The President of the BC Federation of Labour is asking the provincial government to halt plans to bring Chinese coal miners here.
Jim Sinclair has raised concerns about plans to bring Asian workers here to work at coal mines in the north.
“Approach the federal government and to suspend the permit for Chinese workers to come to BC and have an independent investigation that makes public their review to see if there were any irregularities and that people actually were offered the jobs in Canada and to see if there are some issues around training where they were offered to be trained or not.”
Sinclair is skeptical of companies reporting no locally-trained workers are qualified.
He also claims recruiters have been charging would-be employees more than 12-thousand dollars each to work here.
“Also, in terms of training. They could purchase a certificate that said they were trained for 160 dollars, so just those two things alone should raise flags everywhere that something’s not only wrong in Canada, but it’s wrong in China, as well.”
Sinclair has sent Labour Minister Pat Bell a letter seeking his help ensuring any foreign workers brought here are properly trained.
“This isn’t about bein anti-Chinese. The company’s bringing all these people by internal hire within their own company in China. If that’s the case, then there’s grounds to believe they intended all along to bring people from China to do this and never had any intention at all of hiring Canadian workers.”
Sinclair says he’s not opposed to foreigners being hired under temporary work permits, but he claims wages are well below current rates set in Canada.
Labour Minister Pat Bell has responded by saying he’s taking Sinclair’s concerns seriously, but “This operation will be inspected on a regular basis we will make sure we have individuals from our ministry monitoring the labour provisions as well the allegations that Mr. Sinclair has raised are very very serious and I hope he has not done it in a frivolous manner.”
Bell adds the fine for making someone pay to work in this province is ten thousand dollars and the penalty would be immediate return to their country of origin.
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