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AlbertC

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Another worker dies at Fiera Foods. The Labour Ministry is investigating

By Sara Mojtehedzadeh Work and Wealth Reporter
Wed., Sept. 25, 2019

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour is investigating the death of another worker at Fiera Foods, the industrial bakery in North York that was the subject of an undercover Toronto Star investigation two years ago. The worker is the fifth to die at the company or one of its affiliates in an industrial accident since 1999.


OFL outraged at a fifth fatality at Fiera Foods Group of Companies

September 26, 2019 05:00 ET | Source: Ontario Federation of Labour

TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) is outraged after a fifth fatality at the Fiera Foods Group of Companies on Wednesday, September 25, 2019.

 
Investigative project from 2017 on Fiera Foods:

Undercover in Temp Nation

Amina Diaby died last year in an accident inside one of the GTA’s largest industrial bakeries where, the company says, worker safety is its highest concern. The 23-year-old was one of thousands of Ontarians who have turned to temporary employment agencies to find jobs that often come with low pay and little training for sometimes dangerous work. The Star’s Sara Mojtehedzadeh went undercover for a month at the factory where Diaby worked.

By Sara Mojtehedzadeh and Brendan Kennedy

September 8, 2017

 
Five Fatalities at One Factory is Five Too Many: Steelworkers

NEWS PROVIDED BY
United Steelworkers (USW)
Sep 27, 2019, 15:45 ET

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2019 /CNW/ - Marty Warren, the United Steelworkers' (USW) Ontario/Atlantic Director, says this week's fifth gruesome fatality of a temporary agency worker at Fiera Foods Group's bakery facility in North York is another tragic reason to better enforce 2004 Criminal Code amendments, known as the Westray Law.

"The Ontario Attorney General, Doug Downey, must direct police and prosecutors to investigate this company and lay charges," said Warren. "It is unacceptable to rely simply on the Ministry of Labour to inspect this incident as an 'accident.' Five deaths since 1999 is a pattern, not a coincidence."

 
My co-worker and friend from Guyana noted something to me, that these companies are started by immigrants and become successful by exploiting the next generation of immigrants. And I can't argue that, as you see Fiera Foods hiring temps so that no one can build a career with them, and everyone is replaceable.
 
At this point, I don't think another Ministry directive or modest fine will change a thing.

Clearly the owners of this business are, at best, indifferent to the health and welfare of their staff; one could offer a less kind interpretation.

Time for a complete shutdown order on the basis that workplace is systemically unsafe; and an investigation which considers whether this latest death might be considered criminally negligent homicide.
 
Another preventable tragedy. Places like this that run on temp labour, prey on newly landed immigrants with poor English skills, who can't speak up for their rights. And If they do speak up? They will be replaced with another temp worker.

Government of Ontario must intervene before another worker dies on the job.
 
Now that we have a Government for the People instead of a Liberals government I am sure the province will finally start caring about workers and take measures to protect them and punish the companies that mistreat them.
 
^ So, they've spent the first 14 months of their mandate, what, thinking about it?

The PC's under Doug Ford has been more like undoing most of the labour laws of the previous administration.

Doug Ford Is Changing Ontario Labour Laws And Here's How You Will Be Affected
Ontario PC's are scrapping the bill that introduced $14 minimum wage as well as other workers rights in Ontario.

From link.

The following labour laws will be affected by the removal of Bill 148:

  • Fairer scheduling rules (including notices for scheduling changes, availability of schedule).
  • The standard of a minimum of three weeks vacation for employees after working with the same employer for five years.
  • Equal pay for equal work. This will affect part-time workers, temporary staff, or contract workers doing the same job as a full-time staff.
  • Unpaid leave to take care of a critically ill family member.
  • Up to 10 individual days of personal leave, plus 15 weeks of leave time if an employee or their child has experienced/threatened with domestic or sexual abuse without the risk of losing employment.
  • Temporary help receiving one week notice or pay in lieu of no longer being needed for employment.
  • Employees right to 10-days of personal emergency leave, including 2 paid days, no matter what size of the company.
  • No longer requiring a medical note in order for employees take a sick day.
 
^ So, they've spent the first 14 months of their mandate, what, thinking about it?

Doug Ford and the PCs are not the kind to make a decision before they have all of the facts. They are a party of patient and deep thinkers, especially Doug Ford.
 
Doug Ford and the PCs are not the kind to make a decision before they have all of the facts. They are a party of patient and deep thinkers, especially Doug Ford.

They're busy "consulting" with the business owners. Maybe hours with them.

Ignoring the workers in the process. Giving them 3 minutes or 5 minutes at most.
 
Doug Ford and the PCs are not the kind to make a decision before they have all of the facts. They are a party of patient and deep thinkers, especially Doug Ford.

I'm not on the forum enough to take a measure of all the participants, so I can't tell if this is sarcasm or blind delusion. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt - I'll leave it to you to figure out which way. ;)
 
This shows you how much the CEO cares about his employees. This POS wrote a column for the Sun, defending the use of temp workers., even though at the time he wrote this article, he had four workers killed on the job.. :rolleyes:



This guy would have been right at home in Victorian England. He uses the same arguments that could have been made back then to employ child labour.

You should see this asshole's garish mansion in Forest Hill - the ultimate expression of a tone deaf bourgeois sociopath.

Shut this place down immediately.
 
This guy would have been right at home in Victorian England. He uses the same arguments that could have been made back then to employ child labour.

You should see this asshole's garish mansion in Forest Hill - the ultimate expression of a tone deaf bourgeois sociopath.

Shut this place down immediately.

I guess we should have "Open for Business" on the Hearst plates eh.

AoD
 

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