Tim Hortons commits to hiring 10,000 local employees, scaling back on temporary foreign workers (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 day ago by Wudi@feddit.uk to c/canada@lemmy.ca

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] RainbowBlite@piefed.ca 38 points 1 day ago

There was absolutely no reason to grant TFWs to restaurants. It just shows that money matters more to the government than people.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 14 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

The original purpose of the TFW program was for roles with specialized expertise where the company couldn't find qualified people who are already citizens or PRs.

And I'm absolutely fine with that.

Then over the years it expanded to include basically any job that nobody else wanted to work, due to (mostly) the company not being willing to offer fair wages, full time shifts or decent working conditions.

And that's where most of the problems happened.

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago

I’m disgusted anyone ever approved that.

The idea that you can’t pay the absolute minimum so there’s some sort of shortage of morons is insane.

Even in like fort Mac during the oil highs that was insane, it was perfectly fair to pay $20-$30/hr to get people to move to a remote area and sell coffee with now competition.

The idea you can’t find employees to sell coffee and shitty sandwiches is absurd.

I do partially blame minimum wage as that lets companies openly collude on underpaying workers too (well we only legally have to pay X so we’ll pay that much).

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

I do partially blame minimum wage as that lets companies openly collude on underpaying workers too (well we only legally have to pay X so we’ll pay that much).

To argue that it's at fault because shitty owners pay only so much diverts from the fact that we needed a law to get them to even pay that much.

Review the conditions and wages before we had laws about them.

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Ideally we would put owners who won’t even pay that much on an ice floe and send them to sea.

I just think saying “this is what you should pay unskilled/fungible workers” sets an unhealthy anchor for labour prices.

Minimum wage isn’t tied to specific labour markets, it’s a chore to update, and you have to fight for it each time. We can definitely update it to be meaningfully better.

I also don’t think it’s a good tool for addressing the market asymmetry where humans need food and shelter more than businesses need labour.

I’d like to see the whole thing rethought out.

[-] 42firehawk@fedinsfw.app 4 points 20 hours ago

Part of the reason I really like the minimum wage laws where I live (us but close to the border) is that the law says the minimum wage is based on a formula, and that formula is just a determination of what cost of living requires that wage to be. It's simple, doesn't allow for arguments over routine changes, and keeps it in an effective band.

There are issues with everything else, but at least that part is functional.