A series of government documents, acquired by the Alberta Federation of Labour, indicate that many Alberta companies were allowed to underpay temporary foreign workers in 2013.

The AFL says this shows the misuse of the TFW program and how it isn’t just limited to a few sectors of the economy.

“These documents are a snapshot of what was happening while Jason Kenney, the minister responsible for the program, was telling the public he had taken steps to better monitor and enforce the rules around the program,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said in a release. “Behind closed doors, they knew the rules were being bent and broken, and they knew thousands of TFWs were being underpaid and used as pawns to drive down wages for all Albertans.”

According to the documents, 3,718 positions were approved across Canada in the low-skill categories in 2013, with a vast majority (2,122) of those positions issued to employers in Alberta.

The TFWs were brought in to fill a variety of positions such as:

truck drivers

shipping and receiving

service station attendants

health care workers

nurse aides

front desk clerks

metal fabrication labourers

delivery drivers

woodworking machine operators

heavy equipment operators

machining tool operators

automotive mechanics

mine labourers

concrete, clay, and stone forming operators

The documents show that these workers were to be paid less than Canadian-born workers.

McGowan says with the release of these documents, it’s clear that the TFW issue stretches beyond the food services industry. . “These documents show the TFW program is being used to keep wages low, and to pay people less than what is paid to Canadians.”

"People looking for jobs at decent wages, decent hours, and decent benefits should be shocked and appalled that their federal government has been using their power to help employees essentially defy the economic wealth of gravity to keep wages down when objective conditions say those wages should be going up," McGowan says.

You can access the documents here.