Alan2005

These are issues with outsourcing, not issues with "the cloud". But it's by the by anyway. The fact is that a lot of IT jobs are low/semi skilled rather than high skilled and can easily be outsourced. This makes it inevitable given that RBC exists to make money for it's shareholders,

scrubbedexpat091

Considering their website shows they are hiring call centre agents in both Montreal and Toronto, they do still have call centres inside Canada.

Oakvillian

That's the key point here, I think. RBC's primary duty, so long as it operates within the law, is to make money for its shareholders. Outsourcing (whether to a Canadian service provider like CGI, to a US firm like IBM, or to an offshore organization such as Accenture or iGate) is not new. Non-core business functions (and for a bank, IT stuff is by definition non-core: it's peripheral to the task of running a bank...) are commodity services that can be done more or less anywhere.

Of course it's a kick in the guts for the Canadians whose jobs are being outsourced. But they do seem to have gone awfully quiet since the company has said, repeatedly, that all of them will likely be offered other positions within RBC. The whole story smacks of xenophobia - if it had been a bunch of Canadian employees of CGI who had come in to be trained, there wouldn't be such a lot of fuss. So it's not about outsourcing, it's about outsourcing to brown people. Apparently only one of whom was in Canada on a TFW visa.

And to Steve's earlier point about Canada being a destination country for "nearshore" outsourcing of US jobs: it was, in spades, until a handful of years ago. I used to work for an Indian outsourcing company that did a lot of business in Toronto for US clients, using a mix of Indian expat and local Canadian labour. Labour cost arbitrage for outsourcing to Canada is a lot more attractive with the $Canadian at $0.75 US than it is at par. THere are still a bunch of call centres in the Maritimes providing services to US businesses.

Former Lancastrian

Yes they do but I believe their lost baggage number is handled by their call centre in India as my mother recently found out.

PMM

Hi



Except that the TFWs are NOT employees of RBC, they are employees of Igate so, they should not be admitted as Intra-Company transfers.

Former Lancastrian

True they are not RBC employees. RBC contracted the IT stuff out to IGate who in turn then brought over Intra Co transferees from IGate India.
As I dont have the details of the worker who was being trained I can only guess that IGate brought him over as an Intra Co Transferee under exemption C12.
Im waiting anxiously to see what the Govts decision on this is and will they impose stricter conditions on Intra Co transferees in situations like this.
Id be interested to see what paperwork was presented to CBSA when this worker arrived.
I also find this very interesting from the FW Manual

Rather than issuing multiple short-term permits for each specific project, a work permit for a maximum duration of one year may be issued for a number of specific projects. This applies to projects taking place at the company premises in Canada or at a client site (generally seen as applicable for persons the company needs to transfer for their specialized knowledge). Long-term work permits, more than one year, in the intra-company transferee category should not be issued for service personnel living outside Canada whom the company wishes to parachute into a client site of the international company on a as-needed basis.

mumof2

This is standard practice in IT nowdays isnt it - having worked in the UK I recall work being outsourced to IBM & then working for Abbey/Santander & all our jobs being outsourced to spanish companies - all down to "cheapest way to get the job done" isnt it

Former Lancastrian

Yes it is. Luckily Canada has minimum wage standards and if employers hire foreign workers via the LMO route then they also have to satisfy HRSDC that the wage they are being paid is within the industry standards as well.
So $13 an hour job to a Mexican or Indian citizen is very attractive to them but not a Canadian. Hence all the foreign workers being hired by Tim Hortons etc etc.

Steve_

I don't think so, Canadians aren't really racist like that imx.

The whole thing is snowballing now, with Sunwing being accused of favouring European pilots over laid off Canadians.

They had a pilot laid off from Air Transat making that point yesterday on CBC and the CEO of Sunwing stupidly phoned in to dispute the points he had made.

Anyway his point was that his airline is seasonal and they ship their pilots over to Europe during the summer and they have a reciprocal agreement with European airlines to ship their pilots over during the winter.

Okay... reasonable business model... but that's not legal, which is the point the Air Transat pilot had made. The law says work permits are to fill gaps in the Canadian labour market, not to swap foreigners back and forth under a reciprocal agreement. That's why (as he pointed out) Air Transat, Air Canada, Westjet etc. don't do it.

I bet the lawyers for Sunwing wet themselves if they were watching, because CBC have a copy of the LMO they wrote saying they wanted the permits because they couldn't find enough pilots locally, they never mentioned anything about a reciprocal agreement.

Former Lancastrian

This reply might piss some off but its a dose of reality.
Yesterday I issued work permits to a Jamaican, Mexican and a citizen of Guatemala and all their jobs were approved by an LMO.
They were not jobs that required degrees or even post secondary education and they all payed above minimum wage.

Are you seriously telling me there are no qualified persons living in Canada to do this job?
Sadly Canada is becoming like the UK. A certain segment believe they should be entitled to this that and the other and are better off living of state benefit schemes rather than working. If I can earn nearly as much sat at home on benefits rather than working and paying taxes then WHY should I get a job?

All is forgiven the RBC chief has apologized
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...s-apology.html

Steve_

Well without knowing what kind of job it was, can't say, Kenney has been on about FSW1 applying to tradespeople.

Lacking an explanation as to why he thinks it is legal, doesn't sound as though it is in relation to the people staying permanently.

ExKiwilass

I'm really glad this issue is finally being brought out in the open and discussed.

Previous company to this, that I worked for, had a person whose sole job was to bring in temporary foreign workers on TWPs from the Phillipines and the like. These were for lower skilled jobs. She was bringing in hundreds of people all over western canada.

Pretty Flowers

I think we all have to be honest about the fact that this happens, and it happens most of the time with TWP and LMOs.

Thinking back to the jobs that I've done here on TWPs with LMO's, I think its fair to say that they could have found a Canadian to do those jobs. It's just that the RBC issue has made this a lot clearer, as it involves a lot more people in one go, and that someone in the CBC decided to report on the issue.

It seems to me that Canada has got a lot more anti-immigration over the last few years and as a result it's likely that the WP situation will tighten up even more.

Now as a PR, it would be highly hypocritical of me to comment on it, I think it's unfortunate for those concerns but seriously no-one in the fully developed world can compete with India's labour costs.

PMM

Hi


Its not anti-immigrant, it is about an unemployment rate of 7.2%

ExKiwilass

List of some of the companies doing this in the G&M today:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...113782/?page=2

"Some business owners are ardent defenders of the practice. Paul Vickers, owner of four restaurants and a casino in Calgary, argues the food service business needs reliable people, regardless of where they come from. “You pay them and they show up for work,” he said of temporary foreign workers. He said he has hired small numbers of workers, mostly from the Philippines, to work as chefs and dishwashers and pays them the same or more as his other workers. He has resorted to the program because of what Mr. Vickers calls a “disturbing trend” in hiring local workers who sometimes don’t show up. “You fire him, and he doesn’t even think of it, he just goes onto the next job,” he said."

I'll bet he loves his low paid TWPs. He can treat them however he wants and they can do...nothing.

There is also a disturbing trend of hiring TWPs then forcing them to rent accomodation that eats up most of their pay..

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2...treatment.html

A day after the review was announced, four temporary foreign workers from Mexico launched a human rights complaint against their boss at two Tim Hortons outlets in Dawson Creek, B.C., accusing him of rent gouging, forcing them into overcrowded housing, threatening to summarily send them home and general ill treatment.