Nearly five times more temporary foreign workers in Quebec are injured at work and contract illnesses related to their work than six years ago.
Occupational injuries accepted by the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) amounted to 3,541 for the year 2022.
In total, these temporary migrants made 5,648 injury claims, according to a document obtained under the Access to Information Act. It is therefore 2,000 claims from temporary workers that have not been accepted — or not yet been accepted — by the CNESST.
This number is almost five times higher than six years ago, when the curve started to rise: in 2016, the CNESST had counted 727 accepted lesions.
The total number of temporary foreign workers also tripled during the same period. It is therefore also growing, but has not multiplied as quickly. In other words, the number of workers injured or ill because of their job is growing faster than their total number.
The duty already reported in 2021 that these lesions were on the increase. The non-durable goods manufacturing sector was then particularly affected, especially the food manufacturing sector, where there are more and more temporary workers.
More complaints
Complaints about labor standards have also increased in recent years among temporary workers, going from 16 in 2019 to 477 last year. If the trend continues, the year 2023 will reach a new record, as 197 complaints were filed for the first three months of the year alone. The most frequent were pecuniary complaints for 144 cases, while 115 complaints concerned psychological or sexual harassment. The other reasons are dismissals without valid and sufficient reason, prohibited practices or disparities in treatment.
Several studies show that immigrants in general are overrepresented in job categories that are more at risk and therefore in the number of occupational injuries. They would constitute “up to 80% of the files admitted to rehabilitation on the island of Montreal”, according to an exploratory study by the Robert-Sauvé Research Institute in Occupational Health and Safety (IRSST).
Employment agency workers, mostly immigrants, are three and a half times more at risk of occupational injuries, according to a study by the Montreal Public Health Department.
Immigrants are among the priority clienteles targeted in the CNESST’s 2020-2023 strategic plan.
As for temporary foreign workers, several measures to facilitate their progress have been taken over the years. Labor Minister Jean Boulet recently announced that the Prevention Squad, a short-lived team at first, was becoming permanent. This squad gives workshops to temporary foreign workers to inform them of labor standards in Quebec, particularly in Spanish.
Of course, temporary immigrants aren’t the only ones injured or contracting work-related illnesses. In 2022, the CNESST recorded 216 work-related deaths, it was indicated in a press release on the occasion of the Day of Mourning, a higher number than in previous years. In total, the Commission counted 161,962 occupational injuries in the Quebec population in general for that same year. “Behind every statistic, there is a person, a life lost or changed forever,” said Manuelle Oudar, President and CEO of the CNESST.