Unifor Joins With TIDES NGO's Against Their Own Members

[RW]

But as it stands, there is no pipeline and the current jobs have been created are getting product to market.  Why would there be a reduction in current jobs?

[Anonymous]

But as it stands, there is no pipeline and the current jobs have been created are getting product to market.  Why would there be a reduction in current jobs?

They are using temporary measures like rail, trucks and barges. These are more expensive and industry uses them with the belief that a proper pipeline network will be built in the future. Costs are rising in the industry, so if companies knew no new pipelines would be approved, then not only will they shelve future expansion plans they will scale back current operations. They've done it before, they will do it again.



You have to remember when you have only one customer as we do now, our product is heavily discounted. This will only get worse as the USA produces more and more shale oil.



Now my question for you is why on earth would Unifor which represents oil and gas workers as well steel makers oppose something that would create jobs and swell the ranks of due-paying members? It makes no sense whatsoever.

[RW]

I'm calling bullshit.

[Anonymous]

I'm calling bullshit.

What Unifor is doing is bullshit. Nobody can argue that. Taking dues from oil and gas workers and opposing development that would provide security for workers and swell the ranks. I'm sure most of them don't know about it though.

[RW]

What do you care?  Fewer union scum bags running around the oil sands right?

[Anonymous]

Unifor is on the side of California billionaires and TIDES funded anti-Canadian industry NGO's like the radical Dogwood Initiative against it's own due-paying members. This is a gross betrayal of their members.

Imagine you are a union member who pays dues off every paycheque to have the union protect your job, then one day you find out your dues money is being used to make your job obsolete.



That's what's happening to plenty of members of Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union.



Unifor announced this week it was joining a lawsuit to try to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline just approved by the Harper government after years of hearings, consultations and environmental review.



What is shocking about this is that Unifor represents a significant portion of the thousands of workers toiling, often for big paycheques, in the oilsands of Northern Alberta. The union itself says it represents "35,000 members who are employed in oil and gas extraction, transportation, refining, and conversion in the petrochemical and plastics sectors."



More than 10% of Unifor's members work in an oil- and gas-related sector and yet the union is fighting to shut many of those jobs down.

"Unifor stands united with the groups demanding that the federal government stop reckless pipeline projects and invest in greener jobs that can support families," union president Jerry Dias said in a released statement.



Dias and the union claim only 228 permanent jobs will be created by the pipeline, ignoring the many more construction jobs to build the pipeline. He's also ignoring the key point that without a way to get Canadian oil to market, all those union jobs in the oil patch will dry up.



The judicial review isn't the only part of the fight against a pipeline that the union is supporting. According to Kai Nagata, the energy and democracy director of the Dogwood Initiative, Unifor has joined his hard line environmental group in seeking to have the British Columbia government block the Northern Gateway and even Kinder Morgan pipelines.



"Our allies at Unifor, Canada's largest private sector union, have begun building full-time teams in several key ridings," Nagata wrote on the group's website.



The plan is to use B.C.'s citizen's initiative legislation to block to pipeline.



So now we have Unifor funding or supporting the opposition to two different pipelines and they are also on the record opposing the Keystone XL pipeline.



The union will claim this is all about keeping jobs in Canada but they know the industry doesn't work that way.



Oil is most often processed close to where it will be used; that requires pipelines or ships to carry the oil to markets where it is processed into many different products from gasoline to heating oil, kerosene to industrial products. That's why we have refineries in places like St. John, N.B. or Montreal.



We don't drill for oil in those cities but we do bring oil in from foreign markets, like Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, and process it for distribution to markets in Central Canada or the Northeastern United States.



In the world of Unifor all oil extracted in Canada would be processed in Canada which would require more pipelines, more trains and more ships to get the products to the foreign markets that want it. Without those export markets the 35,000 Unifor members currently involved in the oil industry will shrivel to a fraction and all that government revenue from royalties and taxes -- money used to pay for social programs -- would disappear.



Unifor is fighting against its own members, its own interests.



Why?



Maybe because they have a deeper commitment to the far-left groups they fund than they do to the hard-working Canadians who fund Unifor with their dues money.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/07/17/who-is-unifor-fighting-for">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/07/17/w ... ghting-for">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/07/17/who-is-unifor-fighting-for

There has to be a mistake Shen Li..



Why would a union that organizes oilfield workers oppose pipelines?

[RW]

Because like many others, they'd like to see Canadisn oil refined in Cansda this creating long term Canadian jobs.  Once the pipelines are built that's and that tap is turned on, there's no going back.



We should be focused on long term job retention and keeping the most profit possible on gf's very Canadian soul it's being taken from.

[Anonymous]

Because like many others, they'd like to see Canadisn oil refined in Cansda this creating long term Canadian jobs.  Once the pipelines are built that's and that tap is turned on, there's no going back.



We should be focused on long term job retention and keeping the most profit possible on gf's very Canadian soul it's being taken from.

Your right, we should not be exporting wheat, we should be refining it into bread.



RW, We already refine more than we use in Canada, so that's not the problem. We have refineries in Eastern Canada that are on the verge of closing. The excess capacity in East coast refineries and the relatively thin domestic market for oil suggests there is no economic case for more refineries to be built here. If we were going to refine more we would be refining it for overseas markets. Profitability would depend on the ability to produce a product that could be competitive with what is coming out of the new super refineries in Asia, where labour and infrastructure costs are much lower. In that case too there is little reason to be refining more here.



This reason for opposing oilsands development is the most disingenuous trick the NDP uses. Barack Obama has said Keystone XL would create about 50 f/t jobs while Brian Mason, the provincial NDP leader has said Keystone XL would ship 40,000 jobs to the US. Obviously, they are both lying.

[RW]

That's the argument Shen - we should be refining it for overseas markets.  Why are we making work for China?  Anyway, that's the reason for opposition.  It's not only legitimate, it's echoed by others who want to see a greater economic benefit to Canadians.



A pipeline would create 50 f/t jobs?  Whoop di fuckin' do!  That's NOTHING.

[Anonymous]

That's the argument Shen - we should be refining it for overseas markets.  Why are we making work for China?  Anyway, that's the reason for opposition.  It's not only legitimate, it's echoed by others who want to see a greater economic benefit to Canadians.



A pipeline would create 50 f/t jobs?  Whoop di fuckin' do!  That's NOTHING.

Oil products are usually refined at and market and not at source. The oil refined in Edmonton is for Alberta and BC and is hauled to retail outlets by companies like Mantei. Oil refined on the East coast comes from places like Nigeria and the Mid-East and is sold to meet local market demand in the NE US/Eastern Canada.



It's more complicated to export refined products, rather than simply exporting raw crude, because every jurisdiction has different standards for fuels to meet. Most refineries usually refine close to their market because of the gasoline, chemical and fuel specifications/demands in each of those areas.



Oil refining is a volatile, low-margin business. It's far cheaper and much simpler to export crude to countries that already have refineries ready and willing to process it, particularly the United States and China. We have had one new upgrader built in Canada in the last 30 years and that would not have happened without massive support from the Alberta government. If building new refineries made sense, it would be happening now. The only way we could sell refined products to China is with massive government subsidies and that will never happen no matter who forms the government.



Our comparative advantage lies in being able to get our products upgraded to a point where they're competitive, but just at that point, and then shipping them to areas that have got sufficient refining capacity to deal with them.

[RW]

You keep explaining this as if I don't understand that it's cheaper to refine oil in China.  I get it.  It still does nothing by way of creating long term, full time Canadian jobs, hence the opposition.

[Anonymous]

Because like many others, they'd like to see Canadisn oil refined in Cansda this creating long term Canadian jobs.  Once the pipelines are built that's and that tap is turned on, there's no going back.



We should be focused on long term job retention and keeping the most profit possible on gf's very Canadian soul it's being taken from.

Your right, we should not be exporting wheat, we should be refining it into bread.



RW, We already refine more than we use in Canada, so that's not the problem. We have refineries in Eastern Canada that are on the verge of closing. The excess capacity in East coast refineries and the relatively thin domestic market for oil suggests there is no economic case for more refineries to be built here. If we were going to refine more we would be refining it for overseas markets. Profitability would depend on the ability to produce a product that could be competitive with what is coming out of the new super refineries in Asia, where labour and infrastructure costs are much lower. In that case too there is little reason to be refining more here.



This reason for opposing oilsands development is the most disingenuous trick the NDP uses. Barack Obama has said Keystone XL would create about 50 f/t jobs while Brian Mason, the provincial NDP leader has said Keystone XL would ship 40,000 jobs to the US. Obviously, they are both lying.

"We should not be exporting wheat, we should be refining it into bread".

Best line in this entire thread. If there was a market for bread and tortillas that's what we would be exporting instead of wheat and corn. There isn't, so we don't just like with oil, potash, nickel, copper, cobalt, iron-ore, uranium and so on. That doesn't mean that processing those raw materials doesn't create and maintain good jobs. A job in the resource sector creates $100 an hour for the economy versus $50 an hour in Ontario's auto sector.



I can't believe Real Woman does not see how increasing production in any industry does not translate into more jobs. Reduced production has the exact opposite effect. I work in financial services and not industry, but I certainly get that.



Did Obama really say that Keystone would create 50 jobs? Did that other guy really say building it would send 40,000 jobs South of the border? So, opponents of pipelines only disagree about the loss or gain in jobs from building Keystone by 39,950. Maybe they should consult each other before making outrageous claims.



I am not opposed to private sector unions, but this one deserves to be tossed out by the members they claim to represent.

[RW]

Don't believe it because I understand that concept just fine.  The discussion is what jobs the pipeline itself will create on a permanent full time basis. (I also, for the record, don't disapprove of a pipeline.)  What I don't get is why there would be a reduction in product without a pipeline if said operations exist currently without one.

[Obvious Li]

Don't believe it because I understand that concept just fine.  The discussion is what jobs the pipeline itself will create on a permanent full time basis. (I also, for the record, don't disapprove of a pipeline.)  What I don't get is why there would be a reduction in product without a pipeline if said operations exist currently without one.

ok..i'll keep this real real simple and talk real slow as apparently anything more confuses you......



(*i am guestimating here for example purposes*)



currently the oil sands produces 3 million barrels of crude oil per day (BPD)...there is enough pipeline and rail capacity to handle shipping that amount.....we have traveled the world encouraging investment in Alberta's oil sands to the point we have in excess of 100 billion USD committed in investments for plants and infrastructure...this will increase our output to 10 million BPD......problem being we are at max shipping capacity at 3 million BPD......we need more pipelines to ship the other 7 million BPD we have committed to.......can you grasp this concept or has arguing with eves affected your ability to think rationally....WTF

[RW]

I grasp that concept just fine as I have now stated more than once.  Please try to keep up.



The claim is, that there will be a loss of jobs failing the installation of a pipeline.  We CURRENTLY produce (using your numbers) 3 millions barrels of crude a day.  That means all the people currently employed in oil support that level of output that is currently being transported within our current shipping infrastructure.  So where will the loss of jobs within the current working cohort be without a pipeline?  I understand there will not be an increase in oil patch jobs because of maintaining output levels, but where will the LOSS be?