Labour group, Opposition blast UCP changes to workplace health and safety committees

KENNEY KILLS ALBERTA WORKERS 

                                           

ANY WORKPLACE FATALITY OR INJURY IS UCP'S FAULT

Alberta employers will no longer be required to have an occupational health and safety (OHS) committee at every worksite, come Jan. 31.

JANET FRENCH 

Updated: December 16, 2019

Workers sort recycling at Edmonton Waste Management Centre in December 2017. IAN KUCERAK / POSTMEDIA

Alberta employers will no longer be required to have an occupational health and safety (OHS) committee at every work site, come Jan. 31.

The United Conservative Party government said the change eliminates red tape for employers while upholding workers’ rights to have a say in health and safety on the job.

“We have heard that the current rules around health and safety committees are not working,” Labour and Immigration Minister Jason Copping said in a government news release on Friday. “Employers are still responsible for ensuring healthy and safe work sites and the new rules provide the flexibility to meet the unique needs of each workplace.”

Under the UCP’s changes, employers can now have one committee for all work sites, rather than one committee for each location.

“This is frustrating and disturbing because we’d finally gotten to the point of catching up with the rest of the country in terms of making these very important workplace health and safety committees mandatory,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said Saturday.

He said the change to the committee rules will “dramatically undermine” their effectiveness.

In Alberta, there were 18 workplace deaths in the first 10 months of 2018, and 21 people died at work in 2017, according to the most current report on the government website.

Alberta last to require OHS committees

At OHS committees, employee and employer representatives regularly meet to discuss potential workplace safety issues, and steps the employer could take to address them.

They’re important prevention mechanisms that provide workers with a safe venue to raise concerns, McGowan said.

NDP labour and immigration critic Christina Gray said Sunday the committees are also good value for the money, saving $3 for every dollar invested in training and meetings by preventing workplace injuries and deaths.

Alberta was the last Canadian jurisdiction with no committee requirement. The NDP’s changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act forced all employers with 20 or more workers to have joint OHS committees, while employers with between five and 19 employees had to have a health and safety representative.

Gray said the intent of legislation was for each work site to have a committee, and the former NDP government issued a director’s order in June 2018 requiring exactly that.

The UCP government rescinded the “burdensome” order on Friday, “returning to the system that worked well prior to the NDP’s unnecessary change,” said Brittany Baltimore, Copping’s press secretary, in a Saturday email.

Since June 2018, employers had complained about the administrative hassle of the site-based committees, she said. People submitting red tape reduction tips to government also flagged it.

OHS officers retain the ability to order an employer to form an OHS committee at any location where they think one is required, she said.

Unionized workplaces with committees written into their collective agreements will be unaffected until their agreements expire.

Rules in other provinces vary. Ontario requires each workplace with 20 or more workers to have a committee; Saskatchewan mandates them at workplaces with 10 or more employees.

The government is also immediately paring back required training for OHS committee members — they now need one training course instead of two. The change should save government $275,000 a year.

One committee, thousands of workers

In a Friday news release, the government quoted three school division superintendents as saying a single, division-wide OHS committee is a prudent change that still meets student and staff safety requirements.

McGowan said it could allow large employers with numerous locations, like a grocery store chain, to disband many committees.

Change Alberta

2 hrs · 

UCP REDUCES EFFORTS TO PROTECT OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY; UNDERTAKERS SHOULD APPLAUD

[This Christmas story is a first in our series of "Scrooge Comes to Alberta in 2019."]

"We promised to create more jobs, and we are delivering for you," Premier Kenney is about to announce to a Christmas gathering of Alberta funeral home operators.

A copy of his speech shows that the premier will tell the undertakers that he expects his new policies to undermine workers' health and safety should lead to more deaths on the job, an area in which per capita Alberta is already the national leader, and of course more people being maimed and dying earlier than they might have expected. That will be a short-term boost for the funeral business.

"You add that to my cuts to the health system and I think your businesses are about to boom," the premier will tell the gathered business people in an effort to bring smiles to a group that normally is rather gloomy.

"My education policies should also help you," his speech will continue. "There's lots of evidence that more educated people live longer than the uneducated and that's no help to your business. So, please remember me as the undertakers' best political friend and contribute to the UCP, the Undertakers' Conservative Party."

And he'll conclude: "And a merry Christmas and productive New Year to you all."

 

Deterrence, Rational Choice and White-collar Crime: Occupational Health and Safety in Bangladesh RMG Sector

Muhammad Faisol Chowdhury

421 Views90 Pages

2 Files ▾

Criminology,

Deterrence,

Occupational Health & Safety,

Rational Choice,

Ethics & Compliance Management,

Ethics & Compliance Auditing,

Bangladesh,

Rational Choice Theory,

White Collar Crime,

Occupational health and safety,

Safety and Health in Workplace,

Health and Safety,

Safety Health and Environtment,

Apparel Industry,

Workplace health and safety,

Deterrence Theory,

Readymade Garments,

RMG Sector of Bangladesh,

Bangladesh Labour Act 2006,

Ready Made Garments (RMG)

 less ▴

Show more ▾

The objective of this research is, firstly to investigate the managerial perception of administering occupational health and safety (OHS) provisions to reduce workplace accidents and, secondly, to explore the managerial interpretation of the idea of white-collar crime in relation to the avoidance of, or negligence in administering, the OHS provisions. This research particularly focuses on the readymade garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. It is qualitative in nature and follows an interpretivist and constructivist philosophical paradigm. Data were collected from two deviant cases (e.g. Tazreen Fashions Limited and Rana Plaza) and from the questionnaire responses of 24 participants from 24 RMG factories (6 outsourced and 6 subcontracted) located in Dhaka. All of the participants were top-level, male, full-time executives at the RMG factories (i.e. owners and manages). Despite its limitations, the research finds that all of the factory owners believe in the appropriateness of the OHS provisions for reducing workplace accidents effectively. It also discovers that the application of OHS as a deterrent factor to accidents exists among the outsourced factory owners and but is absent from the subcontracted factory owners. The research also unfolds the different interpretations of white-collar crime between the outsourced and subcontracted factory owners. Based on the further analysis of the empirical evidence, however, it is suggested that the evasion of OHS practices can be labelled white-collar crime.

https://www.academia.edu/8216877/Deterrence_Rational_Choice_and_White_collar_Crime_Occupational_Health_and_Safety_in_Bangladesh_RMG_Sector

BACKGROUNDER
Alberta Labour offers details on probe looking into COVID-19 death linked to Cargill meat plant

BY PHIL HEIDENREICH GLOBAL NEWS  April 23, 2020

As the number of COVID-19 cases linked to the Cargill meat plant in High River, Alta., continues to climb, the Alberta government is confirming more details about the scope of investigations looking into both the outbreak there and a death linked to the facility.

As of Thursday, 480 workers at the Cargill facility had tested positive for COVID-19, including one who died, with another 140 cases linked to spread in the community.

READ MORE: Cargill plant shutdown does not mean COVID-19 risk is contained: High River mayor

In a statement issued to Global News on Thursday, a spokesperson for Alberta Labour said Occupational Health and Safety is currently investigating the death as well as “the circumstances at the work site that may have led to workers becoming infected.”

“These investigations will look at the circumstances surrounding potential exposure of workers at Cargill related to COVID-19,” Adrienne South, press secretary for Labour Minister Jason Copping, said in an email. “This will also include an investigation of any potential non-compliance that may have affected the health and safety of workers at the facility.

“Workplace factors such as training, control measures, different job roles, etc., will factor into determining the full scope of any investigation.”

More cases of COVID-19 linked to Alberta meat-packing facilities More cases of COVID-19 linked to Alberta meat-packing facilities

Alberta NDP Labour Critic Christina Gray called for a public inquiry on Thursday into the handling of COVID-19 outbreaks in Alberta meat-processing plants.

“We believe the premier and the government cabinet failed to act at Cargill and also appear resistant to meaningful action at the JBS plant,” she said in a statement. “Now, we have significant community spread in two Alberta communities and at least one worker has died.

“This government has lost the trust of the public. The only way we can truly learn from these tragedies and hold the government to account on these serious matters is through the launch of a full public inquiry.”

At the JBS meat plant in Brooks, Alta., there have been 124 cases of COVID-19 involving workers and contractors as of Thursday afternoon. The death of a worker and another person from Brooks were confirmed Thursday as being caused by COVID-19.

“These two additional deaths are the ones that I mentioned yesterday with respect to Brooks, which have now both been confirmed as cases of COVID-19,” Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said at a news conference in Edmonton on Thursday

She added that one was an employee at JBS Foods and the other was a household contact of an employee.

“My sincere condolences go out to everyone grieving the loss of a loved one today.”

South said after the first COVID-19 case was reported at Harmony Beef north of Calgary, “an intergovernmental business resumption protocol was immediately established for provincially and federally licensed food processing facilities in Alberta.”
“While many food processing facilities have existing pandemic and emergency response plans in place, it was critical to work with all actors involved to bolster their plans and help keep workers safe and guarantee Alberta’s food security,” she said. “In addition to OHS, AHS officials have also visited Cargill High River on a number of occasions.”

At the Cargill site, South said a live inspection was done with an “inspector directing movement as required” and that video of the inspection was captured for OHS to refer to later if they need to.

“Due to the circumstances of the pandemic, video conferencing was employed,” she said. “Video inspections are being conducted to mitigate risk of exposure of all parties. Such inspections are not specific or unique to the Cargill facility.

“The officer doing the inspection observed the employees at their daily duties.”

South said a unionized plant worker and a shop steward with the United Food and Commercial Workers union joined the employer for the official OHS inspection.

Earlier this week, Hinshaw said plant conditions and practices aren’t the only factors that need to be looked at when it comes to understanding the COVID-19 outbreak tied to the Cargill plant.

“We know in this particular outbreak, when cases were identified, there were measures put in place at the plant, but some of the other measures that we’re now seeing are really critical,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said on April 20. “There are things like carpooling that’s been identified as a risk, and so not just looking at the plant itself, but looking at how do people get back and forth to work, thinking about households.

“There’s households where people simply don’t have the space to self-isolate if they’re a case or if they’re a close contact and needing to provide supports to those people.”

The president of United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 401 said he believes the employers and OHS should have done more and sooner.

“This didn’t have to happen,” Thomas Hesse said. “The government’s job is to protect its citizens from large multimillion-dollar corporations and the government didn’t do its job.”

In a statement issued to Global News on Thursday, Cargill said that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has “worked in lock step with local health officials and other regulators.”

“Our team are essential workers like health-care workers and first responders,” spokesperson Daniel Sullivan said. “Our hearts go out to our employees who are impacted by the virus.

“We have taken industry-leading health and safety measures, including temperature testing, providing and encouraging the use of face coverings, cleaning and sanitizing procedures, prohibiting visitors from our facilities, stopping travel, adopting social distancing practices where possible and offering shift flexibility, staggered breaks, and increased spacing and partitions in work areas.

“We have and continue to follow OHS guidance and are fully engaged in addressing the community-wide impacts of the virus.”

Earlier this week, Cargill said it was taking steps to temporarily close the plant. There are still questions about what that decision will mean for workers there.

The UFCW is now calling for the JBS plant in Brooks to temporarily shut down.

In an email to Global News on Wednesday, a spokesperson for JBS said the company “cannot know for certain how, where or when our team members were infected given the widespread nature of the virus.”

“Each case is heartbreaking. Our sympathies go out to everyone around the world who has been impacted by this common enemy we all face,” the email reads

“The Brooks facility remains open to continue to provide food for the country. We will not operate a facility if we do not believe it is safe.

“We are working diligently to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and have adopted enhanced safety measures, health protocols and worker benefits to keep our workplaces, team members and products safe. The health and safety of our team members providing food for us all during this unprecedented time remains our top priority.”

–With files from Global News’ Heather Yourex-West and The Canadian Press’ Bill Graveland

Labour group calls for criminal investigation into Cargill beef plant COVID-19 death

AMANDA STEPHENSON, CALGARY HERALD April 22, 2020 

The Cargill plant north of High River, AB, south of Calgary is shown on Friday, April 17, 2020. Jim Wells/Postmedia
'There's no doubt in our minds that this is a workplace fatality,' said AFL president Gil McGowan on Tuesday

The COVID-19 death of a High River meat plant employee must be treated as a workplace fatality and a criminal investigation should be launched, the Alberta Federation of Labour said Tuesday.

In a letter Tuesday to provincial Labour Minister Jason Copping, AFL president Gil McGowan called for a formal Occupational Health & Safety investigation into the circumstances of the death — which was made public Monday and is the first fatality to result from a large-scale COVID-19 outbreak at the Cargill meat processing plant in High River.

Occupational Health & Safety investigates serious work site incidents, including fatalities, which fall under provincial jurisdiction. OHS is currently working through the formal process to determine whether to open a fatality investigation, Adrienne South, spokeswoman for Copping, said Thursday evening.

The provincial labour group also called for the meat plant’s operator, Cargill Inc., to be subject to an RCMP criminal investigation under the federal Westray Act, a rarely used amendment to the Criminal Code that allows employers to be prosecuted in cases of negligence leading to a workplace injury or death.

“There’s no doubt in our minds that this is a workplace fatality,” McGowan said in an interview. “And also that it could have been avoided, had the employer and the government suspended operations at that plant when the workers and their union called for it more than two weeks ago.”

As of Tuesday, 401 workers at the High River meat-packing plant — which represents 36 per cent of Canada’s beef processing capacity — had tested positive for COVID-19. On Monday, Cargill announced it would temporarily idle the entire facility and encouraged all employees to seek testing for the virus.

However, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, which represents workers at the Cargill plant, has been saying for weeks the Minnesota-based company wasn’t doing enough to protect employees.

Union local president Thomas Hesse wrote to Cargill in mid-April, stating that work was being carried out in a manner contrary to social distancing and endangering roughly 2,000 workers at the facility. At the time, Hesse demanded a two-week closure and a full cleaning and safety inspection of the plant.

Earlier this month, OHS did conduct an inspection of the Cargill plant in High River to review the COVID-19 safety measures being taken to protect workers. The inspection determined that reasonable precautions were being taken by the employer.

However, Hesse has been critical of that inspection, which was conducted via videoconference and not in person by an OHS officer. (South said the reason the inspection was conducted via videoconference was because of the pandemic, and said this method of inspection is not specific or unique to the Cargill facility.)

“We can’t trust the government on this now, because they could have closed this plant and didn’t,” Hesse said Thursday.

Both Hesse and the AFL are calling for both the Olymel pork processing plant at Red Deer and the JBS meat processing plant at Brooks (which had 77 confirmed cases of Tuesday afternoon) to also be temporarily shut down out of concerns for worker safety.

JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett said in an email Tuesday the Brooks plant has reduced production to one shift, given “increased absenteeism.”

Bruett said the JBS facility has a responsibility to maintain operations to secure the country’s food supply, but added “we will not operate a facility if we do not believe it is safe or if absenteeism levels result in our inability to safely operate.”

Both JBS and Cargill have consistently said they have been implementing temperature testing, enhanced cleaning and sanitizing, face coverings, screening between employee stations, prohibiting visitors, adopting distancing practices where possible and offering staggered breaks and shift flexibility.



AHS officials responded as soon the Cargill outbreak was identified and enhanced safety protocols were put in place, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, said Tuesday.

“But because there are so many people that go in and out of these plants, it’s possible that spread did occur before those protective measures were put into place,” Hinshaw said.

NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley — who has urged all meat plant workers sick with COVID-19 to apply for WCB compensation — said the Cargill employee’s death, as well as the outbreak at the entire facility, should be subject to an OHS investigation.

She also criticized Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen, who, two days before the fatality was confirmed and the closure of the plant was announced, publicly assured employees and Albertans that Cargill had taken “all necessary measures” to mitigate risk to its staff.

“It’s outrageous that we’re at a place today where hundreds of people have contracted a deadly virus because the UCP couldn’t see past the supply chain to the people at work,” Notley said in a news release.

The AFL and UFCW are calling for an independent safety inspection of the Cargill plant, as well as the development of a provincewide plan to prevent future outbreaks at meat plants.

Myles Leslie, associate director of research with the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, said it may be necessary for all three plants to be closed and completely redesigned to keep workers safe while still producing food.

“We may need to completely shut, hit the reset button, redo the production line so that everyone is two metres apart,” Leslie said. “Production will have to go down. But back online at 50 per cent is a whole lot better than shut down at zero per cent, or 100 per cent with everybody sick.”

---30---

OHS investigating Canada's largest COVID-19 outbreak at meat plant after worker's death
580 cases of coronavirus linked to Cargill meat-processing plant south of Calgary

Sarah Rieger · CBC News · Posted: Apr 22, 2020

The Cargill meat-packing plant near High River, Alta., is the site of a COVID-19 outbreak that has led to hundreds of confirmed cases. (Charlotte Dumoulin/Radio-Canada)

Alberta Occupational Health and Safety is investigating two outbreaks of COVID-19 at Alberta meat-processing plants, one of which is the largest outbreak linked to a single site in Canada.

There are now 580 cases linked to the outbreak at the Cargill facility near High River, 440 of whom are Cargill employees.

One worker, a woman of Vietnamese background in her sixties, has died. Her husband is also sick and is being treated in hospital. The facility said Monday it would temporarily shut down as soon as it finished processing the meat already in the plant.

Health and safety inspection of Alberta meat plant linked to 515 COVID-19 cases was done by video call

Another Alberta meat plant experiencing an outbreak, JBS in Brooks, remains open but production has been reduced to one shift. There are now 96 cases linked to that plant.

A worker at JBS has died, as well as another person in the community, and Alberta Health Services is investigating to confirm if those deaths are due to the COVID-19 outbreak at the plant.

Nobody wants to eat a hamburger that somebody had to die to produce.- Thomas Hesse, UFCW Local 401

Alberta's deputy minister of labour said investigations into both plants have been opened by OHS, and said there will be no further comment until the investigations are complete.

The union brought the first 38 cases of COVID-19 at the plant to the attention of media on April 13, as some employees at the facility accused the company of ignoring physical-distancing protocols and trying to lure them back to work from self-isolation.

Two days later, an inspector from the provincial Occupational Health and Safety — which has a mandate to ensure Alberta workplaces are operating in a way that is healthy and safe for employees — conducted an inspection from a remote location via a live video call.

OHS deemed the plant safe to remain open.


A COVID-19 outbreak at the Cargill meat processing plant in High River, Alta., has forced the facility to temporarily close, raising concerns about beef prices and supply. 3:03

Thomas Hesse, president of UFCW Local 401, which represents workers at the plant, called for the facility to close weeks ago and has since called for an inquiry into the worker's death.

"Nobody wants to eat a hamburger that somebody had to die to produce," said Hesse.

What led to Alberta's biggest outbreak? Cargill meat plant's hundreds of COVID-19 cases

In addition to an OHS fatality inquiry, the union has called for an independent investigation into Cargill, and the Alberta Federation of Labour has asked for a criminal investigation.

"It hits home on a personal level, but it also makes me very, very angry because from our perspective, this is a fatality that could have been avoided," Gil McGowan, president of the AFL said.

McGowan said it has been difficult to get updates, as he said the government and OHS are only communicating with the company, not the workers or union.

RCMP said it does not have an open investigation into the worker's death at this time.

Many workers at Cargill are members of a tight-knit Filipino community, who live in large households and carpool to work together.

Workers fear for their job security, safetyCalgarian Cesar Cala Cala, a volunteer with the Philippines Emergency Response Taskforce, said some workers feel they are being unfairly blamed for the outbreak — and are deeply concerned about their job security and safety.

"Is the plant a safe place to work? And then are their jobs secure? Many of the temporary foreign workers, their stay in Canada is based on their work visa connected to Cargill," he said.

Watch Workers raised concerns about Alberta meat processing plant closed by COVID-19 outbreak
Employees at the Cargill meat processing plant raised concerns about public health measures not being followed two weeks before a COVID-19 outbreak forced the plant to close

People of colour are over-represented in the meat processing industry, according to an economist, and census data shows those in the industry make less than the average industrial wage.

AHS has a dedicated task force of 200 workers responding to the outbreak, and translation services are being used to communicate with workers and their families who speak English as a second language.

Five employees at Seasons Retirement Communities in High River have now also tested positive for COVID-19; three of whom are married to meat-packing workers at Cargill.


Why Alberta's Filipino community has been hit particularly hard by this pandemic. 8:30

On Wednesday, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the majority of Cargill workers who have tested positive live in Calgary, and commute to High River.

He said earlier in the week, city flags were lowered to half mast to mark the victims of the Nova Scotia killings, and said those flags will remain lowered to memorialize the victims of COVID-19.

"That is a reminder that our neighbours have died. People in our community have died," he said.

Premier Jason Kenney said Wednesday the JBS plant will remain open with necessary health and safety precautions in place as long as health officials say it is safe to do so, as it's important to maintain the country's food supply.

There are now 3,401 cases of COVID-19 in Alberta, and 66 people have died. Just over 17 per cent of cases in the province are linked to the Cargill outbreak.

The National Farmer's Union said in an emailed release that the sites of the two outbreaks represent 85 per cent of Canada's total beef supply.

"Farmers need emergency support so we can take care of our livestock until the plants ramp up again. Health and safety come first, but you can't tell the cows to stop eating and growing until the crisis is over," said Ian Robson, an NFU board member, in an emailed release.

With files from Erin Collins, Charlotte Dumoulin, Carolyn Dunn and Colleen Underwood

Southern Alberta Filipino community ‘worried for our lives’ as members test positive for COVID-19

BY JILL CROTEAU GLOBAL NEWS April 22, 2020 

WATCH: The workers at a Cargill meat plant in Alberta -- and their families -- are no doubt on edge, and have been for weeks. The novel coronavirus has significantly impacted the Filipino community in the area because many are employed at the plant and have tested positive. Jill Croteau reports.
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/2da4dd7e-84f7-11ea-9793-0242ac110003/?jwsource=cl

Jocelyn Ruiz and her family came to Canada from the Philippines for a better life, one with more opportunity and hope. But she said her future has felt a little more uncertain with the spread of COVID-19. Both she and her husband and two other adults living in her High River home tested positive for the virus.

“Am I going to die? How about my family and my children?” Ruiz said.TWEET THIS

“I was so scared, I was so very fearful, that anxiety and depression came in and I have to fight it with positive thoughts. There are a lot of people who survive it and I want to be one of those.”

READ MORE: Alberta sees 5 more COVID-19 deaths, 1st case on First Nation

They have all been isolating for over 2 weeks in their High River home and are in recovery. Ruiz is relieved the Cargill processing plant shut down. Her husband’s cousin who rents a room downstairs works at Cargill, and he and his wife got infected by the virus. He was the first to show symptoms. 

“The guy living with us works with Cargill and it was from his job. There is no social distancing at all, so what happened is, it came from his work and it was brought to the household. That’s based on my experience. It’s not from the household going to the company. No,” Ruiz said.

She said multiple people living in one household is common within the Filipino community because they are supporting each other as they get settled in a new country.

“We are helping them, some of them are renting a house say seven of them will rent together, not everyone can afford a house,” Ruiz said.


READ MORE: Albertans struggling to return home from the Philippines amid COVID-19

The coronavirus has hit the Filipino community particularly hard. Elma Ton also lives with someone who tested positive, another employee at Cargill.

“I have a renter. He received his swab test results and it came back positive so it’s been stressful. We are all emotional with what is happening right now,” Ton said. “We feel we are helpless.”

“Every household that I know with a Filipino, there is somebody tested positive in every household that I know.

Ton’s husband works at the meat processing plant too, and is concerned about him returning to work.

“I’m worried for my children, especially my eldest one, because she has high blood pressure,” Ton said. “We are all worried for our lives.”

The union supporting the 2000 workers at the Cargill plant said more needs to be done to reassure families when they return to work. Thomas Hesse, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President, is advocating for them to be heard. 

“No one should have to die for us to eat a hamburger,” Hesse said

“These plants are petri dishes of infection; where hundreds if not thousands are working in close proximity. It has its origin, we believe, in these crowded plants.

Global News reached out to Cargill officials and did not receive a response in time for publication.

SEE 
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CARGILL

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BEEF

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=ALBERTA

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=NFU

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GROCERY

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=OHS

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=UFCW

BACKGROUNDER  

NDP demands inquiry into Alberta meat plant COVID-19 protocols as Cargill plans reopening

BY HEIDE PEARSON GLOBAL NEWS April 30, 2020 1:43

Dr. Deena Hinshaw responds to the re-opening of the Cargill meatpacking plant after closing due to an outbreak of COVID-19.

As the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in High River, Alta., gets set to restart its operations, the Opposition NDP is calling for an inquiry into how the coronavirus response was handled at that, and other meat facilities, in Alberta.

Speaking about the deaths on Wednesday, NDP Labour and Immigration Critic Christina Gray said the government dropped the ball in not initiating stricter protocols for workplaces like meat facilities.

Along with Cargill, an outbreak of the virus has also seen hundreds fall ill and one person die at the JBS Foods plant in Brooks. Cases have also popped up at other facilities around the province.

WATCH Alberta NDP call for inquiry into Cargill outbreak

Gray said on March 6, the NDP called for the UCP to provide funding and staffing to do inspections of workplaces, which she says the government ignored.

“As the former minister, I’m very well aware of the tight quarters within these plants, and the difficulties with ensuring proper physical distancing measures being taken,” Gray said.

WATCH Alberta Filipino community ‘worried for our lives’ as members test positive for COVID-19

A month later, workers at the Cargill facility started raising concerns about the safety conditions in the plant, which Gray said “fell on deaf ears.”

“I want to again call on the premier to commit to a full, public inquiry into the handling of these outbreaks,” Gray said.

“To be clear, I am not, and have not, calling for a public inquiry now. Only a commitment that one will occur once the provincial state of emergency has been lifted.”

Gray also called for the JBS plant to be closed.

According to Alberta Health, as of Wednesday, 821 cases of the novel coronavirus had been confirmed in workers at the Cargill plant and 276 cases among employees and contractors at JBS.

“We have taken every outbreak seriously and have used our fundamental outbreak principals to limit spread in settings of concern,” chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Wednesday.

In an emailed statement, the Department of Labour and Immigration said it was “far too soon “to speculate about the mechanism to conduct an inquiry, federal vs. provincial, etc.”

The department said Occupational Health and Safety is empowered to do reviews at individual workplaces, and as investigations into both the Cargill and JBS plants are underway, the government couldn’t provide any further comment.

“It’s fully expected that some sort of comprehensive review of the COVID-19 pandemic period will take place after the pandemic has passed,” the department said.

“AHS and OHS officials will continue to work to ensure that Cargill, JBS and other food processing facilities are implementing appropriate measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect workers. Both AHS and OHS will be onsite at Cargill prior to work resuming to do this work.” 

Cargill to restart operations

Meanwhile, Cargill said Wednesday that it will be resuming operations at the High River plant on May 4, bringing back one shift.

The company said the decision was made in consultation with Alberta Health Services and Occupational Health and Safety.

“All employees who are eligible to return to work in our harvest department are asked to report to work,” Cargill said in a news release.

“In keeping with our extensive focus on safety, we want to emphasize that employees should be healthy and not had contact with anyone with the COVID-19 virus for 14 days. Further, out of an abundance of caution, they should continue social distancing in the facility.”

According to Hinshaw, local medical officers of health have done on-site inspections at the plant, which stalled its operations more than a week ago.

“My understanding, from the information that my colleagues have given me, is that this plant in particular has made sure that all measures to prevent spread of infection are being put in place,” Hinshaw said.

READ MORE: Online petition calls for temporary shutdown of JBS meat plant in Brooks, Alberta

She added the health and safety protocols were enhanced, especially in places like the locker room, where additional measures have been put in place.

“Based on these on-site inspections and their assessment of the situation, my colleagues at Alberta Health Services have indicated that they feel these measures are sufficient to limit the spread of infection,” Hinshaw said.

During the temporary closure, Cargill said it took time to take the following extra steps to ensure the health and safety of its employees: 

Reduced likelihood of carpooling to reduce potential for transmission in transit 

Limited access to the plant to no more than two people per car (sitting in the front and back seat to maintain proper social distance) 

Provided buses that have been retrofitted with protective barriers between the seats to alleviate the need for carpooling from multiple areas — employees living in the same household will be granted a variance to the carpooling limitation 

Worked with OHS through both virtual and in-person tours of the plant so they can see firsthand the work being done to protect and minimize the risk to employees on site 

Added additional barriers in the bathrooms and reassigned lockers to allow for necessary spacing 

Conducted extensive COVID-19 sanitation process, including additional cleaning in the parts of our facility that have been closed for 21 days 

Focus on education and awareness of social distancing inside and outside of work, including not sharing food during meals 

Cargill said employees who worked, or were scheduled to work, this week were also paid 36 hours of pay for the week and those who are off to deal with COVID-19-related illnesses are still being offered 80 hours of paid leave.

Union ‘not vaguely reassured’ facility is safe

However, the union representing the workers at the plant, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 401, is not happy about the re-open plan.

“There’s been no meaningful consultation with the union or the workers and we’re outraged. I’ve instructed our lawyers that we will engage any legal action available to us to prevent the plant from opening,” union president Thomas Hesse said.

Hesse said the only collaboration the company has had with the union was an invitation for a representative to be part of a “brief visual tour of the plant on very short notice to see what the plant looked like without any workers in it.”

“That’s not a health and safety inspection,” Hesse said. “In fact, the company was angry when the union representative took some photos of the interior of the plant and demanded those photos be returned to the company.”

He said the union is “not vaguely reassured” the facility is safe for workers to return to their jobs.

The union also wants clarification on what operating with one shift will look like, including how many workers will be in the plant during that shift. It also wants details on what’s being done in locker rooms and lunch rooms, as well at the start and end of those shift, to make sure those reporting to work are able to keep two metres apart.


READ MORE: New measures added at High River, Alta., Cargill plant after workers raise coronavirus concerns

“There’s a lot of boxes that need to be checked and a lot of assurances need to be offered to Albertans before we can conclude that the plant will operate safely,” Hesse said.

“A few tidbits are hardly enough to reassure the union that thousands of workers are going to be safe. We have not seen a comprehensive A-to-Z report regarding procedure and protocols that would keep people safe in that plant.”

Hesse said the plant is looking at several avenues to oppose the planned opening, including complaints to Occupational Health and Safety, filing grievances through the collective agreement and possible court action.

The UCP government disputed the union’s claims, saying UFCW workers have “been directly involved in the OHS workplace inspection process and were free to raise specific concerns that they might have had.”

“OHS takes workplace safety seriously and will examine any concerns that are raised through the complaints process going forward,” the department said.

According to the UFCW, workers have told them the JBS plant in Brooks is operating at 30 per cent capacity.

Global News has reached out to both Cargill Meat Solutions and JBS Foods for comment. This story will be updated when a response is received.

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