“There is no safe place in this plant”: Refugee workers in Canadian meatpacking and the limits of permanent legal status
Abstract
Following spring 2020’s deadly COVID-19 outbreaks in the Alberta meatpacking industry, we conducted research with meatpackers who were formerly resettled refugees and now Canadian permanent residents (PRs) or Canadian citizens. Research with temporary foreign workers often promotes permanent legal status as a solution to poor conditions of precarious work in Canada, but even with permanent immigration status, former refugees experienced a large gap between their rights as “guaranteed” by the state through their PR status and their daily work in meatpacking plants in rural Alberta. Work in the plants is dangerous, dirty, and difficult, and employees found it difficult to enact their rights as workers. Access to adequate breaks, sick days, and other mandated requirements was reported to be contested and contingent. Former refugees working in this sector experience unexpected “unfreedom.”
Notes
Future research / gaps identified: not stated
Key populations: resettled refugees employed in meatpacking facilities in rural Alberta
Community organizations: ActionDignity
Integration timeline: resettled refugees and their journey to either PR or citizenship
Key findings:
1) Resettled refugees were led to employment in meatpacking due to a variety of factors, including necessity of earning income; significant structural barriers in the labour market that led to precarious and low-paying jobs with minimal job security or benefits; language and literacy barriers; and a large pre-existing workforce of refugees who assist newcomers in finding employment.
2) Participants described an ‘impossibility of safety’ working at the meat plants. There was an alarming discrepancy between the legal rights Canadian PRs should have under OHS, and the extent to which these rights were not enacted in meatpacking plants.
Key recommendations:
Investigate pathways that allow PR status to fail to insulate certain categories of people against the precarity of dangerous work, particularly in meatpacking plants where there are high rates of injury and even death despite OHS.
Location: High River, Brooks and Calgary, AB
Open access: No