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February 24, 2021 - No. 10
Company Invokes Force Majeure to Deny Its
Responsibility to Workers
Olymel Must Be Held to Account!
- Peggy Morton -
Support the Demand for Status For All
• Permanent Resident Status for Immigrants and Refugees Now!
- Diane Johnston
Protection of Frontline Workers Critical for the Protection of All
• Saskatchewan Health Care Workers Demand Changes to Vaccination Plan
Scheduled Closure of Montreal Steel Plant
• Workers Demand That Plant Remain Open
- Normand Chouinard
Company Invokes Force Majeure to Deny Its Responsibility to Workers
- Peggy Morton -
February 18, 2021. UFCW members outside Olymel plant in Red Deer to ensure the plant
shuts down.
The workers at the Olymel pork processing plant
in Red Deer
Alberta finally succeeded in shutting the plant down to bring the
spread of COVID-19 under control. As of February
19, 426 cases of
COVID-19 had been recorded due to the
one outbreak,
with 212 active cases and one worker dead. The workers forced the
company to close the plant
in the face of its
refusal to take responsible action. On February 17, 12 days after
the workers
responded to a survey by their union overwhelmingly calling for a
temporary closure, the
company shut down by
shamelessly declaring force majeure so as not to pay compensation.
Workers have been issued
layoff notices.
Claiming that the plant closure is due to "unforeseen circumstances" beyond its control (force majeure),
and that therefore it does not have to abide by the provisions of the
collective agreement regarding layoffs, the company is offering pay
advances which the workers would have to repay, and assistance in
helping workers access
federal programs. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 reports
that it is exploring legal options to ensure the workers are fully
compensated. President Thomas Hesse says the layoff contravenes the
collective agreement and may also violate Alberta employment standards.
 According
to Alberta Health Services, more than 60 per cent of the workers at
Olymel have at least one other job which is one indication of how
oppressive the conditions are at that plant. Clearly, workers who are
positive or self-isolating will lose that income as well, along with
the income of other family members who will also have to
self-isolate. Furthermore, many of the workers are immigrants who not
only support themselves and their families here in Canada, but families
in their home country who depend on the remittances they send.
"We continue to believe that it is the company's responsibility to
support and provide compensation for their employees during this
necessary pause in production because it is due to failures on the
company's part that the workplace needed to close," Hesse said in a
statement.
Companies like Olymel assert their "monopoly right" to control
decision-making on health and safety matters and fight tooth and nail
to prevent the workers from exercising their rights to decide what
constitutes a safe and healthy working environment. They refuse to even
acknowledge that it is the workers who actually know where the
problems lie and what measures are needed to make their workplaces
safe. When their narrow drive for maximum profit leads to disaster,
they cry that they are not responsible, it is beyond their control, an
"act of God" and so on.
Workers and their union have pointed to many factors which were
certainly under Olymel's control. For example, Olymel failed to reduce
line speeds to a safe level, and to provide safe places for the workers
to take their breaks and eat lunch. The company ramped up production
and hired several hundred new workers leading to even more
crowded conditions.
It is absurd to suggest that a major outbreak of COVID-19 was
unforeseen. Meat processing plants all over North America and the world
have been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19. Alberta alone now has
outbreaks in eight meat packing plants. The government must be held to
account for permitting the corporations to act with impunity
which is what the workers and their union are doing by fighting for
full compensation.
Support the Demand for Status For All
- Diane Johnston -
The government of Canada continues to refuse to do its duty to
guarantee the rights of each and every human being in Canada, including
over one and a half million immigrants and refugees. Throughout the
pandemic migrant workers, including thousands who live under constant
threat of deportation, have put their lives on the line to work
in long-term care homes and hospitals, in restaurants and meat
processing plants, warehouses, farms and industry. In actions from
coast to coast migrant workers and people from all walks of life have
repeatedly raised the demand that Canada modernize itself and recognize
that all human beings have rights and guarantee status for all.
 Recently Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada invited over
27,000 migrants to apply for permanent residency through the Express
Entry draw on February 13. These draws take place about every two
weeks. February 13 was the highest number ever, a 440 per cent increase from
the previous draw on January 21.
Migrant Rights Network reports on its website: "Canada's
Express Entry system
assigns points for age, language, education, work experience and more.
While the points required for this latest invitation are the lowest
ever, migrants in these large numbers were invited to apply for
permanent residency in the 'Canadian Experience Class' (CEC). To
qualify for
CEC, applicants must, among other requirements, have 12 months of
high-waged work in Canada in managerial or technical jobs. Migrants in
low-waged work are not allowed to apply.
"Farm workers, care workers, those working in food processing,
retail, delivery, warehouse, cleaning, construction, and workers in all
those other jobs Canadians have come to call 'essential', are
deemed 'low-skilled' by the immigration system. "Few
avenues exist
for them to get rights and permanent residence under current rules. The
'pathways to status' for low-waged farm workers and care workers
require high language and education scores that effectively shut them
out."
In the 2019-2020 year detentions and deportations increased to the
highest level since 2015 and, after a period of reduced removals from
March to November last year, removals began again at the beginning of
December. Migrant Rights Network reports that applications to stay from
undocumented migrants are being denied at record high rates at
present. Migrant workers are part of the Canadian working class
which does not recognize the categories that the ruling elite
has created in an attempt to divide people. This division is used to
justify the super-exploitation of those accorded fewer rights, a
situation that is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern
definitions
recognize only one humanity and governments at every level have a duty
to guarantee the rights of all.  The
Migrant Rights Network is appealing to everyone to sign the
petition demanding the government grant full and permanent status for
all and states: "Clearly the government can easily grant people PR
[Permanent Resident status], but
chooses to cherry-pick
and discriminate instead. The federal government is scrambling to meet
its immigration targets by granting status to some, while deporting and
denying others. This is a divide and conquer strategy that pits
'deserving' migrants against 'undeserving' migrants. But permanent
status is not a gift for the deserving -- it is about equality. It
is a means to
access healthcare, education, labour protections, family reunification
and other basic rights. And all of us deserve the same rights."
Four hundred organizations representing over 8 million members have
signed the petition which can be accessed here.
Protection of Frontline Workers Critical for the Protection of All
Health care workers in Saskatchewan are demanding that the
provincial government prioritize health care workers in its vaccination
planning schedule. The immunization of health care workers who are on
the front lines of the fight to curb COVID-19 is not only a matter of
protecting their own health but of ensuring that they neither spread
nor contract the virus in the course of their work. Immunization of
health care workers is universally recognized as an essential element
of a socially-responsible vaccination plan to protect society.
Immunization of health care workers is one of the guidelines of
Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunizations.
The Saskatchewan government plan does not adequately protect health
care workers. On February 16, in an open letter to the Premier, the
Minister of Health and the province's Chief Medical Health Officer,
Barbara Cape, the President of Service Employees International Union West, pointed out "I wish to draw to your attention the
shocking failure of your vaccine delivery plan to appropriately
prioritize workers across the full range of interrelated job
classifications on which our health care and long-term care systems
depend."  The
government of Saskatchewan is implementing a two phase vaccine rollout,
originally announced in January and amended twice since then.
Phase One, from December 2020 to March 2021 includes the vaccination of
certain health care workers, including selected, but not all, hospital
workers, ambulance teams, workers in congregate living settings such as
long-term care and personal care homes. Phase One also includes
everyone over 70 years of age and those over 50 years of age in
remote communities and Northern Saskatchewan. Phase Two, anticipated to
begin between April and June 2021, is "focused on vaccinating the
general population by age, as well as the clinically extremely
vulnerable and people in emergency shelters and group homes." The
original plan that was announced on January 14 also prioritized
additional health care workers in Phase Two. On February 9 the
government announced a change and that there would be no prioritization
of any health care workers in Phase Two.
The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses responded immediately to the
February 9 announcement with a letter from SUN President Tracy Zambory
denouncing the decision and calling on nurses, who "are essential to
the functioning of our health system and to us beating COVID-19" to
email the Premier, the Health Minister, officials of the
Saskatchewan Health Authority and their Member of the Legislative
Assembly, calling on them to reinstate the original plan to prioritize
all health care workers and other essential workers in Phase Two and
that Phase One should be expanded to include residents and staff of
congregate living settings that provide care for seniors and all health
care
workers whose work involves direct contact with patients. On
February 16, under pressure from health care workers, the government
made some amendments to include more categories of health care workers in Phase
One, but did not implement the demands of health care workers that all
should be prioritized in Phase Two. Health
care workers and their unions are continuing to mobilize to demand that
the government reinstate its original plan, to prioritize vaccinations
for all health care workers in order to protect the workers and
everyone that they look after. The fact that Canada's economy is
not self-reliant and vaccines are purchased from big pharmaceutical
companies over which Canadians exercise no control and whose aim is to
serve the narrow private interests of their shareholders must be
tackled by the workers across the country. To force Canadians to
compete for available vaccines and accept that they are a "scarce
resource" is unacceptable. Everyone should be vaccinated in a timely
manner in a public process which is coherent and orderly. Nobody needs
the stress which governments, employers, private interests and
media are adding to an already stressful situation as they seek to
cover up the essential matter that the direction of Canada's economy is
unsustainable and must be changed.
Scheduled Closure of Montreal Steel Plant
- Normand Chouinard -
Workers at Cable Steel plant in Pointe-Claire on Montreal's west
island are opposing the decision of the owners, the Bridon-Bekaert
Ropes Group (BBRG), subsidiary of Belgium-based Bekaert group, a global
monopoly in steel wire transformation and coating technologies, to
close the plant at the end of May. The Pointe-Claire plant
produces steel wire cables that are used on bridges, in mining
operations, in oil extraction and by Hydro-Quebec. It also has a
contract with the U.S. navy for cables used on aircraft carriers. It
has customers in several countries. A closure of the plant would
directly affect the 105 production workers currently at work and some
20 workers who
have been laid off for over a year. These workers are members of the
Syndicat des travailleurs de Câbles d'acier de Pointe-Claire,
which is affiliated to the Manufacturing Industry's Federation of the
Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN). About 30 office people,
who are not unionized, would also lose their jobs. The closure of the
plant
would be another blow to the manufacturing sector in Quebec that has
lost tens of thousands of jobs in the last fifteen years.
In its statement announcing the closure, Bridon-Bekaert Ropes Group
said that all North American and manufacturing and servicing activities
are going to be centralized in Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania, U.S.) and
Oakland City (Indiana, U.S.). The Group gave all the excuses under the
sun to attempt to justify the closure, -- structural changes in
the industry, the effect of COVID-19 on the economy, improvement of
competitiveness, among others.
 None
of this explains or justifies the decision. It hides the fact that
Canadians do not set the direction of their own economy which has
become integrated into the U.S. economy and war machine. While the
Biden administration will continue to push "Buy American," there are
those in Canada who are pushing to become part of "Buy American" by
integrating the economy further into that of the U.S. such that all
regulations adopted in the U.S. will apply in Canada as well. It also
hides the fact that how to modernize production using the innovations
of the technological and scientific revolution should be human-centred,
not serve narrow private interests which then declare there is no
alternative. Those who own whole parts of the economy are
competing over control of what they call "structural changes," blaming
the closure on this and that as part of the cutthroat competition
between rival private entities which is wrecking people's lives and
their economies. The company's excuses are to present the closure as a fait
accompli. Meanwhile the government of Quebec certainly
does not want any discussion on how to build a self-reliant
industry that would contribute to a stable
economy organized to meet the needs of the people, not of the
global
oligarchs and their aim of narrow private profit at the expense of
everything else.
Workers
are opposing the self-serving justification put forward by the global
owners: "There are 105 families who risk losing their livelihood," said
Patrick Boissé, the Treasurer of the Syndicat des travailleurs
de Câbles d'acier, in a conversation with Workers'
Forum.
"It is a shock and a slap in the face because we kept being told
that
we are a centre of excellence in the production of steel cables.
Our workers have tremendous expertise and experience. We have many
workers who have 40 or more years of service and the plant is also
making money. We are losing economic flagships to the U.S. We may
actually be the only plant left in Quebec that is still producing
steel
cables for Hydro-Quebec. If we close, it may be that only U.S.
plants
will produce these cables for Hydro-Quebec. We cannot let these
things
carry on."
Workers reject the argument that was given to them by local
management that there is no alternative to the owners' decision to
centralize all North American production in U.S. cities because of
the
U.S. government's "Buy American" policy or that Quebec and Canada
should be part of "Buy American." This is not an argument that
workers and people can accept because they reject the integration
of
Canada into the U.S. empire. Quebec and Canadian workers fight for
nation-building in which they are masters of their own affairs.
Workers' Forum supports the stand of the Cable Steel
plant workers that the plant must remain open.
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
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