Alberta Federation Of Labour Prez Shilling For TIDES

[Anonymous]

That McGowan is in bed with the anti-Canadian oil, big money TIDES scumbags is NO surprise. However, Canada's upstream oil and gas industry is overwhelmingly NOT unionized. Drilling and service rig crew wages and benefits are set by a contractor association called the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors(CAODC). Service hands to the rigs have an owner association called the Petroleum Association of Canada(PSAC). You want to know what a cementing crew supervisor or a derrickhand thinks about a 600% increase in the carbon tax, don't ask McGowan....go to a boneyard in Nisku!!

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) is calling for a carbon tax in order to strengthen the job security of oil patch workers. Read that again. One more time.



AFL president, Gil McGowan was interviewed by an anti-oil activist this week and asked what he thought about warnings that a carbon tax on Alberta oil would have a negative impact on investment and jobs. He called such warnings "a load of bunk."



McGowan claims to be speaking for 25,000 oil patch workers, although most of them did not voluntarily sign up to support the AFL. They are forced to hand over their money to the AFL without their personal consent.



The AFL pretending to speak for oil patch workers and demanding a carbon tax in their name is like Margaret Atwood pretending to speak for Newfoundland cod fishermen and demanding a fish tax in their name.



Fishy, I know.



But speak on behalf of oil workers they did. The AFL went on to say that further taxing the product that Alberta workers are trying to extract wouldn't hurt those workers, but would "just shift its growth to a more manageable pace."



In short, a bigger tax on oil would somehow improve job security for those workers.



The Alberta oil patch is perhaps the greatest social program in Canada. It provides high paying jobs to Canadians from coast-to-coast to coast. A Nova Scotian who had little opportunity back home can land in Alberta tomorrow with virtually no skillset and earn 29 bucks an hour as a rig hand. Rig workers who choose this as a career and acquire skilled training can make far more than many a white-collar workers in downtown Calgary office towers.



One major reason for this is that the industry is competitive and just can't get enough workers. Supply and demand.



The drop in the price of oil is sure to hurt the industry, but smart companies playing the long game will hold onto their employees, knowing that prices will eventually recover and they will be best positioned to ride the next boom.



But unlike a drop in oil prices, a carbon tax cannot be waited out. Industry would build a carbon tax into its bottom line and adjust its actions accordingly. If that means a barrel of oil now costs more to produce than it can be sold for on the market – and there isn't a prospect of that improving – then industry cuts production. Less production means less drilling. Less drilling means less drillers.



Attempting to argue that a carbon tax would not adversely affect the bottom line of oil patch workers – and the tens of thousands of jobs in Alberta dependent on the patch – is either grossly naive, or disingenuous.



The anti-oil activist interviewing Mr. McGowan is recommending a more than 600 per cent increase in Alberta's carbon tax, from $15 per tonne to $100 per tonne.



And the guy interviewing Mr. McGowan? His work was funded by the radical Climate Justice Project and the Fossil Fuel Development Mitigation Fund of the Tides Foundation, a big-dollar American fund aiming to smash Alberta's oil and gas industry.



AFL should – at least in theory – be in favor of high-paying, blue-collar jobs right here in Alberta. The problem is that the AFL mostly represents government employees who, incidentally, are paid by taxes. A massive new source of tax revenue would suit them nicely.



It's a clear case of allowing an ideological, political agenda to get in the way of even a most rudimentary understanding of economics, and the real interests of workers.



They're just doing their job though, supporting the interests of government employees, and that's ok. They just shouldn't do it in the name of the very people they would undermine.

http://fildebrandt.ca/2014/12/oil-patch-workers-want-jobs-not-a-carbon-tax/">http://fildebrandt.ca/2014/12/oil-patch ... arbon-tax/">http://fildebrandt.ca/2014/12/oil-patch-workers-want-jobs-not-a-carbon-tax/

[Anonymous]

It says the AFL mostly represents government employees.