A customer shops at a meat counter in a grocery store in Montreal, on Thursday, April 30, 2020. How and where that meat on the shelves gets processed is the cause of much conflict in Alberta. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)

Another Alberta meat plant is urged to shut down

The conflict between labour and the meat-processing industry in Alberta shows no signs of abating.

The workers are mostly immigrants and temporary foreign workers (TFWs) and they–and their unions–have concerns about the workers’ health.

Last week, the unions called for a criminal investigation and public inquiry into two meat processing plants–Cargill in High River and JBS in Brooks–where two workers have died and hundreds of others have been infected with COVID-19. 

Now, a third facility — Harmony Beef in Balzac — has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases.

The union that represents federal meat inspectors wants the Harmony Beef processing plant in Balzac, Alberta to shut down because of an outbreak of COVID-19. (CBC)

On Tuesday — the same day Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a multimillion-dollar aid package aimed at helping farmers and food processors navigate the novel coronavirus pandemic — the union that represents federal food inspectors called for Harmony Beef to be closed

“We’re calling for a shutdown for 14 days to provide that incubation period so that when the plant reopens we can be more assured that the folks going back in there are not COVID-19 positive,” said Fabian Murphy, president of the Agriculture Union.

Fabian Murphy, president of the Agriculture Union, says the federal government should take a more active role in stemming the spread of COVID-19 in meat-processing plants. (PSAC Union, J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

Production at Harmony was temporarily halted in March after the first COVID-19 case at the facility was reported and the Canada Food Inspection Agency refused to allow inspectors into the plant.

As of Tuesday, Health Alberta had connected 36 coronavirus cases at the plant.

Nga Nguyen, husband of Hiep Bui Nguyen, a Cargill worker who died from COVID-19, speaks to the media in Calgary, Alberta., on Monday, May 4, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

The company disputes that figure, saying in a statement it was aware of a total of 25 employee cases and only one within the “first five days of May.”

A mourner places flowers at a memorial for Hiep Bui Nguyen on Monday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

The statement said “almost all cases were asymptomatic,” adding that there have been “no hospitalizations,” and that steps have been taken to implement plant-wide testing of all employees.

The Cargill plant in High River processes about 4,500 head of cattle daily. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

The statement listed safety precautions Harmony is taking.

They include providing personal protective equipment, including surgical masks to employees each day, increasing sanitizing efforts, installing dividers, staggering shifts and limiting car-pooling.

Protesters stand on the side of the road as workers return to the Cargill beef processing plant in High River on Monday. The plant closed for two weeks because of a COVID-19 outbreak–the largest at a single site in Canada. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

The new developments came a day after workers returned to work at the Cargill plant in High River, two weeks after Cargill closed the facility following the death of an elderly female worker from the virus that has now been linked to a total of 1,500 cases of COVID-19, including over 900 workers, the majority of whom are Filipino.  

Elma Ton, second from right, said she has been disappointed to see comments making fun of the Filipino community online in the wake of the Cargill outbreak. Her husband Rodel Ton, far right, works at Cargill. (Submitted by Elma Ton)

When Cargill announced last week that it would reopen, their workers’ union said it was “dumbfounded” by the decision. 

The union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401, took legal action but failed to block the reopening of the plant, which Cargill says has been upgraded for safety.

In a poll of more than 600 workers in four languages – English, Spanish, Tagalog and Punjabi – last weekend, the union found that 85 per cent said they were afraid to return to work and 80 per cent said they did not want the plant to reopen Monday.

A sign outside JBS meat-processing plant in Brooks, Alta., thanks workers for continuing to show up during the pandemic. Hundreds of workers at the plant have now contracted COVID-19. (CBC)

Meanwhile, the JBS facility in Brooks, which has reported more than 300 COVID-19 cases, remains open, though calls for it to close continue.

With files from CBC News (Rachel Ward, Robson Fletcher, Joel Dryden, Sarah Rieger, Thomson Reuters, Catharine Tunney, Janyce McGregor), The Canadian Press (Bill Graveland), RCI

Categories: Economy, Health, Immigration & Refugees, Politics, Society
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Do you want to report an error or a typo? Click here!

For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.