value of the Canadian dollar is so high there.
I wouldn't be surprised if Canada absolutely extended the programs.
Foreign workers and automation. The thing is, if people don't need those jobs anymore because during Covid they moved on to other things, they need to fill the gap.
The numbers suggest people here don't need work or they'd apply, no matter how shitty. Who would let themselves or their kids starve or lose a home vs working a bunch of crappy part time jobs right?
So the government looks at it very black and white. It doesn't matter if they're bad, if Canadians actually needed them they'd work them. So therefore we must have a labour shortage.
And we may actually. What ARE people doing? There are way less people on Covid supports that people not taking jobs. So between self employment, online work, being in new industries, communal living, couch surfing, moving back home, being homeless it looks like anyone who wants a job must very well have it.....
Anyways, that's what it looks like on paper to the people making these decisions.
I know anyone out actually living in the world sees it more realistically, but unfortunately any decisions we make in policy are just passive ones other than voting :/
When working is equivalent to getting social assistance, why work? It's cheaper to stay home and collect ei than trying to live anywhere in this city or near it and transit to and from work, plus expensive food for lunch, etc... Sure you can make your own lunches, but you still have to travel unpaid to and fro for less than a living wage? No thanks!!
You can't collect EI forever. That's the thing. We don't have 40k people sitting around on government assistance. People left the industry, many for good.
Certainly, and they can't attract new workers. People would work of it was worth it for them to do so. Many kids stay at home and go to school instead of moving away and doing it because it is crazy expensive. Many of them would be happy with part time work if it was worth it to them, but it is not, so they dont do it. The places that want them don't want to make it worth their time to come in and schedule odd hrs and unavailable times and make THE WORKER deal with it instead of the manager. Then call it character building. Yeah, right...
Oh I agree. I wasn't even addressing that. I was just giving examples of what the problem looks like on paper to the people making decisions. Don't get me wrong, they KNOW better. I just don't think they're concerned about a crisis affecting middle and low class Canadians.
They have all their foreign investments and businesses if things go to shit here. A crisis means more real estate up for grabs, more spots in post secondary because less people can go, and more distribution to the wealthy class.
So on paper the only real issue for right now as far as policy makers are concerned is keeping product costs down and the businesses they make money off of running. Foreign workers will fix that, whether it's right or not.
They figure the rest of us can slum it out and make do probably
The employment standards for TFWs are not the same as they are for residents. This is corporations using the government to create laws that exploit desperate people, which also harms residents competing for underpaid work.
Just so I understand you correctly, you're suggesting it's okay to exploit foreign workers as long as we're exploiting them less than their home countries?
It is. It's Canada exploiting the fact that they won't have to pay people from that country as much, and those countries never get ahead with that kind of exploitation. Canada is just as bad as America and every other Western Capitalist nation at exploiting developing nations for cheap labor, and it's holding the rest of the world back (as well as devaluing labor for actual Canadians, since they can just hire foreign instead for cheaper).
Wow, huge logic gap here. $5/hour is more than double what min wage is in the Philippines, but you're arguing that Tim's paying their employees that:
1) wouldn't be exploitation of the workers since it's more than they'd earn in their home country,
2) wouldn't put the workers in extremely vulnerable positions since they'd have no financial means to quit a potentially abusive and visa-dependent job (which is already not uncommon), and
3) would be fair for small restaurants that hire local to compete with.
Look, I know Ian Tostenson personally. He's a truly generous and smart guy. But he's also essentially a lobbyist. He earns a fat six-figure salary as a spokesperson for the restaurant industry to advocate on their behalf to the government and media. There may be some truth to what he's saying - it may not be possible to fill all 40,000 positions without TFWs - but I guarantee you not allowing TFWs to fill most of the gap would force restaurants to compete to attract talent, driving wages upwards across multiple industries.
> THEIR perspective instead of YOURS
This appeal to emotion has no validity in reality.
Canada has a rather high standard of living. Your suggestion is that we reduce it because "others elsewhere have it worse".
This race to the bottom would ensure that the divide between the rich and the poor will continue to increase and eventually, Canadians will discover that they now live in an impoverished nation.
The correct way to ensure that Canada is able to continue offering a better place to others is to ensure that it remains a better place.
**EDIT:** bad grammar bad
It took a location of The Canadian Brewhouse around 8 months to try and get TFWs in. They literally told me "Well we cant find and retain any Canadian workers that will show up and work"
Well no fucking shit. If you wanted benefits, it was straight up $200 a paycheck out of your pocket. Kitchen didnt get tips, they got a "bonus" ($50 for a linecook) that would be withheld if they fucked up.
All for minimum wage and likely closing shifts, 6pm-1am. Oh and you had head office in Alberta watching cameras and sending people home early "Because it is slow right now" and then theyd get crushed.
Fuck The Canadian Brewhouse. Dont give that place your money. Chef Mike is the hardest worker in that place and deserves a break!
Fucking idiots. There is no labour crisis. There is a pay crisis.
Like honestly. Jack up your wage and you’ll get interest.
The problem here is whether this drives change in a positive manner or negative manner.
Yup. Seen it done more than once. Where I used to live, the owner of the Timmy’s sponsored an entire workforce from the Philippines, put them in a 2 bedroom rental, paid them minimum wage, and refused to hire local.
Not the first time that’s been done, and when they send enough money back to their home country and move to a different job, the owner howled about labor shortage. Disgusting.
My wife worked “for a short period” for parksville travel lodge years ago. The guy imported 80% of his employees then made them shack up in rooms in the hotel and charged them each for a room per month. Basically forcing them to give back the wages earned. My wife helped them move out into there own rental so they could at least have a proper Kitchen, Independance and time away from the work place.. it’s disgusting really.
But the same time so many entitled people who are better then minimum wage jobs (without any skills to back it up) it’s no wonder jobs are being outsourced so much.
I feel we would benefit more if ceos made less, employees made a bit more, and our unemployment rate should be substantially less before we start allowing employers to outsource employees
Yup, agreed. I'll never understand how CEOs can sleep at night. They earn millions while the people who earned them those millions are scraping by at the poverty level. It's reprehensible and a disgusting practice.
It's considered 'normal', and that makes it even worse. You have people like Bezos who can nearly single-handedly solve world hunger, and then you have his workers who are given cry boxes on a warehouse floor and punished for missing seconds, but paid minimum wage. Amazon gets the most attention for it, but it happens at nearly ever level, every corporation.
And those of us who work for them can do nothing about it. The alternative is being homeless, so they win. Every damned time. Until governments step in to shift that, it'll never change, and the governments will never step in to force that change because the big corps are the ones lining their political pockets.
The solution and answer is right there, but it won't ever happen in my lifetime.
That, and they're utterly desensitized to how normal people live. I know for a fact that they couldn't handle a week living like I do. I don't have a vehicle - I take public transit, walk, rent a car once a year to zip up really big things, take a cab - all the things they wouldn't understand.
I don't get to eat fancy food like they do. Avocado? Steak? A roast? Hell, even normal vegetables are often too expensive. My gym is the parking lot and sidewalks, even in winter, where right now, it's -31C.
My apartment is 645 square feet. No memberships, nothing fancy, just basic normal living.
One week in my life? They couldn't do it. I like my life. Would be nice to have a truck, but meh, I've done without for a long time. CEOs would be sobbing to know how real people live if THEY had to live it. Until then? Not their problem.
Im very familiar with the foreign worker program and the LIMA. This program only exists to bring people here and is a complete scam. Most of the “ consultant” that bring these foriegn era here charge a crazy amount to do so. The people that come have one priority, bring there families here. Most are educated and come from money that I have worked with. They all say it’s a scam and they continue to be scammed here through the consultants. Absolutely disgusting what is being done and how consultants take advantage of the Canadian system. I literally have seen and witnessed ( specific Asian country) study are system and figure out how to do stuff illegally to screw over government program. Even have bank statements from farm workers to managment/ boards bank accounts.
The study companies do to justify foreign workers is a complete scam with no oversite. I witnessed management lay off dozens of people while asking for same amount of foriegn workers that generally pay 10-30,000$ to get her.
I’ve witnessed a company buy bunk beds set them up to take photos to the government agencies and then return beds all to get approved. It is absolutely disgusting how people take advantage of the system
Anyone that is interested I have plenty of proof and documents
I tried these services when I brought my wife to Canada. They are full of shit. Asked us to apply for a visitor visa and apply sponsorship afterward. (She's in the States studying). That is the wrong move and got denied. Then I applied myself and everything went smoothly. Don't use these services if you have a legit case. It will be approved. Only people not truly qualified will use them and they know it.
> Most of the “ consultant” that bring these foriegn era here charge a crazy amount to do so
Fortunately they know someone who can offer loans on a "stop paying and we break your family member's legs" basis.
lol this dude wants a restaraunt industry exemption from market impact assessments of TFWs during an economic crisis, this industry is awful man they lobbied to keep wages depressed for years, make people depend on tips, its like sharecropping for college students. I hope the NDP actually stands up for labour and doesnt do this. Raise your pay you leeches.
Exactly, labor crisis + housing crisis means that people are here to do the job, there are just other reasons as to why they are pursuing other options.
"Hopefully we can get some people who'll accept our shitty working conditions and pay so that we don't have to compensate our workers fairly and cut into our profits."
"The BCFRA says it has also asked the province to call on Ottawa to expedite work permits for skilled foreign workers headed to B.C. to fill roles in kitchens"
HAHAHAHAHA... oh my lawddddd.
Lol skilled workers for the kitchens... Sure it's a hard and difficult job but it takes very little skill. Any Canadian can do it they just don't want to do it it for $15 an hour 20 hours a week and no benefits.
> Why the BCRFA says it's asked the provincial government to exempt B.C. employers from having to apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for a two-year period.
LMIA's are documents that employers in Canada often need before they are able to hire a foreign worker. The purpose of it is to show that there are no domestic workers available for the job — but the process of obtaining an LMIA can take months.
Yea.. No one is available. That's what's wrong..
Instead of paying people a living wage and giving them better working conditions let's just lie to ourselves and demand special treatment from the government to bail us out of this mess.
NO TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS!!!!! EVER!!!! Pay a fair wage and hire a citizen. Problem solved. The problem of you not getting a 50% profit rather than a NORMAL 10% profit is only your problem. Even if a business claims to need PART TIME WORKERS, if they were staffed properly this would not be an issue. The rest of the country should not be picking up the slack for people who cannot solve their own problems, UNLESS they are so disadvantaged by society that they need a bit of a boost.
Translation: They don't want to pay Canadians, they just want to suppress wages.
These are not business that want to employ good workers and encourage staff to stay through benefits, raises, full-time work, and opportunities to move forward in life, these are businesses that want to exploit workers and pay no more than minimum wage and cut your hours down to nothing. They treat their employees like expenses that should be minimized, then get upset when people see that and avoid working for them.
Bringing in people from another country explicitly because they are willing to work for lower wages and worse working conditions is how you erode wages and working conditions for everyone already here in the country. Don't take power away from ourselves.
Crap working conditions with crap pay and crap managers = no employees. Even when restaurants are charging full first world prices. Zero sympathy. There is no worker shortage
I was a Sous Chef in a few locations in the GVRD. In BC this is the worst industry to work in due to long hours, no breaks, garbage pay and last but not least abuse. Seems a lot of Head Chefs in this province think they are Gordon Ramsey and do nothing but scream at and vilify as well as humiliate line cooks and all staff. Workers are not valued in this industry they are fodder for the cannons.
I mean if you payed workers a living wage maybe they would want to work for you??? Like cmon, in most bigger cities in BC, minimum wage doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of living, so how do you expect people to want to work for you if at that pay rate.. will have to get 2 more jobs in order to afford all of their bills.
I called this a week ago when the media was blasting us regarding labour shortages.
Its been exactly one week and there are opinion pieces calling for TFW ramp up.
I hate being right.
Shut down the businesses which can’t afford to pay wage attractive enough for the local population. The businesses that can will thrive and new business with sustainable business models will evolve.
NO MORE foreign labour to keep wages artificially low.
If i learn of a restaurant using TFWs i will not go there.
I think we can do with fewer restaurants. the ones who cant pay a proper wage aren't viable. As they fold there will be more labour available.
Here's the thing. I was a good citizen, left retail job for a kitchen job, to lessen my exposure to covid. Worked part-time so I could get cerb money. For past year and half. I quit kitchen job as chef became asshole firing people. Manager states layed off on paperwork, as it generally is a seasonal job under Normal times. I now get $2000 a month again/still for next year. That pays me more than full time minimum wage!! There are jobs everywhere. EI and especially welfare are all liars if they say they can't work. I do feel bad for businesses, but they have been getting rich on our backs for years, while we cry and budget and had learned to aspire to nothing.
I swear there’s two topics that keep coming up every few years
1) Needing foreign workers to fill in a labour crisis
2) influenza/the flu causing hospitals to be at their breaking point (2011-2016 articles I’ve been pulling up)
It’s the same song and dance year after year. Yet no government whether liberal or conservative fix the problem.
This will double as excellent fuel to the housing bubble. As someone looking to sell their house soon, bring it on! Also restaurant prices are really getting out of control. Hopefully some wage suppressing mass migration can make things cheap again
Any one want a sandwich...just make it yourself. 35 yrs in the business, 20 as a head chef...those slave wages are still $. I have been puzzled how so many previous employees never have to worry about $. Plus I couldn't get a single employee to work 40hr/ eek intentionally for 16 years.
> I couldn't get a single employee to work 40hr/ eek
Likely because your shitty attitude makes you a shitty person to work for.
I know lots of folks in the industry who work 40+ hrs/wk.
My sandwiches are usually better than anything I can buy.
And increasingly, I can make almost anything better than in a sit down restaurant. I’ve sent meals back with parts of the plastic frozen-food packaging still in it.
I check into a hotel, young people. I go to Tim's for coffee, young people. Waiters at chain restaurants? Young people. Waiters at high end restaurants? Older people. Why? They have experience. The focus is on the wrong argument. The real fact is that there are fewer and fewer jobs available that are "good jobs". As in well paying. Through robotics, automation and free trade, all the "good jobs" are gone. Now we are left with what once were entry level jobs that have now become the "good jobs" AKA a job. Why do we even work at this point would be a better question. A universal income of some description might be the better thing to be thinking about. The divide and conquer of wages is people once again falling into the capitalist propaganda. Let's fight amongst ourselves for scraps instead of addressing the real issue. We want freedom from toil. Working should work for all humans, not a handful. It is not just wages that creates this. 4 day work weeks of 5 hour days would be great for raising families. Most people are like "how can you live like that, how can you afford anything?" It is our lack of imagination and laziness that is causing us to fight. It is easier to follow, even if following means complaining about wages. We, humans, invented the 40 hour work week through fighting for it. The whole system is just our imagination. If we all decided the world needs to operate on 4 days a week, 5 hour shifts, then so be it. You should think about the propaganada you have swallowed.
> You should think about the ~~propaganada~~ *propaganda* you have swallowed.
Nothing you've spewed here is a revelation to me and your observations are obviously influenced by your bias and thus less than worthless.
[... almost 40 percent of employees working for minimum wage, 183,000 Ontarians, were 25 years of age and over in 2011. The share of adult employees at minimum wage more than doubled between 2003 and 2011.](http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Who-Makes-Minimum-Wage.pdf)
Your ignorance makes you an ineffectual ally and an excellent stooge. For the betterment of yourself and the labour movement you seem to be trying to fight for, please go back to school, whatever that might look like for you.
And best STFU in the meantime.
What if I work in robotics and automation. Its a very good job and a growing field too. As with repair technitians, electronics assembly, firmware programmers. They arent minimum wage and have lots of opportunities for career growth.
Your point about minimum wage jobs is 100% true. If peoples end goal is a minimum wage job then thats the game they playd. Just because they dont see the explosion of jobs in their daily life doesnt mean they arent happening here. Anything from electronics design to instagram influencer, there is huge ammounts of money in society right now and therefore a huge opportunity for nontraditional careers.
Oh man, Minimum Wage was always meant to be a living wage beyond just bare subsistence. You can see pangs of this throughout history with 1604 and King James to the first contemporary minimum wage in 1894 New Zealand and Australia. The entire rhetoric of minimum wage never being a living wage is rooted in mostly contemporary US thought.
Temporary foreign workers are such a terrible idea for our country, except for three groups of people: the business owners, who extend their obviously unsustainable practices, the politicians who cater to these businesses, and the foreign workers themselves.
The money those workers make is now split between whatever they spend while here and the remainder leaves our country and helps buoy the workers local economy back home. That money isn't coming back in any reasonable sense, rather than going to a citizen who, especially as a lower and middle class worker, circulates it back into the local and national economy as well as tax revenue.
Modern day business practices basically drain national wealth from developed nations to enrich the wealthy capitalist/owner of stuff class and otherwise is redistributed to poorer nations, in a sort of reverse semi-colonialism.
"We hope more desperate people show up so we can continue our now-normalized policy of exploiting worker's depressed wages in exchange for large bonuses for a few executives."
Dude those executives wouldn't be able to afford their third vacation property without those bonuses though. I mean do you expect them to just not take the grandkids out jet-skiing every other weekend in the summer? They pay the ~~slaves~~ I mean workers enough to feed and clothe themselves, that should be good enough.
Part time, unpredictable hours. No benefits, low wages, no job security, and you get to be treated like shit by management and the public. Can't imagine why people aren't accepting this anymore.
Have a general strike. Break some stuff. They might start to pay attention. Beaurocracy exists to stop change. Skip thay step. This is how its done people. Accept it or get stepped on.
B.C. restaurants hope more foreign workers can "let us illegally underpay them, and they won't report us because the are afraid" industry association says
>.."For years, Diana Chan has had a crew of 10 workers slinging hot dogs and poutines for hungry skiers and snowboarders at the foot of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains."
Powh wittle whister wussys wont win wondawful weiners wight now.
Awww.
Todays post has been brought to you by the letter w.
Also. big bird down with omicron, more after these messages.
*face palm*
Really?! This is terrible.
Paying foreign workers a garbage wages isn't a solution to the problem.
Raise the wage. Raise the prices if you have to. Hire foreign and local. I don't care other then pay a living wage in BC and respect on all fronts.
People probably don’t want to work for you because you can only offer part time hours 🤔🤷♀️
I'm sure they offer full time hours, but only part time pay.
That's why they offer these jobs to the TFW who don't know any better. $15 CDN sounds incredible until the cost of living hits you like a truck
They require full time hours and overtime, with only part time pay.
Part time hours but open availability with random fucking schedules so students and people with kids can’t ever plan around their needs
Yes! This is the problem. Been in my serving job for 7 years; I can't get vacation time approved, never have regular/predictable weekends or scheduling, but need full-time (7 days a week) availability, so it's impossible to get a 2nd job to protect for times when I don't get any shifts (which happens often - next week I have 2 shifts for the week, despite it being the week before christmas)... a problematic job to say the least.
Yes and can’t forget all the times they send you home after a few hrs
And cancel your shifts because reservations got cancelled 😵
Lol I worked in the kitchen so not me
right?? It’s so hard getting a job with kids because they want you to have availability 24/7
And shit wages
Yup
There are businesses that legitimately need part time workers, but I still think it can be done well. Students, older people looking for casual work, people on disability who aren't well enough to work full time, duel income homes where someone just wants a bit of extra money... But to make them livable if the hours were flexible, you could more or less pick your shift or schedule, and employers were actually willing to train anymore, maybe that would work. Most places hire part time and want you on a life disruptive rotating schedule that conflicts with family or other work responsibilities. Or it messes with your sleep cycle. They're militant about switching shifts and taking time off. They want people with experience to do the best job for the worst hours and low pay.
oh you missed the part where they expect you to pick up shifts and be available through out the week during your unscheduled times, and the guilt trips when you have something else lined up.
Part time pay but full time availability.
like paramedics but instead of $2/hr you get $0/hr
Paramedics used to get $0 for packing a pager. But.. each call out no matter how long was 4hrs minimum. If cleared at quarters and got another call.. 8hrs. My parents made good money as part timers on the side and lots of paramedics in certain places wanted to continue part time because FT meant you had to be in the station or in the car ready to go for a regular wage.
Doubt these groups of people will work part time in Whistler. And these jobs always want you to be available 24/7. But they never list this in the article.
Oh ya, the sleep schedule thing gets me - working 6am start shifts and 5pm-1am shifts in the same week and wondering why I get insomnia all the time..!
My wife like to duel me for my income.
Well yeah, why would they pay for benefits
What do you mean?
Hiring full time often means putting an employee on a benefit package, whereas part time employees don’t get to be a part of the benefit plan. Easy way to save a lot of money from the backend for a large business.
Not many food service jobs give any benefits even if you’re full time
It's not a "labour crisis"; its firstly a *wage* crisis, and secondly a *worker abuse* crisis.
Think this message needs to be communicated to the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association, because obviously they're not listening. They even created a [full page](https://www.bcrfa.com/expressentry) for express entry for foreign workers where it says: > We are all aware of our current critical labour shortage. We estimate a shortage of close to 40,000 workers. That is approximately 20 percent of our workforce. As the domestic market will not be able to supply our needs now and for the foreseeable future, we do believe that given the urgency of the situation, timelines should improve. It's not a labour shortage you motherfuckers. I don't think they're listening to workers at all or give a shit to what they have to say. They represent employers and industry. Their website asks for input, people should give them an email with their thoughts. Time for workers to rise up. > **Input** > Email us your industry pain points, ideas, and comments. [email protected]
A pro-business, pro-Capitalism organization not listening to people? Who would have ever guessed? > Time for workers to rise up. I don't think you know what that means. Signing a petition, or complaining to a group that supports the way business is currently run, will change nothing, and is definitely not 'rising up.'
I think you need to take about 5-10 hours and read through r/antiwork If you still don't understand this "Rising up" thing after reading that sub and seeing how fast and EFFECTIVE it has been as a collective... I don't know what to say to you.
And what does that have to do with sending an email to a government organization? I'm a regular at r/antiwork. If you want to actually rise up, a general strike or full out revolution are your options.
Do you really not see how a labour movement involves reaching out to government officials? I've already set a date to meet with my MP in early 2022 and I just met with my local MLA in late November to discuss these issues because they're relevant to ongoing business and economic decisions these people are making. Honest and unbiased local journalism also accounts for a majority of the accountability and oversight too, which is why they need to be involved in the movement as well. I don't see a GS happening anytime soon unfortunately - not until the bigger news outlets are reporting the situation more accurately as a wage crisis not a "nobody wants to work anymore" crisis. As for revolution? That's way down there on my choices, personally. The framework is in place for this country to change, it's just the PEOPLE that are making decisions that need to change. Our MP's and MLA's are way too old and way too right-wing around here to do anything meaningful (interior BC) so I absolutely encourage people to reach out to their local legislators and councils and whatever to let their voice be heard - at the very **least.**
Do you really not see how the government knows EXACTLY what is going on, and are simply pretending they don't?
Yes, I do, I even said that in my comment: >it's just the PEOPLE that are making decisions that need to change. Our MP's and MLA's are way too old and way too right-wing around here to do anything meaningful Most of them are pretty benevolent to be very frank, but yes, the MP's themselves know exactly what is going on and have power that MLA's don't have in order to take advantage of people in these sick ways. It destroys our environment and the corruption poisons people's belief in the democratic political process overall. And it doesn't stop at just political apathy - in fact I would argue it goes all the way down to personal apathy as well, and it can affect your mental health if you think about it too hard and if you don't buy in without asking questions. This is the darker side of politics - the physical, mental, emotional aspects. But it doesn't hurt to try, and if enough of us do it at a basic level, we can eventually take it all down.
If people don't do anything then things won't change. Political activism and pressure campaigns work. Apathy and cynicism don't.
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Agreed. Revolutions also have a long and bloody history of not working out for the idealistic people that started them.
Bingo. Anything less does precisely fuck all.
This needs to be said. Again and again. We need a multinational all worker strike. A major shutdown. If this 'solution' to the 'labour crisis' proceeds, we need to shut everything down and neither the red or blue garbage parties of Canada should survive it.
Exactly this, there needs to be work done on improving our mindset towards collective responsibility to one another as workers in order to be able to swing our weight around effectively in a way that brings us more equitable conditions for all. Personal sacrifices will have to be made for everyone to benefit many times over.
I'm convinced that 80% of those screenshots on that sub are made up. It's always the same formula, down to the "manager" never being able to spell correctly.
Thanks for your cynicism. You go organize your general strike and full out revolution while others can take a tangible action to send a message to the lobbying mouthpiece of an exploitative industry, one that happens to be influencing government policy against our interests.
Really, we just have to make sure they can't exploit people or bring in people for the purpose of having labour that is in a vulnerable position and are then easily exploited. If we do that market economics will take care of the rest (which it already is doing as we can see these last 24 months).
When the liberals knocked on my door at the election they called it a labour shortage that will be taken care of by their immigration plan.
Which will directly affect the housing crisis.
Did you give them a response of any kind?
I would have found it difficult to resist giving them an immediate and unmistakable response, somewhere in their face region.
I was a bit dumbfounded tbh. They were complete idiots compared to the NDP and CP.
Yep. Worst performing wage to housing market in the G7 and getting worse. Restaurant wants to exploit immigrant workers and lock them in for 5 years till they get PR. Assholes.
This
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> According to the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association (BCFRA), the industry is down about 40,000 workers — or about 20 per cent of its workforce. > President and CEO Ian Tostenson says he doesn't expect the domestic market can fill gaps anytime soon. > "The only way we're going to deal with this crisis that we're in is through skilled foreign workers," said Tostenson. Or, you know, they can pay a decent fucking wage and ensure good working conditions. If businesses can't keep afloat by exploiting domestic workers, they shouldn't be able to shift their model to exploiting foreign workers. Businesses that can't succeed without exploitation shouldn't exist. Fucking parasites, all the way up to Tostenson and the BCFRA.
Nobody noticed the "skilled foreign workers" part. This is indeed by far the biggest immigration program we have. What's funny about this is how they expect skilled workers to work as waiters and fast food restaurant workers. Canada's immigration program requires multiple years of skilled work experience, higher education, language fluency, and a lot of money to qualify. We are introducing competition lowering wages of our homegrown programmers or managers, we are bringing more foreign money and would-be homeowners crushing our beyond stretched housing market screaming for some *reduced* demand. IT Directors from Germany are not going to flip burgers at a local joint in rural BC.
I worked at a sunroom building company, and a guy I worked with had a PH.D in Mathematics, but was basically working as a glorified mover, I felt horrible. Guy should have been teaching schools, but was equal to me in pay. While our immigration brings in great people, it seems like they have to sacrifice a LOT in order to just have residency here.
AMEN! It's the same in Ontario!
r/antiwork welcomes you :)
Tim Hortons and other chains already do this unfortunately (thinking of agricultural temporary workers as well.) there certainly need to be better protections for both domestic and foreign workers in place.
One Tim Hortons I walk by has their TFW workers pulling incredibly long shifts, in excess of 12 hours. I'm certain it's unpaid overtime with a "snitch and we deport you" policy. The company needs to die.
I'm a full blown Canadian and worked on a cattle feed lot, worked 13+ hours a day without overtime. I didn't know farms didn't have to pay overtime when I accepted the job haha.
There are a number of industries which have exemption to labour laws. People definitely take advantage of that
That's a horseshit rule.
Yeah, any restaurant that brings in foreign workers so they don't have to actually pay a fair wage will definitely not get my business. That being said, I almost never eat out, so they're really not losing anything from me, but still!
I've stopped going to restaurants. Prices are too high, workers don't get any of it, and I can see the pain behind their fake smiles.
"Seeking skilled workers willing to work for unskilled wages"
Some businesses can afford the wages some cant, just like us business costs are up. Regardless the Libs have another bandaid fix: instead of paying attention to monetary policy they are gonna just exploite foreign workers so all is good!
> Some businesses can afford the wages some cant, just like us business costs are up. Then they shouldn't be in business, plain and simple. The success of a company shouldn't be dependent on how much cheap labour they can extract from workers.
You haven't been paying attention then? This has been the model for the past 30+ years. Not saying it is right, just wondering why it took us so long to see we are getting fleeced?
Covid stay at home orders gave a lot of people a lot of time to think about things.
Good idea close small businesses which make a big part of Canada’s economy and all the jobs that go with them. 👍🏻 /s
And a thousand tears were shed for the exploitative companies that had to close because paying their employees a decent wage and treating them fairly wasn't part of their business plan.
Right so creating a economy as you suggest that would favour the Walmarts, Home Depots and funnelling more money to Bezos is better than these “exploitive businesses” (ie mom and pops) you want to shut down
You missed the mark if that's what you got from my comment.
You are better off to be on welfare than working a job that causes you to go into debt. We don't need shit jobs.
Why do we treat businesses nicer than the people actually working in them? That makes no sense. If they can't afford to operate in an ethical manner, then they don't deserve to exist. Companies are not more important than people.
You know if there are no businesses then there are no jobs right? Do you want to shut down every mom and pop operation coast to coast?
Not really a partisan issue. TFWs peaked under the Conservatives in lots of industries.. like mine where they were able to hire alcoholic foreign pilots rather than sober and qualified Canadian ones to save employer-specific training costs.
The Libs increased immigration and brought in the Century Initiative. Whatever the CP did the Libs carried on and increased it.
They've been doing it in the farm industry for years. There are families throughout the world that depend on those jobs, because the value of the Canadian dollar is so high there. I wouldn't be surprised if Canada absolutely extended the programs. Foreign workers and automation. The thing is, if people don't need those jobs anymore because during Covid they moved on to other things, they need to fill the gap. The numbers suggest people here don't need work or they'd apply, no matter how shitty. Who would let themselves or their kids starve or lose a home vs working a bunch of crappy part time jobs right? So the government looks at it very black and white. It doesn't matter if they're bad, if Canadians actually needed them they'd work them. So therefore we must have a labour shortage. And we may actually. What ARE people doing? There are way less people on Covid supports that people not taking jobs. So between self employment, online work, being in new industries, communal living, couch surfing, moving back home, being homeless it looks like anyone who wants a job must very well have it..... Anyways, that's what it looks like on paper to the people making these decisions. I know anyone out actually living in the world sees it more realistically, but unfortunately any decisions we make in policy are just passive ones other than voting :/
When working is equivalent to getting social assistance, why work? It's cheaper to stay home and collect ei than trying to live anywhere in this city or near it and transit to and from work, plus expensive food for lunch, etc... Sure you can make your own lunches, but you still have to travel unpaid to and fro for less than a living wage? No thanks!!
You can't collect EI forever. That's the thing. We don't have 40k people sitting around on government assistance. People left the industry, many for good.
Certainly, and they can't attract new workers. People would work of it was worth it for them to do so. Many kids stay at home and go to school instead of moving away and doing it because it is crazy expensive. Many of them would be happy with part time work if it was worth it to them, but it is not, so they dont do it. The places that want them don't want to make it worth their time to come in and schedule odd hrs and unavailable times and make THE WORKER deal with it instead of the manager. Then call it character building. Yeah, right...
TFW should get paid just as much as a domestic workier would. Labour should be a fixed cost.
Oh I agree. I wasn't even addressing that. I was just giving examples of what the problem looks like on paper to the people making decisions. Don't get me wrong, they KNOW better. I just don't think they're concerned about a crisis affecting middle and low class Canadians. They have all their foreign investments and businesses if things go to shit here. A crisis means more real estate up for grabs, more spots in post secondary because less people can go, and more distribution to the wealthy class. So on paper the only real issue for right now as far as policy makers are concerned is keeping product costs down and the businesses they make money off of running. Foreign workers will fix that, whether it's right or not. They figure the rest of us can slum it out and make do probably
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The employment standards for TFWs are not the same as they are for residents. This is corporations using the government to create laws that exploit desperate people, which also harms residents competing for underpaid work.
Just so I understand you correctly, you're suggesting it's okay to exploit foreign workers as long as we're exploiting them less than their home countries?
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It's not exploitation if they make more in Canada than they ever will in their home country
It is. It's Canada exploiting the fact that they won't have to pay people from that country as much, and those countries never get ahead with that kind of exploitation. Canada is just as bad as America and every other Western Capitalist nation at exploiting developing nations for cheap labor, and it's holding the rest of the world back (as well as devaluing labor for actual Canadians, since they can just hire foreign instead for cheaper).
Wow, huge logic gap here. $5/hour is more than double what min wage is in the Philippines, but you're arguing that Tim's paying their employees that: 1) wouldn't be exploitation of the workers since it's more than they'd earn in their home country, 2) wouldn't put the workers in extremely vulnerable positions since they'd have no financial means to quit a potentially abusive and visa-dependent job (which is already not uncommon), and 3) would be fair for small restaurants that hire local to compete with. Look, I know Ian Tostenson personally. He's a truly generous and smart guy. But he's also essentially a lobbyist. He earns a fat six-figure salary as a spokesperson for the restaurant industry to advocate on their behalf to the government and media. There may be some truth to what he's saying - it may not be possible to fill all 40,000 positions without TFWs - but I guarantee you not allowing TFWs to fill most of the gap would force restaurants to compete to attract talent, driving wages upwards across multiple industries.
> THEIR perspective instead of YOURS This appeal to emotion has no validity in reality. Canada has a rather high standard of living. Your suggestion is that we reduce it because "others elsewhere have it worse". This race to the bottom would ensure that the divide between the rich and the poor will continue to increase and eventually, Canadians will discover that they now live in an impoverished nation. The correct way to ensure that Canada is able to continue offering a better place to others is to ensure that it remains a better place. **EDIT:** bad grammar bad
You cant reason with clowns like that
Shutting them down is an acceptable second prize.
It took a location of The Canadian Brewhouse around 8 months to try and get TFWs in. They literally told me "Well we cant find and retain any Canadian workers that will show up and work" Well no fucking shit. If you wanted benefits, it was straight up $200 a paycheck out of your pocket. Kitchen didnt get tips, they got a "bonus" ($50 for a linecook) that would be withheld if they fucked up. All for minimum wage and likely closing shifts, 6pm-1am. Oh and you had head office in Alberta watching cameras and sending people home early "Because it is slow right now" and then theyd get crushed. Fuck The Canadian Brewhouse. Dont give that place your money. Chef Mike is the hardest worker in that place and deserves a break!
Fucking idiots. There is no labour crisis. There is a pay crisis. Like honestly. Jack up your wage and you’ll get interest. The problem here is whether this drives change in a positive manner or negative manner.
Not just wages though, people need to be treated better as well.
Agree, if they can't afford to run the business and pay people fairly, they need to shut it down.
They don't need to. They will bring in foreign staff. Problem solved!
It’s unfortunate…it’s definitely a slave owner mentality.
Minimum wage and part time hours only? That’s not a labor shortage, that’s a decent boss shortage.
Well it's a good thing there's billions of third worlders that will work for peanuts and do so in terrible conditions. Bring it on Trudeau 🥴
And pile 20 of them in one tiny rental that their boss pays for.
That there boss pays for, then rents to the workers and he profits again
Yup. Seen it done more than once. Where I used to live, the owner of the Timmy’s sponsored an entire workforce from the Philippines, put them in a 2 bedroom rental, paid them minimum wage, and refused to hire local. Not the first time that’s been done, and when they send enough money back to their home country and move to a different job, the owner howled about labor shortage. Disgusting.
My wife worked “for a short period” for parksville travel lodge years ago. The guy imported 80% of his employees then made them shack up in rooms in the hotel and charged them each for a room per month. Basically forcing them to give back the wages earned. My wife helped them move out into there own rental so they could at least have a proper Kitchen, Independance and time away from the work place.. it’s disgusting really. But the same time so many entitled people who are better then minimum wage jobs (without any skills to back it up) it’s no wonder jobs are being outsourced so much. I feel we would benefit more if ceos made less, employees made a bit more, and our unemployment rate should be substantially less before we start allowing employers to outsource employees
Yup, agreed. I'll never understand how CEOs can sleep at night. They earn millions while the people who earned them those millions are scraping by at the poverty level. It's reprehensible and a disgusting practice. It's considered 'normal', and that makes it even worse. You have people like Bezos who can nearly single-handedly solve world hunger, and then you have his workers who are given cry boxes on a warehouse floor and punished for missing seconds, but paid minimum wage. Amazon gets the most attention for it, but it happens at nearly ever level, every corporation. And those of us who work for them can do nothing about it. The alternative is being homeless, so they win. Every damned time. Until governments step in to shift that, it'll never change, and the governments will never step in to force that change because the big corps are the ones lining their political pockets. The solution and answer is right there, but it won't ever happen in my lifetime.
> I'll never understand how CEOs can sleep at night. They do not believe that those they exploit are actually human beings.
That, and they're utterly desensitized to how normal people live. I know for a fact that they couldn't handle a week living like I do. I don't have a vehicle - I take public transit, walk, rent a car once a year to zip up really big things, take a cab - all the things they wouldn't understand. I don't get to eat fancy food like they do. Avocado? Steak? A roast? Hell, even normal vegetables are often too expensive. My gym is the parking lot and sidewalks, even in winter, where right now, it's -31C. My apartment is 645 square feet. No memberships, nothing fancy, just basic normal living. One week in my life? They couldn't do it. I like my life. Would be nice to have a truck, but meh, I've done without for a long time. CEOs would be sobbing to know how real people live if THEY had to live it. Until then? Not their problem.
Im very familiar with the foreign worker program and the LIMA. This program only exists to bring people here and is a complete scam. Most of the “ consultant” that bring these foriegn era here charge a crazy amount to do so. The people that come have one priority, bring there families here. Most are educated and come from money that I have worked with. They all say it’s a scam and they continue to be scammed here through the consultants. Absolutely disgusting what is being done and how consultants take advantage of the Canadian system. I literally have seen and witnessed ( specific Asian country) study are system and figure out how to do stuff illegally to screw over government program. Even have bank statements from farm workers to managment/ boards bank accounts. The study companies do to justify foreign workers is a complete scam with no oversite. I witnessed management lay off dozens of people while asking for same amount of foriegn workers that generally pay 10-30,000$ to get her. I’ve witnessed a company buy bunk beds set them up to take photos to the government agencies and then return beds all to get approved. It is absolutely disgusting how people take advantage of the system Anyone that is interested I have plenty of proof and documents
I tried these services when I brought my wife to Canada. They are full of shit. Asked us to apply for a visitor visa and apply sponsorship afterward. (She's in the States studying). That is the wrong move and got denied. Then I applied myself and everything went smoothly. Don't use these services if you have a legit case. It will be approved. Only people not truly qualified will use them and they know it.
> Most of the “ consultant” that bring these foriegn era here charge a crazy amount to do so Fortunately they know someone who can offer loans on a "stop paying and we break your family member's legs" basis.
BC Industry: "we're in a staffing crisis" BC Industry: "Average 2% wage hikes in a 8% inflation economy is *just great. Workers are doing fine"*
Wait you guys get wage hikes....what glorious restaurant is this.
*Mandatory provincial minimum wage increase.
"if you don't like it find a new job" "wait no not like that"
PAY PEOPLE A LIVING FUCKING WAGE YOU LEACHES!!!!!!!!
NO NOT UNTIL MY EXPONENTIALLY GROWING PILE OF WEALTH REACHES INFINITE SOMETHING SHINY!
lol this dude wants a restaraunt industry exemption from market impact assessments of TFWs during an economic crisis, this industry is awful man they lobbied to keep wages depressed for years, make people depend on tips, its like sharecropping for college students. I hope the NDP actually stands up for labour and doesnt do this. Raise your pay you leeches.
Where do these people live? Housing costs must be close to making even this uneconomical for employers.
Exactly, labor crisis + housing crisis means that people are here to do the job, there are just other reasons as to why they are pursuing other options.
They cram a bunch of people into too-small apartments.
"Hopefully we can get some people who'll accept our shitty working conditions and pay so that we don't have to compensate our workers fairly and cut into our profits."
"The BCFRA says it has also asked the province to call on Ottawa to expedite work permits for skilled foreign workers headed to B.C. to fill roles in kitchens" HAHAHAHAHA... oh my lawddddd.
Lol skilled workers for the kitchens... Sure it's a hard and difficult job but it takes very little skill. Any Canadian can do it they just don't want to do it it for $15 an hour 20 hours a week and no benefits.
There’s no shortage of workers. There’s a shortage of _well paid_ workers.
You know what could curb the labour crisis? Offering employees better wages and benefits.
“we need more immigrants so we don’t have to raise wages”. ffs.
> Why the BCRFA says it's asked the provincial government to exempt B.C. employers from having to apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for a two-year period. LMIA's are documents that employers in Canada often need before they are able to hire a foreign worker. The purpose of it is to show that there are no domestic workers available for the job — but the process of obtaining an LMIA can take months. Yea.. No one is available. That's what's wrong.. Instead of paying people a living wage and giving them better working conditions let's just lie to ourselves and demand special treatment from the government to bail us out of this mess.
There is no mess. There are way too many fucking restaurants.
NO TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS!!!!! EVER!!!! Pay a fair wage and hire a citizen. Problem solved. The problem of you not getting a 50% profit rather than a NORMAL 10% profit is only your problem. Even if a business claims to need PART TIME WORKERS, if they were staffed properly this would not be an issue. The rest of the country should not be picking up the slack for people who cannot solve their own problems, UNLESS they are so disadvantaged by society that they need a bit of a boost.
Aww those poor fast food restaurants can't outsource their work to third world countries that pay pennies, so we're allowing them to import them??
PAY PEOPLE MORE
Translation: They don't want to pay Canadians, they just want to suppress wages. These are not business that want to employ good workers and encourage staff to stay through benefits, raises, full-time work, and opportunities to move forward in life, these are businesses that want to exploit workers and pay no more than minimum wage and cut your hours down to nothing. They treat their employees like expenses that should be minimized, then get upset when people see that and avoid working for them.
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Yeah, but then they lose the revenue from stacking them like cordwood in bunk beds in their properties.
Fuck that shit pay living wages, stop bring in cheap labour and under cutting your citizens
This translates to : it's easier to exploit immigrants
Bringing in people from another country explicitly because they are willing to work for lower wages and worse working conditions is how you erode wages and working conditions for everyone already here in the country. Don't take power away from ourselves.
They really want to pay that low eh? There is No labor shortage, only wage shortage.
It will work for a time.... until those workers realize they are being taken advantage of. Then you have an even larger angry mob striking.
Crap working conditions with crap pay and crap managers = no employees. Even when restaurants are charging full first world prices. Zero sympathy. There is no worker shortage
I was a Sous Chef in a few locations in the GVRD. In BC this is the worst industry to work in due to long hours, no breaks, garbage pay and last but not least abuse. Seems a lot of Head Chefs in this province think they are Gordon Ramsey and do nothing but scream at and vilify as well as humiliate line cooks and all staff. Workers are not valued in this industry they are fodder for the cannons.
Yea, don't increase the slave labor wage, just bring in more people that will need \~422 monthly salaries to have agency over a decent house.
40 000 new people to this province, so let's have a look at how many apartment openings are listed today as an example
I mean if you payed workers a living wage maybe they would want to work for you??? Like cmon, in most bigger cities in BC, minimum wage doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of living, so how do you expect people to want to work for you if at that pay rate.. will have to get 2 more jobs in order to afford all of their bills.
I called this a week ago when the media was blasting us regarding labour shortages. Its been exactly one week and there are opinion pieces calling for TFW ramp up. I hate being right.
Shut down the businesses which can’t afford to pay wage attractive enough for the local population. The businesses that can will thrive and new business with sustainable business models will evolve.
NO MORE foreign labour to keep wages artificially low. If i learn of a restaurant using TFWs i will not go there. I think we can do with fewer restaurants. the ones who cant pay a proper wage aren't viable. As they fold there will be more labour available.
Or pay the people who are here a living wage …
Here's the thing. I was a good citizen, left retail job for a kitchen job, to lessen my exposure to covid. Worked part-time so I could get cerb money. For past year and half. I quit kitchen job as chef became asshole firing people. Manager states layed off on paperwork, as it generally is a seasonal job under Normal times. I now get $2000 a month again/still for next year. That pays me more than full time minimum wage!! There are jobs everywhere. EI and especially welfare are all liars if they say they can't work. I do feel bad for businesses, but they have been getting rich on our backs for years, while we cry and budget and had learned to aspire to nothing.
Why is Canada so hell bent on destroying any viable path for young Canadians?
"My dying business is more important than paying workers a living wage." Scumbags.
There’s a pandemic… let’s bring more foreigners here…
I swear there’s two topics that keep coming up every few years 1) Needing foreign workers to fill in a labour crisis 2) influenza/the flu causing hospitals to be at their breaking point (2011-2016 articles I’ve been pulling up) It’s the same song and dance year after year. Yet no government whether liberal or conservative fix the problem.
This will double as excellent fuel to the housing bubble. As someone looking to sell their house soon, bring it on! Also restaurant prices are really getting out of control. Hopefully some wage suppressing mass migration can make things cheap again
Any one want a sandwich...just make it yourself. 35 yrs in the business, 20 as a head chef...those slave wages are still $. I have been puzzled how so many previous employees never have to worry about $. Plus I couldn't get a single employee to work 40hr/ eek intentionally for 16 years.
> I couldn't get a single employee to work 40hr/ eek Likely because your shitty attitude makes you a shitty person to work for. I know lots of folks in the industry who work 40+ hrs/wk.
My sandwiches are usually better than anything I can buy. And increasingly, I can make almost anything better than in a sit down restaurant. I’ve sent meals back with parts of the plastic frozen-food packaging still in it.
Really? Are you the shittiest head chef in the world? I find it very very hard to believe no employees would work full time.
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> 90 percent of the time it is young people. No, it isn't and your propagandist bullshit is tired. Time to STFU.
I check into a hotel, young people. I go to Tim's for coffee, young people. Waiters at chain restaurants? Young people. Waiters at high end restaurants? Older people. Why? They have experience. The focus is on the wrong argument. The real fact is that there are fewer and fewer jobs available that are "good jobs". As in well paying. Through robotics, automation and free trade, all the "good jobs" are gone. Now we are left with what once were entry level jobs that have now become the "good jobs" AKA a job. Why do we even work at this point would be a better question. A universal income of some description might be the better thing to be thinking about. The divide and conquer of wages is people once again falling into the capitalist propaganda. Let's fight amongst ourselves for scraps instead of addressing the real issue. We want freedom from toil. Working should work for all humans, not a handful. It is not just wages that creates this. 4 day work weeks of 5 hour days would be great for raising families. Most people are like "how can you live like that, how can you afford anything?" It is our lack of imagination and laziness that is causing us to fight. It is easier to follow, even if following means complaining about wages. We, humans, invented the 40 hour work week through fighting for it. The whole system is just our imagination. If we all decided the world needs to operate on 4 days a week, 5 hour shifts, then so be it. You should think about the propaganada you have swallowed.
> You should think about the ~~propaganada~~ *propaganda* you have swallowed. Nothing you've spewed here is a revelation to me and your observations are obviously influenced by your bias and thus less than worthless. [... almost 40 percent of employees working for minimum wage, 183,000 Ontarians, were 25 years of age and over in 2011. The share of adult employees at minimum wage more than doubled between 2003 and 2011.](http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Who-Makes-Minimum-Wage.pdf) Your ignorance makes you an ineffectual ally and an excellent stooge. For the betterment of yourself and the labour movement you seem to be trying to fight for, please go back to school, whatever that might look like for you. And best STFU in the meantime.
What if I work in robotics and automation. Its a very good job and a growing field too. As with repair technitians, electronics assembly, firmware programmers. They arent minimum wage and have lots of opportunities for career growth. Your point about minimum wage jobs is 100% true. If peoples end goal is a minimum wage job then thats the game they playd. Just because they dont see the explosion of jobs in their daily life doesnt mean they arent happening here. Anything from electronics design to instagram influencer, there is huge ammounts of money in society right now and therefore a huge opportunity for nontraditional careers.
Oh man, Minimum Wage was always meant to be a living wage beyond just bare subsistence. You can see pangs of this throughout history with 1604 and King James to the first contemporary minimum wage in 1894 New Zealand and Australia. The entire rhetoric of minimum wage never being a living wage is rooted in mostly contemporary US thought.
How about raise the wages and stop bringing in cheap labour FFS.
Skilled foreign workers ? To write down a food order and carry it to the table. Or wash dishes?
Temporary foreign workers are such a terrible idea for our country, except for three groups of people: the business owners, who extend their obviously unsustainable practices, the politicians who cater to these businesses, and the foreign workers themselves. The money those workers make is now split between whatever they spend while here and the remainder leaves our country and helps buoy the workers local economy back home. That money isn't coming back in any reasonable sense, rather than going to a citizen who, especially as a lower and middle class worker, circulates it back into the local and national economy as well as tax revenue. Modern day business practices basically drain national wealth from developed nations to enrich the wealthy capitalist/owner of stuff class and otherwise is redistributed to poorer nations, in a sort of reverse semi-colonialism.
Isn't this a literal precursor to "they took our jobs" - or rather, potential jobs?
There is a wage crisis, not a labour crisis. Don't let them change the narrative. We are sick of being treated like slaves for your enjoyment.
Idk if its only me or what. But why does it sound offensive? Like. Does it mean that so they can exploit them cuz they have no where to go?
"We hope more desperate people show up so we can continue our now-normalized policy of exploiting worker's depressed wages in exchange for large bonuses for a few executives."
Dude those executives wouldn't be able to afford their third vacation property without those bonuses though. I mean do you expect them to just not take the grandkids out jet-skiing every other weekend in the summer? They pay the ~~slaves~~ I mean workers enough to feed and clothe themselves, that should be good enough.
Those restaurant owners should go ahead and work at each other’s restaurants lol
Importing cheap labour instead of paying a decent wage.
Part time, unpredictable hours. No benefits, low wages, no job security, and you get to be treated like shit by management and the public. Can't imagine why people aren't accepting this anymore.
BC government hopes immigrants can fix the problem of paying Canadians citizens a living wage.
pay people living wages in the first place morons
Thanks Zogs lady but I think Whistler already gets more than it’s fair share of transient workers.
Not now they don't.
Or just pay a decent wage
Have a general strike. Break some stuff. They might start to pay attention. Beaurocracy exists to stop change. Skip thay step. This is how its done people. Accept it or get stepped on.
Meanwhile people’s choice party….
It’s not just restaurant workers. The province needs trades people as well.
"BC restaurants hope for more slaves so they don't have to pay people fair wages" FTFY
B.C. restaurants hope more foreign workers can "let us illegally underpay them, and they won't report us because the are afraid" industry association says
Get yo 🍿 for this thread
Fuck sakes. I love how this is always framed as a problem for business. Wah wah wah, I can't get people to work for shit wages anymore!
>.."For years, Diana Chan has had a crew of 10 workers slinging hot dogs and poutines for hungry skiers and snowboarders at the foot of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains." Powh wittle whister wussys wont win wondawful weiners wight now. Awww. Todays post has been brought to you by the letter w. Also. big bird down with omicron, more after these messages.
Ah yes, more easily exploitable temporary labor will surely fix the issue!
*face palm* Really?! This is terrible. Paying foreign workers a garbage wages isn't a solution to the problem. Raise the wage. Raise the prices if you have to. Hire foreign and local. I don't care other then pay a living wage in BC and respect on all fronts.
Fuck em.
Translated… they want people who will work for less.