Latin Americans abused on Canada Line project
Builders intimidated workers: tribunal
Latin Americans abused on Canada Line project
CanWest News Service
VANCOUVER — Companies building part of the Canada Line tunnel engaged in “coercive and intimidating” conduct against a group of Latin American workers, a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ruled.
The companies pressured the foreign workers to break ranks with their union by suggesting they wouldn’t get further work unless they signed a petition saying they did not want to be represented by the union in a human-rights complaint, the interim ruling said.
The main human-rights complaint against the companies — SELI Canada Inc., SNCP-SELI Joint Venture and SNC Lavalin Constructors (Pacific) Inc. — has yet to be heard by the tribunal.
The workers operate the tunnel-boring machine that is digging under downtown Vancouver from southeast False Creek to the Waterfront terminus.
The petition, presented in Spanish to the 30 workers from Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica, read: “I no longer wish the union to represent me before the Human Rights Tribunal.”
Twenty-one of the workers, who are in Canada on temporary work permits to build the tunnel, signed the petition, prompting the Construction and Specialized Workers’ Union Local 1611 to lodge a retaliation complaint against the company.
In its decision, the tribunal said the petition was out of bounds, noting that the workers do not speak English and the vast majority are away from their homes and families and dependent on the company for food, lodging and further work.
As a result, the tribunal found, the workers “would reasonably have perceived that their employer was linking their willingness to sign the petition with their prospects for future work.”
It also found the petition was an attempt to “create evidence to be used to attack the union’s representative status, and if successful, either derail the complaint or reduce the number of potential remedial claims against the company” if the complaint was justified.
The main human rights complaint, lodged by the union in August last year, claims the company discriminated on the basis of country of origin by paying domestic workers between $20 and $25 an hour, while paying Latin Americans the equivalent of $14 per hour for the same tasks.
The tribunal ordered that the company cease further contact with the workers except in the ordinary course of the project, and in order to prepare for the hearing on the main complaint. It also ruled the company should not engage workers in settlement discussions. The tribunal said its decision should not impede the company’s ability to discuss further work options for the workers.
The Dump 