Thu, March 8, 2007
Francophones up in arms
Community, union defend journeyman over his firing from Suncor
By BROOKES MERRITT, SUN MEDIA
Veteran ironworker Carol Rioux, right, was fired from Suncor after failing English-language certification tests. His friend and fellow Suncor ironworker Marco Pelletier, left, quit Suncor in protest. (Sun file photo)
Francophones aren't buying what Suncor is selling.
And neither are the Ironworkers union or Middle Eastern oil company experts, all of whom joined the francophone community yesterday to defend a Quebec journeyman that Suncor fired after they decided his English was too poor.
"This isn't the safety issue they're making it," Jean Johnson, president of l'association Canadienne-Francaise de l'Alberta, said of Suncor's reason for firing Carol Rioux - a journeyman ironworker of over 25 years.
Suncor fired Rioux from its Fort McMurray site Monday after he failed English-language certification testing.
They said his poor English made him a safety risk.
Edmontonian Roger Macmillan, 68, spent nearly 10 years in Yemen working for various oil companies - including Calgary-based Nexen Inc. - and said management of Middle Eastern job sites helped workers from all over the globe to overcome language barriers.
"It's embarrassing to hear a Canadian company can't handle skilled Canadians because they only speak one of our two national languages," he said.
"I'm amazed that with Alberta's demand for skilled tradesmen, they couldn't have made things work," MacMillan said.
"I know of several bilingual crews working in Fort McMurray who say it's like they never left eastern Canada.
A spokesman for Suncor wasn't available for comment yesterday.
Rioux's friend Marco Pelletier - an ironworker who passed Suncor tests - quit his job in protest of Rioux's firing.
Local union representative Cleo Basque - a francophone bilingual from New Brunswick, said "something is terribly wrong when a skilled Canadian tradesman with impeccable safety credentials recognized in Alberta, gets fired from a company that employs foreign workers."
But Suncor says all of the 30 Filipinos it recruited for its Firebag site last fall are proficient in English.
International Ironworkers spokesman Darrell LaBoucan said it's a reasonable request for oil companies to pair employees with poor English with others who can help translate.
"It's possible to work (with the same) crews," he said.
Other international oil companies make the effort to accommodate other languages, said Stephen Sawyer of Aramco Services - the U.S. arm of Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia.
"The standard language of our business is English... but we have held remedial English classes to help Arabic-speaking employees who may have difficulty."
Angelina Gionet of the Fort McMurray branch of the l'association Canadienne-Francaise, said while French remains a minority in Alberta, "this issue isn't going away.
"Alberta is losing talented people. Oil companies must be more open-minded and find ways of recognizing that veteran workers understand safety, even if they do so in French."
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2007/03/08/3714030-sun.html
-------
Language forced worker off the job at Suncor, he claims
By RENATO GANDIA
Today staff
and Sun Media
Wednesday March 07, 2007
Fort McMurray Today, Canada
Suncor Energy is defending itself from charges of discrimination after it fired a Quebec ironworker for his poor English.
The dismissal prompted a resignation from another ironworker and has incensed the local union, which is demanding the oilsands giant to do more to accommodate French-speaking tradespeople.
Suncor spokeswoman Patti Lewis said it was not a matter of discrimination.
‘‘We operate in an English environment,’’ she said. ‘‘Apart from job testing, there’s a variety of things like signs, work permits and safety briefings that would be problematic (for non-English-speaking) tradesmen, and could pose unacceptable risks.
‘‘Safety is our No. 1 priority.’’
But Marco Pelletier of Cowansville, Que., who quit Monday after his friend, Carol Rioux, was fired, said the company doesn’t seem to have the same problem with workers from other parts of the world.
“They aggressively recruit labourers from China, Mexico and Germany, but won’t hire us because our English isn’t great,” journeyman steelworker Pelletier told Sun Media in a French-language interview.
Rioux, 43, of Gaspésie, Que., has been a steelworker for 25 years. He and Pelletier were recently recommended to Suncor by the Ironworkers union.
“These guys came highly recommended and are extremely well-qualified,” said Pete Anderson of Edmonton Ironworkers Local 720.
“If they’d have just given him the tests in French, he’d have passed with flying colours,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the local French Canadian Association said it’s not the first time she’s heard about the issue.
“There’s lot of stuff like that goes on every day. Here at the French Association we know what’s going on because people come and say how hard it is,” Angelina Gionet told Today this morning.
She wouldn’t say if Suncor was wrong in firing Rioux, but commented, “In my heart I think there’s more to the story. But there’s always lots of facts that we don’t know about.”
Anderson, a shop steward at Suncor, works with unionized steelworkers, the subcontractors who hire them, and Suncor, which runs the entire project.
“Suncor has turned away expert Canadian workers at a time when there’s a terrible shortage of tradesmen. It’s shameful. The foreman is bilingual; Rioux would have been fine,” he said.
Last fall, he said, Suncor hired 30 non-unionized Filipino tradesmen to work at its Firebag site farther north.
“They hired translators for them,” Anderson said.
Lewis said the Filipinos all passed English-language testing. Translators “were only hired for an interim period to welcome the Filipinos to the community,” she said.
Gionet said the local French association does the same thing for French people coming to Fort McMurray from across the country. “One of our goals here is to help them translate their resumés into English. We talk with the employers for the employees to get them the first contact,” Gionet said.
The association also helps families find French-speaking doctors, lawyers and other service providers.
Pelletier and Rioux said they feel duped.
“Come work in Alberta, they say. Just not if you speak French -- that’s what they mean,” Pelletier said.
“In Quebec we work together with non-French-speaking tradesmen. I don’t understand why Suncor can’t.”
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/292494.html
-----------
Thu, March 8, 2007
Fuel for separatists
By NEIL WAUGH
Right on, Rick George. Beauty, Ed Stelmach. Way to go, Monte Solberg.
Because the Suncor president, Alberta’s rookie premier and Stephen Harper’s human resources minister may have just made the province’s out-of-control oilsands boom a key topic of conversation in the Quebec election.
A vote, it should be pointed out, in which the breakup of Canada is again the No. 1 item on the agenda.
When Quebec iron worker Carol Rioux was run off the Suncor lease north of Fort McMurray because he couldn’t speak English, Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair was handed a golden opportunity to play the I-told-you-so card.
“They aggressively recruit labourers from China, Mexico and Germany, but won’t hire us because our English isn’t great,” Rioux blasted in French.
Suncor spokesman Patti Lewis claimed letting Quebecers speak French on the job site “could pose unacceptable risks.”
“Safety is our top priority,” she said. Even though the Ironworkers union pointed out that Suncor had Filipino tradesmen on its nearby Firebag site. The only apparent difference is that they were non-union.
Throne speech
Shortly after the news broke, Steady Eddie was sitting in the Alberta legislature, listening to Lt.-Gov. Normie Kwong read the premier’s first throne speech, in which he talked about “crafting a made-in-Alberta solution” to the province’s alleged labour woes.
“Our economy is in dire need of people to answer the calls for help wanted across the province,” Kwong said in the speech Stelmach scribbled for him. He also talked about “co-ordination of economic development, immigration and labour force planning.”
That’s the myth. The reality is, the Alberta oilsands strategy is a mess.
Albertans are making huge environmental sacrifices, companies are raking it in with penny-on-the-dollar royalties while shipping raw bitumen and jobs down the pipeline to Illinois and Texas, and thousands of unionized tradesmen are sitting at home while more and more temporary foreign workers are flooding in.
This week, the Merit Contractors Association – which is in a bitter battle with the Alberta Building Trades Council for control of the oilsands labour force – stepped up the pressure by urging the feds to “fast-track the immigration process for skilled construction workers from outside Canada.”
Except temporary workers won’t be so temporary after Solberg quietly doubled the length of stay from 12 months to two years a couple of weeks ago. He called it “Advantage Canada.”
Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair might soon be calling it “Advantage Separatism.”
‘Crisis’
This week Boisclair was in northern Quebec, campaigning for out-of-work forestry workers. Over 10,000 have been laid off in what he called a “crisis.”
His spokesman, Catherine Bourgault, branded Rioux’s firing “unjust.”
“They should give a chance to Quebecers so they can learn English,” she spat. “There is something wrong.”
Especially when Stelmach was preaching short days ago that the energy boom was for all Canadians.
“Right now, we’re still part of Canada,” Bourgault said. “But it is better for us to become a country.”
Yesterday, Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason made his own throne speech. claiming the Stelmach Tories’ lack of a boom management plan is hurting Albertans.
He vowed if the NDP ever gains control of the legislature – which is hardly likely – he’d renegotiate the foreign worker deal with the feds so that “no qualified Albertan or Canadian workers are available” before letting oilsands developers begin a Third World airlift.
Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan, in a recent letter to Stelmach, said the “litmus test” for oilsands development should be, “does it create jobs for Albertans?”
“By making it easier for companies to use the quick fix of temporary foreign workers,” McGowan snorted, “we’re allowing them to shirk their responsibility to train domestic tradespeople.”
Stelmach said he wants to help new Albertans “put down roots, raise their families and contribute to and share in Alberta’s prosperity.”
Unless, it seems, they’re from Quebec.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Business/Columnists/Waugh_Neil/2007/03/08/3713718.html
--------
Furor over French kiss-off
Unions and experts join francophone community in condemning Suncor for firing
By BROOKE SMERRITT, SUN MEDIA
Thu, March 8, 2007
EDMONTON -- Francophones aren't buying what Suncor is selling.
And neither are the Ironworkers Union or Middle Eastern oil company experts, all of whom joined the francophone community yesterday to defend a Quebec journeyman Suncor fired after deciding his English was too poor.
"This isn't the safety issue they're making it," Jean Johnson, president of l'association Canadienne-Francaise de l'Alberta, said of Suncor's reason for firing Carol Rioux -- a journeyman ironworker with over 25 years experience.
Suncor fired Rioux from its Fort McMurray site Monday after he failed English-language certification testing.
They said his poor English made him a safety risk.
"I'm amazed that with Alberta's demand for skilled tradesmen, they couldn't have made things work," Johnson said. "I know of several bilingual crews working in Fort McMurray who say it's like they never left Eastern Canada."
A spokesman for Suncor wasn't available for comment yesterday.
Rioux's friend Marco Pelletier, an ironworker who passed Suncor tests, quit his job in protest. Ironworker union members say Suncor employs at least one bilingual foreman at their site.
Local union representative Cleo Basque, a francophone bilingual from New Brunswick, said "something is terribly wrong when a skilled Canadian tradesman with impeccable safety credentials recognized in Alberta gets fired from a company that employs foreign workers."
Suncor says the 30 Filipinos it recruited for its Firebag site are proficient in English.
International Ironworkers spokesman Darrell LaBoucan said it's a reasonable request for companies to pair employees with poor English with others who can translate.
"It's possible to work (with the same) crews," he said.
Other international oil companies make efforts to accommodate other languages, said Stephen Sawyer of Aramco Services, the U.S. arm of Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia.
"The standard language of our business is English ... but we have held remedial English classes to help Arabic-speaking employees."
Angelina Gionet of the Fort McMurray branch of the l'association Canadienne-Francaise, said while French remains a minority in Alberta, "this issue isn't going away."
"Oil companies must be more open-minded and find ways of recognizing that veteran workers understand safety, even if they do so in French."
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2007/03/08/3713840-sun.html
