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Fort Mac's no club
TIMOTHY LE RICHE, EDMONTON SUN
Many oil workers from the Fort McMurray region have sent me spiteful e-mails recently in response to a series of Sun stories on the "$100,000-a-year club" and foreign labour issues. Thanks for the fun reading.
I've cobbled together comments from a couple of brave sources who were willing to put their names on the record. They want to counter suggestions that oilsands workers generally can make $100,000 a year, and that foreign workers are needed to fill a labour shortage.
Kevin Hukeroth, a Red Deer-based, unionized electrician, works up at Syncrude now because he can earn more there than in the city. But he doesn't make $100,000 a year. He concedes that much might be possible - if, and here's the point all oil workers try to make - if a guy is willing to make big sacrifices.
Hukeroth's week begins with a Sunday night ride on a cramped, uncomfortable bus. He works four 10-hour shifts, spending his nights in an oilsands camp which offers "zero privacy.
"You can hear your neighbour breathing next door, that's how thin the walls are," said Hukeroth. "The majority of guys are sharing five shower stalls for 45 guys, and seven toilets."
Camp meals are bland and boring, he said.
"I give up my privacy, my wife, my kids, my grandkids," said Hukeroth. "Our divorce rate up here is huge. Lots of guys are on second or third marriages because wives can't handle it."
Work days can be cold and dreary. Syncrude is strict on break and safety rules, he said. So strict, claims Hukeroth, that sometimes it counters efficiency.
"It frustrates me that they're saying all these delays are because of us workers up here," said Hukeroth. "Actually, delays are coming because of engineering, their protocols, and working conditions. It's a lot of hassle.
"I'm frustrated. They make it look like we're the bad guys. We're human beings trying to earn a living and care for our families."
Adam Badzioch of Edmonton is also a union electrician at the massive Syncrude project, and he's thinking along the same lines as Hukeroth.
Badzioch agrees that a guy can make the $100,000 mark, if you can: work all weekends and extra time (provided it's offered to you); stomach the food; endure colds and flus; and live in a room the size of a prison cell. As for foreign labour, Badzioch just isn't buying it.
"Labour is an easy scapegoat that takes the brunt of overcosts, and overruns and cheesy engineering," said Badzioch. "We have more than enough skilled labour in Alberta."
He calls the oil companies "greedy."
"They refuse to spread the wealth in which we all can profit to make Alberta a real advantage," said Badzioch.
Here's some input from an Edmonton-area woman whose husband works a union job at Syncrude. Although she gave her name, I agreed to withhold it for fear her husband would face a corporate backlash.
"There may be guys making $100,000, but they have no life," she said. "There's a lot of divorce. It's hard. It's not an easy life."
Yes, the guys are making good money, she said. But people need to know it's a hard slog, both on the job and off, she said.
The guys want to work, they just want a fair shake, she said.
"As far as I'm concerned, it should be Alberta people first, then Canadians," she said.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has travelled a lot of miles on the "Alberta Advantage" theme. These are the voices of the people who are working for it.
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