(NAFB) – Food processing and distribution within Canadian agriculture and food industries are largely deemed ‘essential’ work. The larger meat packing plants are mostly unionized in Canada, and they have also seen some of the largest COVID numbers—just like in the United States.

The latest event is at the pork packer, Olymel Food Processing Plant in Red Deer, Alberta, processing about 10,000 pigs daily.  343 positive cases, and a 35-year-old plant worker’s death, is attributed to COVID. The plant is now in temporary shut-down but union officials there had been calling for its shutdown since January.

During a recent COVID briefing involving the Olymel situation, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health said institutional policies at the Red Deer plant had been successful until recently. However, it’s known that high numbers of that plant’s employees work secondary jobs. Dr. Deena Hinshaw made some references that certain events may have brought the virus into the plant.

Dr. Hinshaw’s statement angered Union officials. The United Food & Commercial Workers represents workers at the Olymel plant, along with about 35,000 workers in Alberta’s meat processing and retail grocery store industries. Thomas Hesse, a spokesman for the United Food & Commercial Workers union says regardless of where it originated, a processing plant’s working environment is an inherent spreader.

The union says that because their members are deemed ‘essential’ their continued work is taken for granted during the COVID pandemic, and the union is raising the risk of strike action. Thomas Hesse stated the law is quite clear about employers providing a safe place for employees to work.

In terms of demands, the Union wants its members to be placed at higher priority for COVID-19 vaccine inoculations. The union also wants its members to receive pandemic pay from their employers, with pay to continue from the employer while a plant is temporarily closed. And the union wants to ensure personal protective equipment for all workers, and Plexiglas dividers between all work stations.