Foreign Labor Concerns at Windsor EV Battery Plant Construction

Construction and union officials say they’re upset about the ongoing employment of foreign labourers for routine tasks at the huge electric vehicle battery plant project in Windsor, Ont., which is receiving billions in taxpayer-funded support. They also say they have been let down by the responses they’ve gotten from all levels of government when they raised these issues.

“I personally have sat with many ministers federally, provincially, right to the top. And it’s not a secret,” says Jason Roe, the business manager for Local 700 of the Ironworkers union. “People know that it’s been going on.”

Roe and others claim that foreign workers, mostly from South Korea, have repeatedly been seen doing everything from operating forklifts to basic electrical installation — despite assurances from government officials and NextStar that the international staff would be doing “highly specialized” work.

“It’s been unbelievably frustrating,” said Roe, who also leads the Essex and Kent Building Trades Council. “It’s been very frustrating knowing that these are taxpayer dollars funding the project and it’s not going to Canadian workers and Canadian contractors.”

News cannot independently confirm the precise number of occasions when foreign workers were observed carrying out non-specialized duties, but Roe said he has repeatedly received reports.

NextStar is a partnership between global automaker Stellantis and LG Energy Solution, a South Korean battery powerhouse. The project is receiving up to $15 billion in incentives over several years from the provincial and federal governments, in addition to $1 billion in investments.

There’s an ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of non-Canadian workers: NextStar

NextStar says it has employed nearly 1,000 permanent local staff so far and that more than 9,000 Canadian tradespeople have worked on the project, which is nearly finished.

“Unfortunately, there is an inaccurate and negative portrayal of non-Canadian resident workers who are needed to temporarily support the industrialization of the battery plant prior to its launch,” the company said in a statement. “These workers are hired temporarily by the suppliers to install proprietary equipment and are a requirement of warranty obligations,” the statement added, noting those workers aren’t included in the roughly 2,500 Canadian jobs the plant will create once operational.

“To ensure NextStar Energy’s success as Canada’s first large-scale EV battery manufacturing plant, the company must temporarily rely on specialized skill and experience to educate, install, test, validate and deploy the latest state-of-the-art and most advanced technologies available,” the statement said. “This knowledge is being imported and transferred to the local workforce to allow the plant to flourish and compete in a globally fierce environment.”

NextStar did not disclose how many foreign workers it or its subcontractors have employed since the project began construction in 2022. The company also said they “all have valid work visas,” but did not specify the visa category. South Koreans are eligible to work in Canada under a 2015 free trade agreement between the two countries, however.

The province says it’s the federal government’s duty to screen and admit workers to the country.

In a statement, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development said its role “is to ensure that all workers are protected by the same workplace rights and standards.”

“Our government takes all allegations of workplace violations seriously, and we will continue to work towards protecting workers in the province,” it said.

The federal government did not answer questions before publication.

Previous controversy over use of foreign workers

A dispute erupted over foreign workers at the plant in 2023, when NextStar said it would bring up to 900 people from overseas to help build it.

Facing criticism, NextStar’s CEO said the “temporary specialized global supplier staff” had “proprietary knowledge and specialized expertise.”

Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, said the temporary workers would come to Windsor to perform “highly specialized work.” The following year, then Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk, whose riding includes the plant, told a parliamentary committee that a few dozen Korean workers were there to “transfer knowledge.” He said the federal government had also “made it very clear” to NextStar that it needed to use local skilled workers “wherever possible.”

But Roe and Jack Mesley, president of the Ontario Erectors Association, said in an interview this week that they’ve repeatedly received photos and messages from their members on-site, alerting them that foreign workers were performing much more general work.

“There’s no knowledge transfer to busting a wooden crate apart that came on a ship or came out of a container to get the piece of equipment out of it,” Mesley said. “There’s no knowledge transfer in running the forklift unless it was our Canadians telling the Koreans how to do it.”

They said they’ve also been told foreign workers were observed doing certified trade work — tasks people in Windsor-Essex, a manufacturing and automotive centre, are qualified to perform. “Cutting and welding pipe, electrical vaults,” Mesley said.

Roe said he represents 1,100 ironworkers in southwestern Ontario and more than 4,000 workers as head of the Essex and Kent Building Trades Council. Mesley said he represents about 250 unionized contractors in the steel and construction sectors.

Emails to Ford, Poilievre unanswered: construction exec

One of those contractors is Sylvan Canada, which is involved in a $45-million legal dispute over its removal from the project earlier this summer and alleged non-payment.

Eric Farron, the company’s vice-president of operations, said they received “several complaints and feedback” from their staff on-site about foreign workers performing non-specialized tasks, “such as moving items around.”

“I understand specialized equipment and there’s certainly a need for specialized technicians to work on these things,” he said. “I think that definition has likely been overstated and I think there’s plenty of opportunity that more Canadians could have contributed to the construction and to the factory automation at that site.”

Court filings from other matters show NextStar has engaged several South Korea-based firms to manage various aspects of the project. Farron, who has previously contacted local elected officials to try to voice his concerns about the contractual disputes, has now reached out to both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

In a Sept. 5 email, Farron wrote that foreign workers were “performing tasks outside of their agreed scope, displacing Ontario workers.” He also said Canadian firms were “being financially injured,” citing Sylvan and other companies’ payment disagreements.

Farron said he has not received a reply, aside from an automated response from Ford’s office. But he said he’s hopeful, given Poilievre’s recent remarks on foreign workers, that he’ll hear from the Conservative leader.

“At the end of the day, what we want to do is get all the interested stakeholders together and solve this problem,” Farron said. “Our issue has been getting an audience to do so and also getting our Canadian support to help facilitate that.”

Neither Ford’s nor Poilievre’s office replied to a request for comment.

Raid on U.S. plant indicates ‘pattern of behaviour’: Farron

Farron said he believes the recent raid by U.S. immigration authorities that detained hundreds of South Korean nationals at a comparable LG battery plant project in Georgia will “be a catalyst to create some interest” in the local project, though.

“It shows a pattern of behaviour,” he said. “I think it’s important, from an accountability perspective, that we look at these things and if we verify there’s no problem here, that’s great, but let’s look at it.”

Roe said he’s met with government officials “several times” in the last 18 months and has also met with NextStar directly to press it to hire more Canadian workers.

“It’s frustrating on my end when I’ve got members of any affiliate at home on unemployment insurance and there’s a foreign worker in there doing the same tasks, the same job, the same trade as that member sitting at home on EI,” Roe said.

“In his town!” Mesley added.

Roe said he expects officials will claim the number of foreign workers was small.

“If it’s one, it’s too many for me,” he said.