Save lives, at what cost?

When the pandemic struck, governments around the world embarked on a frantic race for personal protective equipment. Everyone needed masks. Billions were needed. Billions of disposable gowns and gloves were needed. And in fourth gear.

We have heard stories of government-hired middlemen snatching up precious cargo on airport tarmacs in Asia. It was every man for himself. Stronger the pocket. Anything was allowed.

Everything had to be done to protect healthcare workers who risked their lives, day after day, in our hospitals and CHSLDs. Everything had to be done to save lives.

Sometimes even at the cost of that of others.

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In the war against the coronavirus, much thought has been given to frontline workers. Much less to those in the trenches. Shadow workers who make protective equipment on the assembly line, often in inhuman conditions.

In Malaysia, tens of thousands of migrant workers who make disposable gloves are exploited, poorly paid, threatened and abused, to the point of being viewed by many organizations as modern day slaves.

This is the case, in particular, at Supermax Corp., one of the four Malaysian giants of the latex glove industry. In October, US customs officials ordered the seizure of products made by the company, which they suspected of using forced labor.

Since the start of the pandemic, Supermax Healthcare Canada Group, a Longueuil-based subsidiary of Supermax Corp., has landed more than half a billion dollars in contracts from the governments of Quebec and Canada, revealed Thursday my colleagues Joël-Denis Bellavance and Fanny Lévesque.

Read “Controversial purchases of equipment: more than half a billion in contracts from Quebec and Ottawa”

Canada suspended deliveries of disposable gloves made by Supermax shortly after the US sanction fell. Yet he had known for months, and in detail, what was going on in his Malaysian facilities.

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It was Andy Hall who sounded the alarm.

For months, this British human rights activist, based in Asia, has been bombarding Canadian authorities with emails. He sent hundreds of them. Photos, videos and testimonies exposing the extent of the exploitation of workers, mostly Nepalese and Bangladeshi.

Andy Hall has done the same with the American, British and Australian authorities. It was because of his persistence that the United States banned Supermax Corp’s products. on its territory.

At the start of the year, Canadian authorities limited their investigation to the Longueuil branch. There, they were told that everything was beautiful. There was no problem in Malaysia.

Canada maintained its contracts.

“This is an appalling systemic failure on the part of the Canadian government, which has been ineffective in tackling modern slavery in its supply chains during the pandemic,” Andy Hall wrote to me. He had all the information, but he didn’t act. ”

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Andy Hall interviewed a hundred former Supermax Corp workers. returnees to Nepal. They told him about confiscated passports, withheld salaries, penalties, threats and harassment. Some said they were beaten by their bosses. Many had received fines totaling months of salary.

All were in “debt bondage,” a form of contemporary slavery. To work at Supermax, they had to pay up to $ 5,000 in recruiting fees. The trap was then closed on them: they had been forced to work for years to repay their debt.

In the midst of the pandemic, they slept crammed into unsanitary dormitories. Sometimes an employee would spray disinfectant on them, their beds and their meager belongings.

All this for a handful of dollars a day.

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In a written statement to Press, Supermax Healthcare Canada Group claims it was made aware of the forced labor allegations made by US authorities only last month. She claims to fall from the clouds …

It’s hard to believe, to say the least.

Testimonies of migrant workers in debt bondage in Malaysia were reported as early as November 2019 in an investigation by the magazine The Diplomat. Supermax Corp. was one of the companies singled out.

Read “Clean Gloves, Dirty Practices: Debt Bondage in Malaysia’s Rubber Glove Industry”

Already, at the time, workers denounced the false promises of recruitment agencies. They had been presented with paying and not too grueling jobs in Malaysia.

Supermax workers had to pay exorbitant fees to agencies, which they would take years to reimburse. “We are penalized if we complain about the working conditions or the dormitory, or if we fall asleep at work,” said one of them.

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It was before the pandemic.

Since then, demand has exploded. Malaysian factories are in full swing. At the height of the crisis, migrant workers crowded there while the rest of the country was in total containment.

No choice: they were essential workers.

They had to respond to the urgent needs of those fighting on the front lines.

In Ottawa, the opposition parties are calling for a parliamentary inquiry. The pandemic, they say, does not justify Canada awarding millions of dollars in contracts to a company that flouts human rights.

Nothing justifies this. We must force these companies to do better. Much better. They must put an end to their inhuman practices.

We do not have to choose between frontline workers and those who manufacture their equipment in the trenches. All of them are essential. All of them deserve our recognition and our full, clear and determined support. Modern slavery must end.