james.mc

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/busines...#ixzz2BNqLmEz4

MikeUK

Head tax next ?

james.mc

Will that be under BC PNP or TWP? I must confess I've not looked into TWP. Is there any requirement to speak either of the Official languages for TWP?

Chinese mining safety is the worst in the world from what I recall. I'm wondering what introducing Chinese mining managers and 2000 Chinese miners will do for Canadian mining safety.

I'm also a little surprised that Canadians can't be found/employed/trained up to do this. The whole deal just strikes me as odd.

dbd33

As MikeUK suggests, it's not odd, but in accordance with Canadian tradition. The Canadian coal miners want to watch themselves though. I would imagine that a remote coal mine staffed by Chinese people would not be an environment in which an anglophone would thrive. Onshoring's good for business, shit for workers (both the locals displaced from work and the imported slave labour). Seems like a Harpretic policy.

Alan2005

The problem is that companies using slaves in China have a competitive advantage over those operating in Canada. It's only fair that they be allowed to use slaves here. Anything else is just communism.

JonboyE

The location is significant. Lots of jobs in north easternern BC, but not many people.

Former Lancastrian

Allegedly not many Canadians know how to do the type of mining required to extract the coal as apparently its not the traditional way of mining coal well thats the spin on it from the company.
The Chinese workers will be employed at the Murray River Coal Mine, an underground mine, operated by HD Mining International Ltd. The company has insisted there aren’t Canadian workers trained in the skills needed to operate the machinery and other equipment used in the operation.

Aviator

Perhaps translating the operators manual into English might help?

ExKiwilass

I really don't know what to make of this.

On one hand, if there really aren't any miners who can do the job, fair enough. And allegedly they're only coming in for a few months for the initial phase of the project which will give locals a chance to get trained up for the later phases. Allegedly.

On the other hand, is this a union-busting tactic using cheap foreign labour, with help from the BC government? I'm not sure - are they being paid the same as Cdns would be or less? Are their rights protected? I guess anything could go on that far north...and this could potentially set an interesting precedent for other companies.

I guess I find it a bit hard to believe they can't find any qualified Cdns? In a country with loads of mines and natural resources?

Former Lancastrian

Also interesting
HD Mining vice-president Jody Shimkus said it received nearly 300 applications from Canadians and interviewed almost 100 but none were qualified to work in the Murray River mine, located near Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

"We require temporary foreign workers because we are introducing a highly mechanized form of long-wall mining to the province," Shimkus told CBC News. "There's currently no active long-wall mining going on in Canada or B.C."

Sinclair alleges Chinese recruiters were charging up to $12,500 in fees to applicants and suggesting to them they might be able eventually to bring their families to Canada. The wages were also well below Canadian rates and workers were offered the chance to buy a certificate of qualification and training for $160, he claimed.

Souvy

That's because you don't understand how mining works. It is a very technical and complicated business in general, more so in the case of underground mining and particularly in the case of longwall mining. Canadians don't do longwall mining.

The mine in question is owned by a Chinese company that already operates a number of coal mines, all of them using longwall techniques. It knows what it is doing and already has the staff, who also know what they are doing. Why hire and train a bunch of people who don't know what they are doing?

Former Lancastrian

I also found this story very interesting involving BC and temporary workers

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...-payments.html

The part that interested me was that sometimes Canadian employers pay more for European workers than Canadians or other foreign workers.
The European workers … were making a lot more money in Europe, given labour rates and labour conditions in Europe, so to get them to Canada they had to maintain their existing wages."

ExKiwilass

Yeah I know.

The thing is, most Canadians won't so I wonder how this will play out, politically. It's easy to do as the Union is - play the Canadians-being-replaced-by-foreign-workers card.