Restaurant that allegedly laid off 28-year employee in favour of temporary foreign workers under investigation by federal government

The Canadian Press: April 21, 2014

The federal government is investigating a Saskatchewan restaurant where two waitresses say they lost their jobs to temporary foreign workers.

A spokeswoman for Employment Minister Jason Kenney says the minister has asked his department to investigate the Brothers Classic Grill in Weyburn, Sask.

A CBC report says Sandy Nelson and Shaunna Jennison-Yung were among several servers who were fired last month and replaced by government-approved temporary help from outside Canada.

Nelson, who is 58, had been employed by the restaurant for 28 years.

She tells CBC all staff members received discharge letters in March and some were offered their jobs back, including two temporary foreign workers.

The restaurant’s owners did not immediately return phone calls, but provided CBC with a statement defending their position and maintaining they were acting within the rules of the temporary foreign workers program.

Nelson says she doesn’t understand how it’s possible she’s out looking for a job while foreigners are still employed at the establishment.

(Read the full article at The Province)

By Eric Zuesse
Global Research: April 18, 2014

President Obama, through his U.S. Solicitor General, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, has now stated that lying in political campaigns isn’t merely protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, but that it is an especially protected form of speech, which must not be hindered by any state government, such as by the state of Ohio. Ohio has outlawed such intentional deception of voters, and has established heavy criminal penalties against it, when it can be proven. The idea behind this law is that any democracy in which lying in political campaigns isn’t penalized by severe penalties, won’t remain a democracy much longer, but will instead descend into a kleptocracy: theft of elections themselves (via lies), so that they become just nominal “elections,” which are controlled by whatever aristocrats can put up the most money, to lie the most effectively, to the biggest number of voters: lying-contests.

It’s an important Supreme Court case. As Constitutional lawyer Lyle Denniston has noted, in his “Argument preview: Attack ads and the First Amendment“: “In all of the history of the First Amendment, the Court has never ruled that false statements are totally without protection under the Constitution.” However, this Supreme Court will have an opportunity to do that here, in the case SBA List v. Dreihaus; or else, to do the exact opposite — to open wide (even wider than they now are) the floodgates to political lies.

Public opinion (e.g., this), and the President of the United States (via his Solicitor General, to be discussed here below), seem to favor opening the floodgates. If that were to happen, then the recently unleashed outpouring of sheer corporate and billionaire cash (via the Citizens United decision, and the more recent McCutcheon decision) into political contests, will become even more unrestrained by (and disconnected from) any consideration of the truthfulness (or not) of this “free speech,” so that the U.S. public will naturally be inundated by torrents, not only of aristocratic money pouring over public opinions, but of outright and provable lies financed by the richest aristocrats, polluting and poisoning those torrents, which will drench voters’ minds, and will thus poison political outcomes (which is why that money is spent — to do precisely this).

U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verilli Jr., in this case, SBA List v. Dreihaus, wrote to the U.S. Supreme Court, defending political liars’ rights:

This case does not require the Court to determine precisely when an alleged chilling of speech [by the threat of being prosecuted for lying in a political campaign] constitutes hardship [being suffered by that liar], because it presents that issue in a unique election-related context that makes the hardship to petitioners [the liars] particularly clear. Petitioners [the liars] have sufficiently alleged that a credible threat of prosecution will chill them from engaging in [deceptive] speech relating to elections for public office, the very type of speech to which the First Amendment ‘has its fullest and most urgent application.’ Eu v. San Francisco Cnty. Democratic Cent. Comm., 489 U.S. 214, 223 (1989) (quoting Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 272 (1971)). As petitioners explain (Br. 40), under Ohio law, candidates who are the subject of such [lying] speech can try to silence it by complaining to the [Electoral] Commission and thereby tying up the speaker [the liar] in administrative litigation during the short window of time in which the electoral speech [that person’s lie] would be most effective [at deceiving voters].4

The court of appeals largely disregarded these considerations in favor of focusing on evidence suggesting that the Commission proceedings [the investigation into the lie] did not actually deter [the liar] SBA List from disseminating its message [its lie]. Pet. App. 17a-18a. The court correctly recognized that evidence of how agency action [the investigation into that alleged lie] has affected a plaintiff’s conduct is an important factor in the hardship analysis. In this case, however, SBA List’s particular reaction to the Commission proceedings during the 2010 election cycle does not eliminate the objectively credible threat of prosecution that petitioners [SBA List] face if they engage in similar [lying] speech in future election cycles.

When Obama’s mouthpiece there, Verilli, quoted the phrase that’s quoted in “the First Amendment ‘has its fullest and most urgent application’,” in relation to this particular case and context, he was actually quoting from a case in which the court was saying in regard to “California’s prohibition on primary [party] endorsements by the official governing bodies of political parties,” that (as that ruling said), “Indeed, the First Amendment ‘has its fullest and most urgent application’ to speech uttered during a campaign for political office.” That statement didn’t refer at all to lying in political campaigns. However, this is the type of cheap shot that the President’s lawyer must take, in order to argue that lying is “the very type of speech to which the First Amendment ‘has its fullest and most urgent application.’’” He must lie in order to defend political lying as being protected by the U.S. Constitution.

I have earlier argued that President Obama lied with exceptional skill in order to win the White House – and I say this as a Democrat who is opposed to conservatives (supporters of lies) of all parties, including the Democratic Party. So: Obama is really defending here his own practices, which won him the White House. This conservative “Democrat” is so gifted a politician that he could probably have won it with no lies at all, but he took the easy path, and now he is defending it as a matter of alleged Constitutional principle.

He’s on the same side in this as the overt Republicans are. For example, the friend-of-court brief on behalf of the Koch brothers’ Cato Institute and their comedian P.J. O’Rourke, argued in this case that, “No one should be concerned that false political statements won’t be subjected to careful examination” (perhaps by historians, after the liar has been elected and long-since collected his reward, and the honest politician has sunk into obscurity). It’s a race to the bottom they want, and conservative Democrats want it just as much as Republicans do. Cato/O’Rourke then went on to say: “A prohibition on lying devalues the truth. ‘How can you develop a reputation as a straight shooter if lying is not an option?’” In other words: We must allow deception of voters, because otherwise all politics would be honest — and that would be bad (for crooks like them, because politics then wouldn’t continue to be a lying-contest: the type where any real ‘straight shooter’ can’t have even any realistic chance at all of winning). Champion liars want to continue maintaining their advantage, not to yield it; and any law that’s enforced against political liars will remove their existing huge political advantage. Conservatives would still have most aristocratic money on their side, but no longer an unrestrained freedom to spread lies financed by that cash-advantage that they naturally enjoy.

With Obama arguing on the Republican side, and the Republicans arguing on the Republican side, how will the Republican U.S. Supreme Court rule on this matter? Let’s guess.

It could be the final nail in the coffin of democracy in America: the official full implementation of aristocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, crony capitalism, or whatever else one would call it. Maybe “fake democracy”? Oh, I forgot: we’re already there. But this would take us much farther there.

(Read the full article at Global Research)

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By Derrick Broze
Ben Swann : April 19, 2014

A new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has found that the United States’ government more closely resembles an Oligarchy or a Corporatocracy than a Republic or Democracy. Researchers examined nearly 2,000 policy changes in the United States between 1981 and 2002 and compared the changes to the preferences of average Americans, wealthy citizens, and interest and lobbying groups.

The researchers sought to find the answers to who governs in America, who really rules, and to what extent are U.S. citizens sovereign or powerless. To do this they analyzed four theoretical traditions in American politics. These include Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism. The researchers write, “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

They found evidence to support the theories of Economic Elite Domination, and Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. The key difference in the theories is the power and influence that wealthy individuals yield versus the average, or median voter.

Despite past researchers suggesting that policy changes are the result of “collective preferences” or that liberalism and conservatism in policies is representative of the views of citizens, the Princeton study suggests “that reality is best captured by mixed theories in which both individual economic elites and organized interest groups (including corporations, largely owned and controlled by wealthy elites) play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”

The researchers findings also indicate that even when a majority of citizens disagree with the economic elite, and call for policy change, they rarely get it. The researchers blame “the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system.”

The study concludes with the following statement:

“We believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”

Although the researchers (and most of the media) refer to the idealized American government as a democracy it is important to remember that the original text of the Constitution called for a republican form of government, as seen in Article 4, section 4:

“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government,”

(Read the full article at Ben Swann)

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Both Canadian workers and temporarily imported workers say Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers program is not working. Canadians are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, while their replacements are being misled and forced to pay over-priced rent to their employer.

McDonald’s foreign workers call it ‘slavery’

By Kathy Tomlinson
CBC: April 17, 2014

Foreign workers recruited from Belize are accusing McDonald’s Canada of treating them like “slaves,” by effectively forcing them to share an expensive apartment – then deducting almost half their take-home pay as rent.

“When we arrived at the airport, they said, ‘We already have an apartment for you,’ so at that point we already know we don’t have a choice of where to live,” said Jaime Montero, who came to Edmonton with four others in September to work at McDonald’s.

“We had to live there. We were told this is what we are doing,” said another worker who didn’t want to be named because he still works for McDonald’s.

The Belizeans said their dream of making good money in Canada to send to their families quickly shattered. Instead, they pocketed less than $800 per month – which they said was barely enough to live on.

The Belizians worked at McDonald’s locations in south Edmonton and said it took them more than an hour to get to work by public transit.

“You work for us now, so we are your owners. It’s like that, you know,” said Montero. “We felt like slaves. They just brought us and threw us on the side.”

Records from three employees show they made $11 an hour working at various McDonald’s locations and the company took $280 from their pay for rent, bi-weekly. Their remaining take-home pay for the same pay periods was roughly $350.

“[The apartment lease] contracts are signed by McDonald’s. All of our bills – utility bills – were billed [to us] under the name of McDonald’s,” said Montero.

“They brought us here and they are this big huge corporation. We felt that we didn’t have a chance to even voice our opinion to them because they had brought us here so they could ship us back whenever they wanted to,” said Montero. “It was like modern day slavery.”

McDonald’s housed them in a penthouse apartment in downtown Edmonton, even though they worked on the southern outskirts of the city. The corporation signed a six-month lease, which the workers said they were expected to honour as tenants.

“It was too far from work and it was very expensive,” said Montero, who said it took him an hour and a half to get to work by public transit.

“They actually said even if we leave the apartment and go rent another apartment, that McDonald’s would still deduct the rent from our salary,” said the other worker.

Since recent Go Public reports about McDonald’s practices with foreign workers, they said the corporation required all staff to sign an agreement, stipulating they would not speak to the media.

McDonald’s fired Montero in November, after he said managers accused him of complaining online about the company and intimidating other workers, which he and the other Belizeans insisted is not true.

“It was very unfair the way they did it…this was such a blow to me,” said Montero. He was also evicted from the apartment. He still has a work permit, but hasn’t been able to find another job.

“I even slept once outside in the cold. Then I found out about homeless shelters and I stayed out at the homeless shelters,” he said.

“Instead of making money here in Canada my family have had to send money.”

The rental contracts show McDonald’s paid $2,359 per month to rent the suite in the Boardwalk building. The corporation didn’t pay utilities or other extra costs.

Five workers paying $280 bi-weekly works out to $3,030 per month. That suggests McDonald’s charged them $600 more for rent than what it paid. Go Public pointed out that discrepancy to McDonald’s, but received no explanation.

The lease expired at the end of February and the Belizeans have since found a more affordable apartment.

“It’s not easy and it’s not cheap to be here,” said Montero.

(read the full article at CBC)

McDonald’s foreign worker practices face growing investigation

By Kathy Tomlinson
CBC: April 14, 2014

The federal investigation into McDonald’s use of temporary foreign workers has widened to several other locations, as more local workers speak out about feeling sidelined and shortchanged.

“I feel it’s definitely discrimination against Canadians,” said Chris Eldridge, from Lethbridge, Alta.

Eldridge just quit his managerial job for six McDonald’s locations in Alberta, because he said he could no longer stomach denying local employees much-needed shifts to accommodate temporary foreign workers.

“Honestly, some days I wonder, is this still Canada? Everyone is supposed to have equal rights.”

Eldridge was a manager who did the worker scheduling for McDonald’s franchisee Dan Brown. He’s also upset about differences in pay. Many foreign workers started at $10.80 an hour, he said, while local employees doing the same job made less.

Federal rules stipulate that foreign workers coming in to Lethbridge as food service attendants must make at least the “prevailing wage” of $10.41. However, immigration lawyers told Go Public local employees doing the same job are not supposed to be paid less or lose hours as a result.

“I was instructed to ensure, based on the contracts the foreign workers had signed, that they would be guaranteed full-time hours, no questions asked,” said Eldridge, who said that meant he had to shortchange Canadian employees.

[…]

Eldridge said the foreign workers were recruited from Belize, the Philippines and Jamaica by Actyl Group, an international recruiter used by McDonald’s Canada. It charges employers up to $2,000 per worker it recruits.

Actyl’s job website is designed to attract foreign workers. It lists numerous ads for full-time jobs at McDonald’s.

Canadians can apply, but many of the open jobs currently on the Actyl site are not advertised on popular Canadian jobs sites like Kijiji. Linda West of Actyl said that is because those McDonald’s locations already have government approvals to hire foreign workers.

“We never give up on trying to recruit Canadians,” West said. “We have had adverts up for over a year without Canadians applying.”

Eldridge said Brown houses the foreign workers in an apartment building with six to eight employees per unit, and deducts approximately $400 a month from each worker’s pay for rent.

“It’s a big apartment complex, but everyone calls it ‘the compound.’ It’s so enclosed and overpacked in a lot of ways,” said Eldridge.

Go Public asked Brown if he is also the foreign workers’ landlord, but he didn’t answer.

Emily Bryce, who still works at one of his outlets, said she believes the foreigners are exploited because many are professionals by trade and leave their children behind for a chance to live in Canada.

“My Canada isn’t one where you force people to choose between their job and their family. They should be taking full families in and giving them citizenship,” said Bryce.

The whole [foreign worker] program is unjust and it has too many loopholes in it for franchisee owners to exploit them.”
Locals feel marginalized nationwide

Go Public received complaints from McDonald’s workers in other B.C. and Alberta locations, too, as well as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

“The whole time I have worked at the local McDonald’s there has been nothing but favouritism towards the Filipinos,” said a worker in New Brunswick. “Any Canadian that works here feels that if they were to complain it would be viewed racist, but it is a serious problem.”

“I’ve seen countless [local] people turned down [for] the chance to even submit resumes, or have the chance of their resumes to be looked at, before they enter the trash,” said an employee from a B.C. location.

An insider from Edmonton wrote, “Being a former general manager for McDonald’s, I can tell you on the franchisee side of the business this is the preferred hiring method…There are numerous other franchisees in the system that will exclude hiring Canadians first.”

[…]

A former assistant manager from a McDonald’s in Parksville, B.C., who was there for 24 years, said she was effectively pushed out the door in favour of workers from the Philippines.

“All those of us who have left, you know, for sure have all felt pushed out,” said 52-year-old Christina Morrow. “It was reverse discrimination.”

Her former boss, Jamie Johannesen, owns four area franchises. Morrow said he brought in 20 foreign workers when he bought the Parksville location three years ago.

“He said they were better workers…so I would have to cut [local employee] hours to give these people 40 hours.”

Morrow said her work was criticized for the first time in two decades and her pay was cut from $18 to $11 an hour.

“It felt like a knife in my heart, she said. I’d been there 24 years…a lifetime to devote your flesh and blood to a position like that but obviously I wasn’t wanted anymore.”

She quit a year ago, because she says she couldn’t handle the pay cut.

“I would say the foreign workers were definitely favoured in almost every aspect,” said 19-year-old Brayden Chamberlain, who worked at the same McDonald’s for three years.

He quit last spring, because he said his hours had been cut so much it wasn’t worth working there anymore. He said some of the Filipinos had management roles, which made local workers feel marginalized.

“They treat you a lot differently. You’re the minority of the company and you almost end up
feeling exiled, which is why I ended up quitting,” he said. “If you are not Filipino, you have no place there.”

The owner, Johannesen, did not respond to requests for comment.

Go Public asked McDonald’s Canada for comment on this story, but the company said it needed more time to investigate.

[…]

The company said earlier it has 3,400 temporary foreign workers in its 1,400 locations and it abides by all the rules of the federal program.

NDP employment critic Jinny Sims is calling for an emergency debate in Parliament and said the government should now suspend all temporary foreign worker permits for fast-food outlets.

“I believe this is an emergency,” said Sims. “This is creating unnecessary tension and the minister cannot wash his hands of this…his government is allowing this program to be abused.”

(read the full article at CBC)

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McDonald’s accused of favouring foreign workers

By Kathy Tomlinson
CBC News: April 6, 2014

McDonald’s is under federal investigation over possible abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker program at a franchise outlet in B.C.

“The pattern is that the temporary foreign workers are getting more shifts and that the Canadians are getting less,” said employee Kalen Christ, a McDonald’s “team leader” who has worked at the Victoria location for four years.

As a result of Go Public’s inquiries, the government has suspended all pending foreign worker permits for the three McDonald’s locations owned by franchisee Glen Bishop and has blacklisted his franchise from using the program, pending the outcome of the probe.

“Many, many people have been complaining about it,” said Christ.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney’s office said investigators now want to hear from any other affected employees or job applicants, from any McDonald’s outlets in Canada.

The government probe began after Christ told Go Public the fast food outlet is bringing in Filipino workers while cutting local staffers’ hours and turning away dozens of seemingly qualified Canadians seeking jobs.

“I saw them walk in and apply. I saw the resumés, and there were lots,” said Christ. He said he has seen 50 resumés submitted by local applicants at the Pandora Avenue franchise in recent months.

“It’s sad. Some of them would have university on their resumé, and they weren’t being hired, even at McDonald’s.”

He said a manager told staff the store wasn’t hiring because up to nine new Filipino workers were coming, who still haven’t arrived.

“I don’t understand how they could even use an excuse like that,” said Christ.

Filipinos in, Canadian out

McDonald’s confirmed the three Victoria locations have 26 temporary foreign workers on staff. Christ said that out of 11 of those who work at his store, seven came in recent weeks.

Tim Turcot is a 21-year-old local resident who said he applied to work there during the same period. He wasn’t hired, despite his four years of restaurant experience.

“I don’t know why they didn’t hire me. I told them I am available 24/7 and just never got the job,” said Turcot.

He said he’s dropped off 60-odd resumés at several McDonald’s locations on Vancouver Island in the last two years. He’s since found work at another restaurant.

When asked what it was like being shut out of McDonald’s during a time of 14 per cent youth unemployment, he said, “It’s not fun. Why not give us [Canadian applicants] a chance, instead of people who don’t actually live here yet?”

Federal rules say employers can’t hire even one temporary foreign worker if there is a qualified Canadian available for the job.

“It feels like laws are being broken here. And the fact they can get away with it — and it takes someone [junior] like me to come out and say something — is kind of horrifying,” said Christ.

(Read the full article at CBC)

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