Faced with the increase in workplace accidents involving foreign workers, François Legault’s government recently announced additional funding to improve their safety. The funding released by the government will make it possible to set up health and safety training programs, improve working conditions and facilitate access to support services for injured workers. On paper, this sounds great, but on the ground, the same cannot be said!
These immigrants who work 50 hours in the fields, or 48 hours in factories, or who do their 40 hours before being forced, what am I saying, to be in high demand and forced to do overtime, are seriously short of time.
Not counting the time spent on French language courses. Not counting the time spent waiting for your lift to go to and from work, due to the lack of a Quebec driver’s license or the lack of a vehicle. Of course, we forget about family obligations and the endless exchanges and follow-ups of files with our famous Quebec bureaucracy.
In short, these foreign workers do not have time to breathe or catch their breath, while they are only walking. Here, they are asked to run, catch their breath and be present everywhere at the same time.
Neither you nor I would have the time to do what these workers do. Neither you nor I would appreciate the conditions in which they find themselves when they arrive here, and you and I would appreciate even less all the constraints and obligations to which they are subjected. Despite everything, they are asked to find time that they do not have!
It is with great fanfare that the Minister of Labour, Jean Boulet, announces that non-unionized immigrant workers now have access to new resources and training in occupational health and safety, and that the organizations that help them can now obtain funding to offer training to these workers. Great, but when? During their working hours or on Saturday evenings between 9 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.?
Already facing a labor shortage, employers using this type of labor are struggling to produce or compete, and are struggling to offer sick or vacation days to their employees. It is therefore unthinkable that these employers will magically find time to free up their employees to have them trained, during working hours, on the risks they take in their workplace.
We cannot blame Minister Boulet for trying, just as we can only encourage the Union of Accidented or Sick Workers, the Immigrant Workers Centre and the Quebec Migrant Agricultural Workers Assistance Network to continue their mission.
However, is the initiative to strengthen prevention measures and provide increased support to these workers accompanied by tools and support for employers? Or is it hoped that employers, who struggled to understand and implement measures to ensure a healthy and safe work environment, or who knowingly acted with impunity, will develop empathy, sympathy and adopt a more humane approach towards these workers?