May 10, 2007

Open Shop conference debates foreign workers

KING LEE

correspondent

VICTORIA

Immigrant workers do not take construction jobs away from Canadians, a panel told delegates to the 5th International Open Shop Construction conference in Victoria.

“They are now part of our full labour system,” said Roger Dootson, vice president and district manager of PCL Construction Management Ltd.

“You will have to import workers. There’s no question. Get prepared and get used to it.”

Dootson, Kerri Johnston, general manager of workforce development for Flint Energy Services, and Ron Nalewajek, vice president of strategic planning and development for Ledcor, formed the panel titled “Managing Foreign Workers On Site” held recently at the three-day conference of non-union construction executives in Victoria.

Dootson said his company began importing tradespeople from Germany about three and a half years ago when a shortage occurred.

He said PCL explained the need to its employees and assured them of job security before heading off to Europe to recruit workers.

PCL’s initial recruiting costs were $120,000, an average of $4,800 per person and the company budgets 50 cents an hour in excess costs for each immigrant worker.

He estimated immigrant workers cost the company 10 to 15 per cent more than Canadian workers.

But Dootson also said the savings in having projects proceed on schedule because of the imported help amounted to $900,000.

He said he found the immigrant tradespeople were eager, hard-working and reliable.

Foreign workers are now being selected to “A” teams on major PCL projects and 20 per cent of imported workers were rated above average, 60 per cent were average and the remaining 20 per cent were below average.

He recommended construction firms ensure immigrant employees learn English, preferably at night school, and are integrated into the community.

Nalewajek said the reasons for the need to import labour were a strong Canadian economy, aging work force and low birth rate. He predicted a shortfall of 1,000,000 construction workers by 2010.

Johnston said her firm received government approval to recruit 1,000 foreign workers in April of 2005 after demonstrating that Flint first looked for Canadian tradespeople to fill the vacancies.

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