“No Safe Place”: Documenting the migration status and employment conditions of workers in Alberta’s

When COVID-19 emerged as a serious threat to workers in this industry in March of 2020, it was these im/migrant and refugee workers who bore the brunt of the outbreaks, infection, and fatalities. [...] Workers describe a haphazard and poorly communicated response to the initial outbreak and the need to take safety matters into their own hands, in the absence of leadership from their employers or the Provincial Government. [...] As in other provinces, Alberta’s occupational health and safety (OHS) system relies on something called the “internal responsibility system.” The central tenets of the system are the right to know through training and access to information on hazards, the right to participate in OHS at work, and the right to refuse dangerous work. [...] This distrust was made worse by the failure of both the industry and the Province of Alberta to protect workers during the initial days of the COVID-19 outbreaks in March and April 2020. [...] While the focus of our project was on the impact of COVID-19 on workers in the meatpacking industry, responses to the survey and participant interviews revealed a broad array of safety concerns related to working in this industry.