workers Archives - Manitoba Co-operator

External view of the U.S. Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 30, 2020. (File photo: Reuters/Andrew Kelly)

U.S. to crack down on child labour amid massive uptick

Food processing plants among alleged offenders

By GFM Network News, Mica Rosenberg, Nandita Bose February 28, 2023

Washington | Reuters — The Biden administration in the U.S. announced measures to crack down on child labour on Monday amid a steep rise in violations and investigative reports by Reuters and other news outlets on illegal employment of migrant minors in dangerous industries. U.S. officials said the Labor Department had seen a nearly 70

The company is simply pocketing the lion’s share of the price increase as profit and blaming it on higher worker pay.

Comment, Op/Ed, Other

Comment: Worker wages are not the cause of higher food prices

Big companies complain about worker wages but the data doesn’t support them

By Alan Guebert July 5, 2021

After my first year at the Big U, I returned to the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth for a summer of work. The first task, however, was to ask my father to double my hourly pay from 50 cents an hour, the amount I’d been paid through high school, to $1 per hour

News

Some U.S. meat packers announce vaccine plans

Many workers are still waiting for their first jabs

By Tom Polansek March 15, 2021

COVID-19 vaccines are making their way into the arms of U.S. meat and agriculture workers, but companies and union officials say progress needs to be faster after coronavirus outbreaks idled slaughterhouses and sickened thousands of workers. Vaccinating food workers could help prevent further production disruptions that sent meat prices soaring in spring 2020 and forced retailers like Kroger

News, Other

Canada Summer Jobs Program open to farmers

Some changes made in response to COVID job losses kept from last year

By Manitoba Co-operator Staff January 19, 2021

Farmers and agricultural businesses can apply for wage subsidies through the Canada Summer Jobs Program until January 29. The program will pay qualifying businesses up to 75 per cent of the provincial minimum hourly wage to provide summer jobs for people between age 15 and 30. Last year public health order closed businesses and put

News

Workers ‘crying for help’ at Brandon Maple Leaf plant

In an open letter, workers say the province and company are discriminating against immigrant workers by shuffling blame onto them

By Geralyn Wichers August 25, 2020

Workers at Brandon’s Maple Leaf Foods plant say the company and provincial government are passing the blame onto them for spreading COVID-19 in the facility. “We workers are crying for help,” they wrote in an open letter, circulated Monday by Migrante Manitoba, an advocacy group for migrants in the province. The province has repeatedly said

File photo of a New Brunswick blueberry field in autumn. (EdCorey/iStock/Getty Images)

Crops

New Brunswick ag groups rip province’s ban on foreign workers

Risk during pandemic 'simply too great,' premier says

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News May 1, 2020

New Brunswick farmers who employ temporary foreign workers (TFWs) are calling for the provincial government to reverse its new COVID-19-related ban on entry of TFWs who haven’t yet arrived. The provincial government on Tuesday updated a mandatory order under its pandemic state of emergency to restrict TFWs from entering the province. The new restriction doesn’t

Beef cattle, Livestock

COVID-19 surges at reopened JBS Colorado beef plant, union says

A sixth worker has died, UFCW local chief says

By GFM Network News, Reuters April 30, 2020

Chicago | Reuters — COVID-19 cases at a JBS meatpacking plant in Colorado have more than doubled “in a number of days” and a sixth employee died of the virus, a union official said on Thursday, underscoring the risks of U.S. meat plants reopening. The beef plant at Greeley, about 65 km north of Denver,

(Deyana Robova photo/iStock/Getty Images)

Hogs, Livestock, Markets

Smithfield to close Illinois pork facility

Workers test positive for COVID-19

By GFM Network News, Reuters April 25, 2020

Reuters — World’s largest pork processor Smithfield Foods said Friday it will suspend operations at its Monmouth, Illinois pork processing facility next week after some employees tested positive for COVID-19, adding to already strained U.S. meat supplies. The news of some of the company’s 1,700 employees at the plant testing positive comes a day after

Farmers to know soon whether new wage supports work for them

Top-up also en route for low-wage essential workers; CERB also tweaked

By D.C. Fraser, GFM Network News April 16, 2020

Ottawa — Agricultural employers may soon find out whether changes to the Canada Summer Jobs program, and other new federal supports on the way, will result in more workers for the sector. Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Wednesday said officials are reviewing requests from employers to see which ones will qualify to have 100

(Photo courtesy Canola Council of Canada)

Farming deemed essential in new federal pandemic guidance

Food production and supporting industries amid 'critical infrastructure'

By GFM Network News, Gfm Staff April 2, 2020

Workers in agriculture and supporting industries are on a new federal guidance list of employees considered “essential to maintain the health, safety, security and economic well-being of Canadians” amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair on Thursday released a new guidance document, “Guidance on Essential Services and Functions in Canada During the

Daily Network News

B.C. ostriches culled, CFIA confirms

U.S. livestock: Cattle, hogs end week on high note

U.S. grains: Soybeans bounce as Chinese demand assessed, wheat drops

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