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Defend Food Workers' Rights to Safe Working Conditions Cargill to Shut Down Meat-Processing Plant in Chambly, QuebecCargill's meat-processing plant in Chambly, located in the Montérégie region, some 35 kilometres south of Montreal, is shutting down its operations, after 64 employees contracted COVID-19, which represents 13 per cent of the local workforce, the company confirmed in an email to the Canadian Press. The company said it would "temporarily idle" its facility. Everyone at the plant is now going to be tested, and the operations are presently winding down, with all work set to stop as of Wednesday, May 13. It is expected that the facility could resume operations as soon as next week, should enough employees test negative. Cargill employs 500 unionized workers at the plant.
The company said it's providing 80 hours of paid leave for any employee who requires time off because of COVID-19 and that employees will be paid for up to 36 hours during the shutdown. The company is suggesting that because of the presence of members of the same families employed by the factory or because some employees live with people working in the health sector, that this is how the virus could have been transmitted. However facts are very stubborn things, such as that measures were not taken seriously by the company to protect the workers. In fact, as of March 23, Cargill topped up the hourly wage of 400 of its unionized meat-processing plant workers in Chambly and offered them a lump sum of $500 after eight straight weeks of consecutive work, based on a regular shift. The incentive was therefore definitely there, not for workers to look after their health, but instead to continue working despite having possible symptoms of COVID-19, thereby facilitating its spread. The Olymel pork slaughtering and cutting plant in Yamachiche, Quebec, 150 kilometres northeast of Montreal, also had to close its doors on March 29 after detecting at least nine cases of the virus among its employees. It reopened on April 14.
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According
to Local 500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which
represents these workers, the first case of COVID-19 surfaced
around the end of April. On Wednesday, May 6, 171 employees were away
from work, either because they had the virus or had been in
contact with someone with symptoms.
