Mason amigos fill labour void in Canmore
by
Aaron Paton
Missing a day of work means missing out on big money for Benjamin Fraire.
That’s because a day’s wage in Canada is close to a week’s wage where he’s from in Durango, Mexico.
According to his boss, Fraire — like many of the other 44 masons working for Oskar Construction in Canmore, Banff and Calgary — hasn’t missed a single shift in nine months.
“You can earn a lot more money here,” Fraire says in Spanish. “It’s better to work here instead of the United States because here it’s legal.”
Fraire lives in a Banff townhouse with other Mexican labourers doing stone masonry at the Solara Canmore development on Kananaskis Way in Canmore. He takes English lessons twice per week with his amigos on the company bill, works as much as he can and saves money to support his wife and children in Mexico.
He says Canmore has welcomed him and he’ll live here for three more years or until the work is finished. As a skilled labourer, he’s allowed to bring his family into Canada and after two years of full-time work he’s is in the process of doing just that.
“I’m very happy about that,” he says, now in English. “To have my family close.”
Oskar Pietrasik, owner of Bow Valley-based Oskar Construction says he hired four Mexicans more than four years ago, expanded his business and never went back to hiring Canadians.
“(Mexicans) are good workers. I can’t say a bad thing about them,” Pietrasik says. “I’ve had 100 per cent attendance and that’s a very good work ethic.”
He says many of his masons used to work illegally in the United States, but now each one has a Canadian work visa and they’re making tonnes of dinero.
Most are unskilled labourers, so unlike Fraire, they can’t bring their families to Canada. Most visit their families every six months or so, but time is money and they are eager to get back to work.
“The Canadian dollar is almost as strong as the American dollar now,” Pietrasik says. “They would rather work here.”
It takes him about four months to hire a Mexican through a placing agency in
Calgary. The government looks after healthcare and Oskar Construction pays for travel expenses to Canada. All he has to do to get them here is go through a bit of legal red tape and prove that there are no Canadians ready to do the job.
“That’s easy. I run an ad for a month and I get no replies,” Oskar says. “But we still advertise all the time.”
As a Polish immigrant, Pietrasik says he knows the value of a hard day’s work.
Five years ago he used to try hiring Canadians but his employees were unreliable and turnover was high.
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Juan Hernandez is one of the masonry workers at Solara Canmore, hired from his home in Durango, Mexico to join the team at Oskar Construction.
“It makes me happy to see these guys and all the money is going to the right places,” he says. “I have guys coming up to me and telling me that their kid is going to school, or they got a telephone or the bought a car. It feels good to know that the money is going towards something.”
He said it takes a little bit of extra training to bring his workers up to speed on Canadian building practices.
“There’s a different way of doing things for sure, especially when it comes to safety.
For example, he says, labourers don’t wear safety goggles, hard hats or steel-toed boots in Mexico.
Pietrasik’s Mexican partner, Raymond Wah manages the labourers, many of whom do not speak fluent English. Wah handpicks each labourer and then they train at a government facility in Satillo Coahuila, Mexico. He says the major differences between construction in Mexico and in Canada are weather-related.
“Here you go from tar paper to mortar to stone. In Mexico you just go directly from stone,” Wah says. There are different limitations because of the cold weather.”
He adds that the trend of hiring migrant workers from Mexico is picking up “big time” in Canada.
“The requests we get to bring in foreign workers is just massive,” Wah says, adding everyone wins when Mexican workers come to Canada because they pay Canadian tax but send money back home to their families.
“After Pemex (oil), the second largest industry (in Mexico) is Mexicans living in America and Canada who send money home to their families.”
Aaron Paton is a Canmore writer, working at the Canmore Leader and spending as much time as he can enjoying his mountain home.
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