BC Insulators Union
NEWS RELEASE Thursday April 11, 2013
BC union pension plans to pull over $1 billion of investments and funds managed by RBC Investor Services in Vancouver if Royal Bank of Canada does not reverse its actions in using Temporary Foreign Workers to replace Canadians, outsourcing jobs overseas
VANCOUVER – A group of BC union pension plans have sent a warning letter to RBC Financial Services in Vancouver that they will withdraw over $1 billion in funds invested or managed by the firm if its parent company the Royal Bank does not reverse its actions in using Temporary Foreign Workers to replace Canadians.
And the unions say outsourcing about 45 Canadian jobs is also unacceptable.
BC Insulators Union Business Manager Lee Loftus says the pension plans believe it is hypocritical for their retirement funds to be invested by a company that is undermining the Canadian economy and hurting Canadian workers.
“RBC’s disrespectful corporate behaviour is totally unacceptable to our union members and to the overwhelming majority of Canadians,” said Loftus, who chairs the BC Insulators pension plan board. “The $1 billion question is whether RBC will recognize that moving jobs out of Canada permanently can only hurt our economy – that’s wrong.”
“If RBC doesn’t get that Canadians are furious about this and change course, then we will be forced to relocate over $1 billion in investments with another firm that wants to build our economy in Canada and keep jobs here,” Loftus said.
Loftus says the unions are under no illusion that $1 billion worth of investments is a major sum of money to Canada’s largest bank, which holds over $830 billion and over $500 billion in deposits, but that the principle is important.
“When individual Canadians are pulling their own personal RBC accounts and cancelling RBC credit cards, we want to do our part too and stick up for keeping jobs in our own country,” says Loftus, who is also President of the BC and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council.
The pension funds’ letter was sent today to RBC Investor Services’ Vancouver manager by D.A. Townley & Associates, administrator of pension plans for the BC Insulators and several other BC unions.
For more information: Lee Loftus, BC Insulators at 604-877-0909 or cell 778-387-0575 or Bill Tieleman, West Star Communications, cell 778-896-0964 or 604-844-7827.