The province is hiring more workplace inspectors and keeping a closer eye on temporary agencies, says the minister of labor
In Quebec, the number of temporary foreign workers injured on the job has more than doubled in the last two years. This is because the province is hiring more migrant workers to make up for a lack of local workers.
Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet said on Wednesday that the Quebec Workplace Health and Safety Board (CNESST) will hire more inspectors and keep a closer eye on employers to try to protect migrant workers.
Last year, the province made a deal with the federal government that will allow Quebec employers to hire three times as many temporary foreign workers by the end of 2023. Temporary foreign workers are known for being unstable, and their well-being depends on the goodwill of their employers.
Boulet said, “I want to say again that these workers have the same rights and responsibilities as all Quebec workers, and that Quebec employers have the same responsibilities toward them as they do toward all Quebec workers.”
Boulet said that in 2019, employers in Quebec hired 23,300 foreign workers for short-term jobs. At a news conference in Quebec City on Wednesday, the minister said that the number had gone up to 38,500 by 2022.
In the same time period, temporary foreign workers reported 154 workplace accidents in 2019 and 362 in 2022. After the pandemic, more migrant workers were allowed into the country in 2021, and 214 accidents like this one were reported to the CNESST.
Last year, as part of a pilot project, the CNESST set up a prevention team to teach workplaces about Quebec’s labor laws. Boulet said that the team would be made permanent, and the number of agents on it would go from 12 to 22.
He also said that the province is adding 141 inspectors who focus on labor laws to the 291 inspectors who are already in charge of health and safety.
Advocates for migrant workers say they are glad that there will be more oversight, but they aren’t sure if the measures announced by Boulet will be enough because resources for the workers, both from non-profits and the government, haven’t had time to change.
“It’s good news, but we’ll have to see how it works,” said Michel Pilon, co-founder of a network to help migrant farm workers.Réseau d’aide aux travailleuses et travailleurs migrants agricoles du Québec (RATTMAQ).
With more money from the government, RATTMAQ has opened offices in several cities across the province in the past year and a half. However, Pilon said that it is still hard for the organization to handle all the complaints from workers about their employers.
The CNESST prevention team that was tested last year only goes to places of work where the boss has asked for their help.
“Most of the time, those aren’t the employers with whom we have problems,” Pilon said.
Boulet didn’t say if this would change now that there are more agents.
The Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal says it is still looking over Boulet’s announcement but that the steps the government has taken so far don’t show that they understand the problems migrant workers face.
Manuel Salamanca, who works with the IWC on temporary foreign worker issues, said, “Now that there are more types of jobs, the problems have grown, and our feeling is that these programs are still just ways to make undocumented people.”
The way foreign workers are treated is being looked at
The deaths of two temporary foreign workers in Quebec recently, as well as reports that migrant workers at some major employers were paid less than their Quebec-born peers, have brought more attention to how the province treats foreign workers.
This week, a 45-year-old Mexican man named Jose Leos Cervantes died on his way from Quebec into the United States.
Pilon said that Cervantes had worked in agriculture as a temporary foreign worker, but he didn’t have any more information. His group and other groups that work with farms that hire migrant workers have seen a worrying rise in workers leaving farms without warning.
In 2021, there were 276 temporary foreign workers in agriculture who quit, and in 2022, there were 484.
Pilon said, “It goes up and up.”
Some of the workers are thought to be persuaded to work illegally, while others walk into the U.S. in search of better jobs. Worker advocates think that some of the quits are because of abuse at Quebec workplaces, but they also say that the quits could be caused by other things, like going to visit family south of the border.
In July 2021, a temporary foreign worker on a farm about 60 kilometers south of Quebec City died. Ottoniel Lares Batzibal, who was 38 years old, was killed by a pickup truck while he was reportedly trying to change the tire on the truck.
A judge from the Quebec Labour Tribunal ruled earlier this month that Batzibal’s death was not an accident at work and that his family in Guatemala would not get any money because it happened outside of work hours and he was just changing the tire as a favor for his boss, not as part of his job.
“Everything about this accident was related to work, but for some reason the judge didn’t see that,” said Pilon, who is looking into other ways the family could be compensated.
Recent investigations by the CBC and Radio-Canada have also found pay differences between temporary foreign workers and Quebec workers.