“You Can’t Solve Precarity With Precarity.” The New Alberta Workers Program: An Interview With Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull, Executive Director of the Alberta Workers’ Health Centre

Abstract

In January 2013, SSEC Canada Ltd. pled guilty to three charges under Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act after two of its temporary foreign workers died and two more were seriously injured on the worksite. A fine of $1,225,000—the largest ever ordered in Alberta—was paid to the Alberta Law Foundation, which administered the funds to the Alberta Workers’ Health Centre to develop and provide the “New Alberta Workers program.” In this interview, Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull reflects on the program’s peer-to-peer Occupational Health and Safety workshops for new-to-Alberta workers to illustrate how “creative sentencing” related to serious Occupational Health and Safety violation convictions can play out. He discusses what the team learned about the particular work and life context and related needs of new-to-Alberta workers that created challenges and prompted program changes throughout the three-year workshop period. Finally, Jared considers what is needed to meaningfully support new-to-Alberta workers going forward.

Factors Influencing the Health and Safety of Temporary Foreign Workers in Skilled and Low-Skilled Occupations in Canada

“…In light of our interviews, a set of factors that showed positive impact in protecting workers against abusive practices, including breach of contracts, was the presence of an active union representing all the workers, including TFWs, in synergy with managerial policies in the meat processing plant and the support of the province and local governments throughout the whole process from recruitment to the permanent settlement of these workers and their families. In recent years, as illustrated by the interview data in this issue, 75,76 better support systems have been provided by NGOs and unions in some jurisdictions. Our study underlines the importance of a holistic approach to support TFWs: those support systems that provide help regardless of the specific silo within which a problem falls (OHS vs. ES vs. housing vs. immigration) in order to better respond to the needs of these workers.…”

Occupational Health and Safety and the Mobile Workforce: Insights From a Canadian Research Program

“…The issue of worker voice in raising OHS concerns was shown to be a particular challenge for the mobile workforce, both because of their precarious migration status, in the case of international migrants, but also because of work organizational factors in ships 31 and in remote locations where workers' ability and willingness to actively participate in health and safety matters is constrained. 32 Key insights from the NAW program discussed in Howse 42 point to the need for innovative, carefully designed, and sustained programs of education, training, and community support for migrant workers. While important, as the article suggests, access to funding supports for sustained programs of this kind is elusive and indeed threatened by current politics in Canada, the United States and elsewhere around immigration, labor migration and growing tolerance for profound violations of migrant workers' rights.…”

“…Finally, new regulatory interventions that could address some of the hazards related to mobility may well limit workers' agency and ability to decide how and when they want to engage in the mobile workforce. As shown in some of the papers in this issue, 9,11,32,42 the work of labor unions and of other forms of community unionism are making a contribution to promoting the best conditions possible for workers engaged in the mobile workforce; however, in other cases, it would appear that the mobility issues are not yet being addressed collectively by worker organizations. Invisibility of these issues for the labor movement, compounded by management prerogatives in labor legislation, leaves the work organization decision-making to employers who have the freedom to determine schedules and work organization without the impediment of regulation that could be designed to prevent fatigue related to long commutes preceding shifts, for example.…”

“…The special issue concludes with an article by Dana Howse 42 based on an interview with Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull, Executive Director of the Alberta Workers' Health Centre. The article focuses on Matsunaga-Turnbull's observations and reflections on a peer-to-peer OHS education project entitled the New Alberta Workers (NAW) program.…”

“…Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull also reflects on what was learned from this approach to OHS training about both existing barriers to training and future training opportunities. 42 As noted by Howse 42 in the introduction to the interview,the NAW program revealed the need for more on-the-ground comprehensive services that address in a holistic way the array of interconnected concerns and challenges confronted by new to Alberta workers, related to workplace rights, health and safety, housing, residency, family, healthcare, and so on. 42 (pp.…”