Unpacking the meatpacking plant outbreak and its impact to immigrant workers
ActionDignity, in partnership with two scholars from York University, are launching a research project to better understand the experiences of immigrant and refugee workers in Alberta’s meatpacking industry.
Principal investigators, political geographer, and former director of Centre for Refugee Studies, Dr. Jennifer Hyndman and Dr. Bronwyn Bragg, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Refugee Studies will work with a research team composed of multilingual community-based researchers who will support data collection and community outreach.
The goal of this community-university research partnership is to understand the wider policy and status issues that contribute to some workers being more vulnerable to COVID-19 in the workplace. This includes looking at the relationship between Canadian immigration policy, access to Occupational Health and Safety for essential workers, and the conditions inside Alberta’s largest meat processing facilities. The project is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Findings from the project will support ActionDignity’s ongoing advocacy and policy efforts to support racialized ‘essential’ workers in Alberta.
As part of this work, the research team is launching a multilingual survey that will open on February 1. The survey is available in five languages (English, Tagalog/Filipino, Arabic, Amharic, and Tigrinya). The research team will also be conducting interviews with immigrant and refugee workers, as well as key stakeholders in Alberta.
The survey will be open through the month of February 2021. To partake in the survey, click here.
According to Dr. Hyndman, the goal of this project is to identify the structural conditions and immigration status that render some workers – specifically immigrant, migrant, and refugee workers – vulnerable to higher levels of risk in the workplace.
“We know that workers in meatpacking are disproportionately racialized and are often newcomers to Canada, but we want to understand more clearly this relationship so we can put forward policy recommendations and argue for changes that will lead to greater safety for workers,” – Dr. Jennifer Hyndman.
The research team’s hope is to better understand the links between the systems and policy levels and the everyday lives of workers through their firsthand accounts.
“During COVID, we have witnessed the devastating consequences of a policy regime and system that renders some workers highly vulnerable to dangerous and unsafe conditions. These conditions are not unique to the pandemic, and have unfortunately always been a feature of the Canadian labour market,” – Dr. Bronwyn Bragg, who is also an alumna of ActionDignity.
For ActionDignity, the Migrant Dignity research project is but one of its responses to understand and address the challenges of the nature of work of these workers now deemed critical as the pandemic rages on. Several projects are underway:
Multilingual Emergency Response to COVID 19 (MERC) with support of 20 cultural brokers who speak 24 languages in partnership with 17 organizations. It aims to provide support to urgent needs among those impacted by COVID 19.
B.R.A.V.E. Workers (Believing in the Rights and Value of Essential Workers) is a community-based participatory research evaluation under World Education Services (WES), Mariam Assefa Fund to build the capacity of essential workers in meatpacking plants
Response Advocate and Volunteer Engagement (RAVE) that supports 18 ethnocultural organizations to respond to the COVID 19 immediate needs of their communities.
Mental Health CARE (Culturally Appropriate Response and Engagement) is a community-based project that uses culturally appropriate prevention strategies through cross-cultural collaboration towards mental health and wellness among racialized communities, particularly essential workers.
These are short and long term projects that complement each other: COVID 19 emergency response to address the immediate needs of workers and their families; capacity building; systems and policy change work that include approaches to deepen workers’ understanding of relevant public policies and structural issues; and more importantly, amplifying the collective voice of workers in decision-making processes on matters that are important to them. The overall message is that racialized workers matter not only to the economy and we need to take care of them.
“Not only the livestock industry relies heavily on the contributions of these workers, the entire nation has. These racialized and immigrant meatpacking plant workers have shown us that they have made positive and creative contributions to our communities, to Alberta, and to Canadian society. The protection of their right to association, right to a safe workplace environment, right to participate in decisions that could affect their health and safety, and the right to refuse work that could affect their health and safety and that of others– are matters of racial justice and human dignity that we need to pursue,” – Meriam Bravante, Research, and Policy Coordinator at ActionDignity.
For information about the project can be found on our Facebook page: The Migrant Dignity Project
For any other inquiries regarding the project, please email Dr.Bronwyn Bragg at bbragg@yorku.ca
For meatpackers who have questions or would like to participate in this research, they may also directly contact the multi-lingual team:
Gabriel Abes, Filipino/Tagalog: josegabriel.abes@ucalgary.ca
Adenech Sahilie, Amharic and Tigrinya: adanech.sahilie@gmail.com
Nevin Osman, Arabic: niven.osman1@ucalgary.ca