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Undercover in a Toronto factory where a temp worker died

182 points by Zarkonnen 9y ago

grecy 9y ago
Many companies in countries like Canada and Australia are now trying harder than ever to emulate the United States with it's extremely low wages, health, benefits, etc. for temp or casual workers. Unfortunately, it's a race to the bottom, as tens of millions of Americas will attest to. My simple question is - can we justify treating humans like this in the name of increasing profit?
- wiz21c 9y ago
  My second question is : why don't union gets bigger and stronger ? Millions can't be put on the brink on poverty without an answer. Yesterday, on a european TV, I saw a documentary about middle class people who became half-homeless (their words). They were just unlucky to loose their jobs. Now I understand they may have had too much credits or debts here and there but, these were middle class, that is, they went down the social path. That's scary.
  - NicoJuicy 9y ago
    Almost no Belgians in Belgium are homeless. I haven't seen anyone, although there seems to be some in the main capital. I know a lot of refugees live in sheltes and currently there are homeless people in Brussels due to the breakup of Calais. But these people don't want to get asile in Belgium, but want to go to the UK. So that's why they don't receive anything here. That is their choice ofc.
    - wiz21c 9y ago
      Yep, statistically there are not many. But people helped by "social security" is growing faster than demographics. Those people are at the last level of social welfare, after that they're super close to homelessness. the thing is, before being homeless, you're already in deep shit. for refugees, I think you're right but "their choice" is a way to frame them that is a bit harsh. I see many of them everyday close to north station (brussels) and I doubt it was their choice to be there in the first place. (edited the station, it's the north one :-))
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      I was going to say, I thought I saw plenty of homeless people in Brussels when I visited awhile ago. Now Switzerland really doesn't have homeless people as far as I can tell.
    - Shivetya 9y ago
      No offense, by numbers yet, by percentage of population it is similar to most other countries. We had other such declarations here recently but it all comes down to not seeing what is there to be seen. Homelessness exist in most part because they are invisible to the average person. 2011, 50,000 estimated with ten percent of that permanently on the streets. Number looks low until you realize the population is under twelve million total. we must never allow ourselves to believe there isn't a problem. don't look a the numbers but concentrate on the percentage of the population. I know it so much easier to demagogue other countries for their "problem" but do note, countries like the US where I am in report it and have many organizations which exist to remind people there is a problem. That doesn't mean its worse here, by percentages we are below many EU countries but as a physical number it looks bad because we have three hundred million plus people to start with
    - gadders 9y ago
      >>ut these people don't want to get asile in Belgium, but want to go to the UK. So that's why they don't receive anything here. That is their choice ofc. It's not their choice. EU rules say they should claim asylum in the first EU country they arrive in.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > My second question is : why don't union gets bigger and stronger ? Due to a combination of anti-union propaganda, (US only?) unions having an image of being corrupt and the shift to "gig economy" which was specifically created to combat unions...
  - s_kilk 9y ago
    The Bourgeois State, in both the US and Europe, has put a lot of work into undermining Unions, and Labour power in general, all in the service of Capital interests. These outcomes are not surprising, this is literally the project of NeoLiberalism. A feature, not a bug.
  - lightbyte 9y ago
    If those people were made homeless after losing their jobs they were definitely not "middle class". There is almost no middle class anymore and nobody wants to accept that they are apart of the poor, lower class. It's hard to change reality when nobody believes it.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    More importantly, why don't strong unions do something about it? The mid-1980s saw the strongest unionization period for Canada – with nearly a 40% unionization rate – but all the of same declines mentioned by the parent were quite visible then. Wages, for instance, have been stagnant since the late 1960s. There was plenty of opportunity to fix the problems during those best union years. Unionization has declined somewhat since that time, but is still fairly strong in Canada today, with about 30% unionization. The six strongest unionized country in the world. That matches the peak unionization rate for the USA (down to about 10% today), which is heralded for bringing great working improvements for the American worker. There really should be no reason why the current unions in Canada cannot improve on these things. History has shown that 30% unionization is enough to change the world. I expect that unionization is declining, rather than strengthening, because the potential members are feeling like the unions have become self-serving or are resting on their laurels.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  I find it ironic that the race to the bottom is also driven by more constrained salaries. People earn less, they'll look for cheaper choices > it's extremely low wages "its extremely low wages"
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  > can we justify treating humans like Surely not. Not for any reason, let alone for profit.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  If I own a company, I can justify anything short of illegal activities to increase profit. If you don't want companies to behave in a certain way, get it outlawed.
  - grecy 9y ago
    I agree 100%. That is why I am starting a conversation. Change starts with a conversation.
  - tejohnso 9y ago
    According to the article they, or their affiliates, are violating the law in several ways.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    This is a bullshit perspective when companies lobby and play all sorts of tricks to manipulate the law itself.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    You can justify some illegal activities, it's not a crime if nobody finds out / cares.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      > it's not a crime if nobody finds out / cares Sure it is. Someone living off-grid who kills their kid and successfully disposes of the body might get away with it, but it's still a horrific crime.
  - erikb 9y ago
    This is too naive. a) Companies will even do illegal stuff as long as they can do it and the lawsuits are not too expensive. b) You can't make everything illegal. Smart people will always find a way no matter how strict your system is. c) Yes, many people/companies will exploit others if they can. If you evaluate statistically that's actually "normal behaviour".
- someonewhocar3s 9y ago
  Labor is a market.
mabbo 9y ago
I don't understand how this strategy works. Company A doesn't want to hire employees because employees have rights. Instead, they hire temps from Company B who abuses their employees' rights. Why doesn't the government start policing the abuse of rights by Company B? Why doesn't the government pass laws that acknowledge that these employees are truly employees of Company A?
- Asooka 9y ago
  First, as stated in the article Company B practically doesn't exist and if it gets closed, it can reappear as Company C next door. Second, because the people writing these laws didn't envision such greed and now there's too much lobbying money thrown around.
  - mabbo 9y ago
    > now there's too much lobbying money thrown around But this is Canada! We have strict political donation laws and campaign spending laws that really prevent lobbying from getting nuts like it is in America. I'm mostly upset because this is in my back yard. I could be at this factory in 20 minutes in current traffic conditions.
    - rtkwe 9y ago
      Even with laws like that large companies have a lot of advantages in lobbying for laws. First it's much easier for a large company to get lobbyists because they have the money to hire them where workers and worker rights groups have smaller purses to draw from. Second the things companies lobby for have nice big metrics they can trot out, profitability, GDP or job growth, etc where improving working conditions for industry X doesn't have a nice big number you can trot out or even really benefits everyone in a way they can appreciate where the pro-business side can draw more direct 'regulation X killed this many jobs last year, repeal it and we swear we won't be evil.'
  - forinti 9y ago
    Exactly. Some of these companies don't even have any capital. If Company A withholds payment one week, they can't pay their employees. Capitalism without capital! They are best classified as leeches.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Theizestooke 9y ago
That is some great journalism, can't remember the last time I read an article like that. Also telling that this article has less than 20 comments on Hacker News. Or maybe it's a sign of the times that this sort of stuff appears on a tech news site at all.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  > Also telling that this article has less than 20 comments on Hacker News It's only been up for an hour, slow down.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  If you want to see more journalism like this, subscribe to your local newspaper. Investigative journalism is slow, difficult and expensive. Sometimes it doesn't yield anything worth printing, sometimes it results in a worthy but dull story, sometimes it provokes major social change. You can't afford to do serious investigative work on Adsense revenue. Local newspapers are uniquely equipped to do this sort of work. They have the local contacts, they have the experienced journalists who know their beat, they have the trust of the community. Agencies like ProPublica do important work, but they're no substitute for grass-roots journalism.
jonssons 9y ago
as an ex-temp worker: that's how it is. You want to work, you have to put up with the stuff they throw at you. No. It's not fair. No. It's not just. It's for the poor. It's for the uneducated. It's for the immigrants. It's for the vulnerable people, because they are easy to exploit. They don't know their own rights. Temp offices should not be allowed to exist.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >Temp offices should not be allowed to exist. I disagree. Working for a temp agency doing catering, sports venue and whatnot is generally more stable income than working for several places like that directly. Temp agencies work well for industries where demand is variable but predictable. Companies that use temps to fill their baseline staffing requirements to skirt legal/ethical requirements are terrible though.
  - frandroid 9y ago
    Catering companies, sports venues, etc. can still have you on-call. The difference between a temp agency and a catering company is that it completely severs the employment relation which protects the workers by law.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      Yes, and that's usually worse than getting a fairly predictable number of hours from a temp agency. A temp agency will generally try to avoid asking an employees to be in multiple places at once. It's a pretty simple resource allocation problem.
- jonssons 9y ago
  I had to depart quickly so I had to cut it short. To elaborate further: The temp offices usually work with day contracts, allowing them to 'fire' you when you get a bad review, they don't need you that day or they don't like you. This provides a very unstable income. In my case, the company that was hiring me used the temp jobs as a kind of 'trial period' and easily disposable workforce. If somebody did not live up to expectations, that person does not come back, but every day, 50 of those workers were needed. It took me 1.5 year as a temp worker on day contracts to get a permanent contract from the employer. I was a lucky exception. Looking back on the stress, the uncertainty, the misery and humiliation I had to undergo to keep the most basic job, I would never, ever go back to that industry again.
andrewl 9y ago
This kind of article is a reminder of how much we need traditional newspapers, and what we'd lose if they went away. I sometimes read suggestions that independent bloggers will replace newspapers, but I don't think they can do everything newspaper reporters do. This reporter worked undercover for a month. There would also have been a lot of time spent on background research before she went undercover. Then it would have taken her more time after that to write the article. During all that time she was paid by the Toronto Star. An independent writer could work undercover, and some have, but they're stuck for that period making a very low salary and having to worry about making ends meet. Then, at least as important, the reporter is backed by the Toronto Star's legal team. I suspect that if she were an independent and published her story on her own blog, this writer would have been sued by the bakery owners and compelled to take the story down. And she would also pay a lot for her legal defense. In this case, if the bakery owners want to sue, they can, but they'll be suing the Toronto Star, which has resources to mount a legal defense, and a voice with which to write about an unjustified lawsuit. So this seems like real journalism to me, and I don't want it to go away. And when I say "real journalism" I'm thinking of George Orwell's view that "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." I'm also thinking of Finley Peter Dunne, who said the point of journalism is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Bloggers can one-up journalists though - there's been a number of critical blog posts and articles from (former) employees at Uber, Google, etc, which eventually cost CEO's their jobs. Actually working and living the life is even better than being a journalist and having to dive into it.
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    Your examples kind of undermine your point. Disgruntled Uber and Google employees have the writing skills to make their point, they have the technical savvy and the social capital to get their message to a wide audience, they have the confidence and financial resources to resist legal bullying. In a world without professional journalists, there's no-one to speak out for the poor and marginalised, no-one to unearth stories that are being kept well-hidden by unscrupulous people, no-one to do the months of digging and fact-checking that are involved in a major investigation. Journalism is a highly skilled craft that plays a vital role in society; we can't afford to delegate it to amateurs.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
I used to work in similar places. They suck. There's a reason people don't wear loose fitting clothing around machinery though. A lot of the author's complaints are just part for the course in these kinds of environments. Low margin industries suck in general. The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. Obviously there's temp agencies that cater directly to this but the problem is on the demand side. Some companies want to treat people badly and they can use temp agencies to do it. I know people who have done very well (or as well as you can for those kinds of jobs) at temp agencies. Employers can use a temp agency and if they like the temp(s) they get they can direct hire the temp(s) and cut out the middle man. This doesn't happen when your entire workforce is temps though.
- exelius 9y ago
  > The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. The problem is worse than that. Companies are providing insufficient worker trainings/protection to save money and hiding behind a temp agency for any consequences of that decision. That way, when they get inevitably get sued, the temp agency can declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the plant reassigns the contract to a "new" company who then hires most of the same workers. Here's how it works: - A holding company owns the factory and everything in it (equipment, etc). Skilled labor (technicians, etc.) work for this company. This is also the company that is most likely to be a subsidiary or joint venture of a publicly traded company that you've heard of. - An operating company leases the factory from the holding company with the goal of manufacturing something (but often something that the parent company wants). The plant managers are probably the only people who work for this company. - The operating company hires a temp agency to staff the line. - The temp workers are employed by the agency to work the line. - If a worker gets hurt, the temp agency can declare bankrupcy. Temp agencies have few capital assets to go after, so even if you win, you're not likely to get much. - Even if you can somehow get the operating company included in the suit for negligent oversight, it too has very little in the way of assets. - The holding company (where the real assets exist) is protected by several layers of liability. - The publicly traded company is out of the loop entirely, but still gets cheap products to sell at their stores. Risk is transferred to workers in order to save money.
walterbell 9y ago
> Fiera’s current clients include some of the continent’s biggest brands including Dunkin’ Donuts and Sobeys; over the years it has made pastries for Costco, Tim Hortons, Metro, Walmart, and Loblaw. Its factories churn out baked goods by the truckload, destined for markets across North America and around the world. They can produce 2 million bagels alone per day. Retail boycotts have been used against clothing sweatshops. Is there a reliable way to identify North American baked goods which originate from these temp-labor factories? If all the large distributors use the same suppliers, are there local bakeries which provide better labor conditions and create better product?
- castle-bravo 9y ago
  Consider getting a bread maker: Keurig for bread.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Or a mixing bowl and 15 minutes or so to hand-knead. You don't need a machine, likely also made in a factory under similar conditions, to make bread dough.
    - yial 9y ago
      I agree. As someone who bakes bread frequently there are many recipes that don't require anything beyond ingredients , a bowl, and oven and some trays. However, if you're really doing some serious dough, or just want to branch out. A kitchenaid mixer makes it way easier to get windowpain, and if you're all about the yeast, a food thermometer can be good.
  - nsxwolf 9y ago
    The results for me have always been sub par, and the varieties very limited. The better solution, I found, was the bakery. Bread is cheap there and there is a ton of variety. It's all made expertly by a baker, not some gimmicky machine.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
transverse 9y ago
How is it not her own fault for wearing dangerous clothing (a hijab) in a factory workplace? Something as simple as long hair can be dangerous in such an environment, and a hijab or scarf is unthinkable. Darwin award.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  It's still the employer's fault though, they're supposed to have managers etc that make sure people conform to safety rules and don't wear loose clothes, have their hair tied back, wear hair and beard nets, remove jewellery, wash hands, etc. Actually (reading further in the article myself now), the journalist is told all that. But on the other hand, there's religious freedom and rules that come into play. In this case though, if she didn't want to remove or replace the loose clothing, she shouldn't be allowed to work near dangerous machinery.
  - csours 9y ago
    https://www.quora.com/Are-hijabs-safe-in-industrial-areas https://www.quora.com/Are-hijabs-safe-in-industrial-areas In case you don't want to visit quora, there's a picture of what looks like a tearaway hijab.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Agree, but in the PC climate of today people are afraid to criticize any expression of Muslim faith even for legitimate reasons such as "wearing a hijab when using this machine will likely get you killed."
- mcguire 9y ago
  "Darwin award." I'm a little unclear about your point. Do you mean that Moslems deserve to die, or low skilled workers in general?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    A Darwin Award is when a person removes themselves from the gene pool (usually but not always by dying) in a particularly idiotic manner. It may be distasteful, but it has nothing to do with bias against a particular religion or against low-skilled workers.
benlorenzetti 9y ago
Having worked at two manufacturers in the Midwest, anecdotally the majority of forklift drivers, line workers on specific lines, and even many white collar office roles were filled by temp agencies. A similar structure existed for engineering too; we would have a problem and the engineering firm with workers under the same roof would develop a solution. For the temp workers the motivation was always very clear and very much based on working around labor laws. If a forklift driver got in an accident, it wouldn't be counted in the same way. Line workers could be less rigidly brought on board or let go with seasonal or other varying demand. They were cheaper too and everyone worked hard to try and become a regular employee. I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a bit too much. On the other hand what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? Growing the economy, but that isn't something a politician can honestly promise. Pulling back from globalization would, but that is bad economics and bad for national security. Perhaps something like earned income tax credit? Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes constrained.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Ending right to work laws and bringing back unions.
  - RHSeeger 9y ago
    Of course, that too comes with it's negatives. Unions have both positives and negatives. It's not a simple discussion.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      Unions are a counter-balance to corporate power which helps to preserve the power of labor. That unions have some negatives does not mean we should not have them.
    - Frondo 9y ago
      What is an alternative to unions that gives workers some power in the relationship between worker and employer?
asdfasdfasd333 9y ago
In August, charges were laid against Fiera Foods under the Occupational Health and Safety Act for the 2016 death of a temp agency worker named Amina Diaby. Her hijab was caught in a machine, strangling her. /thread.
- FLGMwt 9y ago
  Not sure what you're trying to convey?
  - err4nt 9y ago
    Every single woodworking shop, electric shop, factory, etc I've been in they always make a big deal about _never_ wearing loose-fitting clothing, long hair or necklaces or bracelets - anything you wouldn't want torn off you at a fast rate of speed with force you remove or restrain. This is common sense and common instruction - I'm not sure what employment safety laws say about this. If the cause of her death was loose-fitting clothing that's normally prohibited from those environments because it's a serious danger and workers have been getting caught in machinery as long as we've had machinery to get caught in - and the only reason she was able to wear the clothing in that environment was because of her religious rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which states that her religious rights supersede any written legal code) then this mortal risk might be something she fought to take on, even if the company recommended against it. Imagine for a second that you're a motorcycle police officer, where it's customary (even law) to wear a helmet, but you (for religious reasons) wanted to wear your religious headwear in lieu of a helmet. Then imagine you were killed on the job in a motorcycle crash due to a blow to the skull. Would there be a need for a month-long undercover investigation to uncover the reason you died?
    - frandroid 9y ago
      That's the point of the article, I think. Because Fiera doesn't have an employment relationship with the employee, their workers' comp rates will never increase, no matter what happens to the workers. So they don't take the kinds of precautions which would have prevented this worker from dying. I mean, it also severs to human connection between workers and managers, where they just see workers as a dispensable resource, so there also less every day care about safety.
Jeremy1026 9y ago
The last letter sent from Fiera to The Star[1] is scathing. Fiera is trying so very hard to play the victim to The Stars mean and "underhanded" tactics to get information about their operations. It probably would have served them better to just remain silent instead of sending this response. [1] http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/letters/letter-to-ms-mojtehedzadeh.pdf http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/letters...
- Danihan 9y ago
  I don't know, I find that letter pretty convincing actually. They seem pissed, but they also make a lot of valid points.
  - lovich 9y ago
    At this point isn't it reasonable to assume that companies will not tell you the truth if it puts them in a bad light, and you would need to go undercover to find that truth? Companies cant tell their shareholders on one side that they are doing everything to maximize profit, and on the other side say that they will show their operations with all the good and the bad to anyone who asks.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      Not really. I believe the journalist did sign a document that she knew where the emergency exits were, and the only "damning" thing she found on-site was an unclean bathroom and generally difficult work. This whole thing seems like such a non-story to me. Maybe it's because I've worked in factories before, but I've personally had more harrowing experiences on my 1st day than anything mentioned in this article.
      - jakobegger 9y ago
        Unreachable emergency stop buttons? Moving parts of a fan next to workers without safety covers? Workers fighting for space next to a crowded conveyor belt? Missing guard rails? Repeated fines for lacking safety? Everything about this factory sounds like a death trap.
CryptoPunk 9y ago
If you impose mandatory higher standards for pay, benefits and training on temp employment agencies, a great many of these jobs will simply cease to exist. Given they're employing some of the most resource-challenged people, such a social intervention is liable to cause far more harm than good. Perfect is the enemy of the good.
- sushid 9y ago
  Not sure if you read the article, but no one is talking about a higher standards for pay and benefits. You're literally making generic libertarian points. The only direct criticism is that they don't enforce their own safety guidelines which leads to the death of their workers. A great many of these jobs can continue to exist even if their managers simply request those with loose garbs or improper safety shoes, etc. to show up with proper clothes. Moreover, if there were some sort of government mandated safety check (which I'm not arguing for, just saying) the imposed burden is equal to all other competing firms. Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that they suddenly decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue to exist.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    A lot of people are talking about higher mandatory standards in the wake of this report, most importantly Ontario's Labour Minister: https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-work-growth-is-alarming-and-changes-are-coming-says-ontario-labour-minister.html https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-work... Publicity of the working conditions and pay of low-skilled workers invariably leads to calls for more stringent mandatory standards, as if you can outlaw poverty and low-living standards. >>Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that they suddenly decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue to exist. The effect is on the margins. No single mandate will have a significant impact, but each one adds costs, and in the aggregate, they have a significant effect on economic growth, which is a compounding effect that translates to massive long-term effects.
markvdb 9y ago
A classic in this type of undercover journalism is the work of Günter Wallraff in (West-)Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercover_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercove...

182 points by Zarkonnen 9y ago

Many companies in countries like Canada and Australia are now trying harder than ever to emulate the United States with it's extremely low wages, health, benefits, etc. for temp or casual workers. Unfortunately, it's a race to the bottom, as tens of millions of Americas will attest to. My simple question is - can we justify treating humans like this in the name of increasing profit?

wiz21c 9y ago
My second question is : why don't union gets bigger and stronger ? Millions can't be put on the brink on poverty without an answer. Yesterday, on a european TV, I saw a documentary about middle class people who became half-homeless (their words). They were just unlucky to loose their jobs. Now I understand they may have had too much credits or debts here and there but, these were middle class, that is, they went down the social path. That's scary.
- NicoJuicy 9y ago
  Almost no Belgians in Belgium are homeless. I haven't seen anyone, although there seems to be some in the main capital. I know a lot of refugees live in sheltes and currently there are homeless people in Brussels due to the breakup of Calais. But these people don't want to get asile in Belgium, but want to go to the UK. So that's why they don't receive anything here. That is their choice ofc.
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    Yep, statistically there are not many. But people helped by "social security" is growing faster than demographics. Those people are at the last level of social welfare, after that they're super close to homelessness. the thing is, before being homeless, you're already in deep shit. for refugees, I think you're right but "their choice" is a way to frame them that is a bit harsh. I see many of them everyday close to north station (brussels) and I doubt it was their choice to be there in the first place. (edited the station, it's the north one :-))
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I was going to say, I thought I saw plenty of homeless people in Brussels when I visited awhile ago. Now Switzerland really doesn't have homeless people as far as I can tell.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    No offense, by numbers yet, by percentage of population it is similar to most other countries. We had other such declarations here recently but it all comes down to not seeing what is there to be seen. Homelessness exist in most part because they are invisible to the average person. 2011, 50,000 estimated with ten percent of that permanently on the streets. Number looks low until you realize the population is under twelve million total. we must never allow ourselves to believe there isn't a problem. don't look a the numbers but concentrate on the percentage of the population. I know it so much easier to demagogue other countries for their "problem" but do note, countries like the US where I am in report it and have many organizations which exist to remind people there is a problem. That doesn't mean its worse here, by percentages we are below many EU countries but as a physical number it looks bad because we have three hundred million plus people to start with
  - gadders 9y ago
    >>ut these people don't want to get asile in Belgium, but want to go to the UK. So that's why they don't receive anything here. That is their choice ofc. It's not their choice. EU rules say they should claim asylum in the first EU country they arrive in.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > My second question is : why don't union gets bigger and stronger ? Due to a combination of anti-union propaganda, (US only?) unions having an image of being corrupt and the shift to "gig economy" which was specifically created to combat unions...
- s_kilk 9y ago
  The Bourgeois State, in both the US and Europe, has put a lot of work into undermining Unions, and Labour power in general, all in the service of Capital interests. These outcomes are not surprising, this is literally the project of NeoLiberalism. A feature, not a bug.
- lightbyte 9y ago
  If those people were made homeless after losing their jobs they were definitely not "middle class". There is almost no middle class anymore and nobody wants to accept that they are apart of the poor, lower class. It's hard to change reality when nobody believes it.
- randomdata 9y ago
  More importantly, why don't strong unions do something about it? The mid-1980s saw the strongest unionization period for Canada – with nearly a 40% unionization rate – but all the of same declines mentioned by the parent were quite visible then. Wages, for instance, have been stagnant since the late 1960s. There was plenty of opportunity to fix the problems during those best union years. Unionization has declined somewhat since that time, but is still fairly strong in Canada today, with about 30% unionization. The six strongest unionized country in the world. That matches the peak unionization rate for the USA (down to about 10% today), which is heralded for bringing great working improvements for the American worker. There really should be no reason why the current unions in Canada cannot improve on these things. History has shown that 30% unionization is enough to change the world. I expect that unionization is declining, rather than strengthening, because the potential members are feeling like the unions have become self-serving or are resting on their laurels.
raverbashing 9y ago
I find it ironic that the race to the bottom is also driven by more constrained salaries. People earn less, they'll look for cheaper choices > it's extremely low wages "its extremely low wages"
kwhitefoot 9y ago
> can we justify treating humans like Surely not. Not for any reason, let alone for profit.
dingo_bat 9y ago
If I own a company, I can justify anything short of illegal activities to increase profit. If you don't want companies to behave in a certain way, get it outlawed.
- grecy 9y ago
  I agree 100%. That is why I am starting a conversation. Change starts with a conversation.
- tejohnso 9y ago
  According to the article they, or their affiliates, are violating the law in several ways.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  This is a bullshit perspective when companies lobby and play all sorts of tricks to manipulate the law itself.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  You can justify some illegal activities, it's not a crime if nobody finds out / cares.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > it's not a crime if nobody finds out / cares Sure it is. Someone living off-grid who kills their kid and successfully disposes of the body might get away with it, but it's still a horrific crime.
- erikb 9y ago
  This is too naive. a) Companies will even do illegal stuff as long as they can do it and the lawsuits are not too expensive. b) You can't make everything illegal. Smart people will always find a way no matter how strict your system is. c) Yes, many people/companies will exploit others if they can. If you evaluate statistically that's actually "normal behaviour".
someonewhocar3s 9y ago
Labor is a market.

mabbo 9y ago

I don't understand how this strategy works. Company A doesn't want to hire employees because employees have rights. Instead, they hire temps from Company B who abuses their employees' rights. Why doesn't the government start policing the abuse of rights by Company B? Why doesn't the government pass laws that acknowledge that these employees are truly employees of Company A?

Asooka 9y ago
First, as stated in the article Company B practically doesn't exist and if it gets closed, it can reappear as Company C next door. Second, because the people writing these laws didn't envision such greed and now there's too much lobbying money thrown around.
- mabbo 9y ago
  > now there's too much lobbying money thrown around But this is Canada! We have strict political donation laws and campaign spending laws that really prevent lobbying from getting nuts like it is in America. I'm mostly upset because this is in my back yard. I could be at this factory in 20 minutes in current traffic conditions.
  - rtkwe 9y ago
    Even with laws like that large companies have a lot of advantages in lobbying for laws. First it's much easier for a large company to get lobbyists because they have the money to hire them where workers and worker rights groups have smaller purses to draw from. Second the things companies lobby for have nice big metrics they can trot out, profitability, GDP or job growth, etc where improving working conditions for industry X doesn't have a nice big number you can trot out or even really benefits everyone in a way they can appreciate where the pro-business side can draw more direct 'regulation X killed this many jobs last year, repeal it and we swear we won't be evil.'
- forinti 9y ago
  Exactly. Some of these companies don't even have any capital. If Company A withholds payment one week, they can't pay their employees. Capitalism without capital! They are best classified as leeches.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Theizestooke 9y ago

That is some great journalism, can't remember the last time I read an article like that. Also telling that this article has less than 20 comments on Hacker News. Or maybe it's a sign of the times that this sort of stuff appears on a tech news site at all.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
> Also telling that this article has less than 20 comments on Hacker News It's only been up for an hour, slow down.
jdietrich 9y ago
If you want to see more journalism like this, subscribe to your local newspaper. Investigative journalism is slow, difficult and expensive. Sometimes it doesn't yield anything worth printing, sometimes it results in a worthy but dull story, sometimes it provokes major social change. You can't afford to do serious investigative work on Adsense revenue. Local newspapers are uniquely equipped to do this sort of work. They have the local contacts, they have the experienced journalists who know their beat, they have the trust of the community. Agencies like ProPublica do important work, but they're no substitute for grass-roots journalism.

jonssons 9y ago

as an ex-temp worker: that's how it is. You want to work, you have to put up with the stuff they throw at you. No. It's not fair. No. It's not just. It's for the poor. It's for the uneducated. It's for the immigrants. It's for the vulnerable people, because they are easy to exploit. They don't know their own rights. Temp offices should not be allowed to exist.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>Temp offices should not be allowed to exist. I disagree. Working for a temp agency doing catering, sports venue and whatnot is generally more stable income than working for several places like that directly. Temp agencies work well for industries where demand is variable but predictable. Companies that use temps to fill their baseline staffing requirements to skirt legal/ethical requirements are terrible though.
- frandroid 9y ago
  Catering companies, sports venues, etc. can still have you on-call. The difference between a temp agency and a catering company is that it completely severs the employment relation which protects the workers by law.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Yes, and that's usually worse than getting a fairly predictable number of hours from a temp agency. A temp agency will generally try to avoid asking an employees to be in multiple places at once. It's a pretty simple resource allocation problem.
jonssons 9y ago
I had to depart quickly so I had to cut it short. To elaborate further: The temp offices usually work with day contracts, allowing them to 'fire' you when you get a bad review, they don't need you that day or they don't like you. This provides a very unstable income. In my case, the company that was hiring me used the temp jobs as a kind of 'trial period' and easily disposable workforce. If somebody did not live up to expectations, that person does not come back, but every day, 50 of those workers were needed. It took me 1.5 year as a temp worker on day contracts to get a permanent contract from the employer. I was a lucky exception. Looking back on the stress, the uncertainty, the misery and humiliation I had to undergo to keep the most basic job, I would never, ever go back to that industry again.

andrewl 9y ago

This kind of article is a reminder of how much we need traditional newspapers, and what we'd lose if they went away. I sometimes read suggestions that independent bloggers will replace newspapers, but I don't think they can do everything newspaper reporters do. This reporter worked undercover for a month. There would also have been a lot of time spent on background research before she went undercover. Then it would have taken her more time after that to write the article. During all that time she was paid by the Toronto Star. An independent writer could work undercover, and some have, but they're stuck for that period making a very low salary and having to worry about making ends meet. Then, at least as important, the reporter is backed by the Toronto Star's legal team. I suspect that if she were an independent and published her story on her own blog, this writer would have been sued by the bakery owners and compelled to take the story down. And she would also pay a lot for her legal defense. In this case, if the bakery owners want to sue, they can, but they'll be suing the Toronto Star, which has resources to mount a legal defense, and a voice with which to write about an unjustified lawsuit. So this seems like real journalism to me, and I don't want it to go away. And when I say "real journalism" I'm thinking of George Orwell's view that "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." I'm also thinking of Finley Peter Dunne, who said the point of journalism is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Bloggers can one-up journalists though - there's been a number of critical blog posts and articles from (former) employees at Uber, Google, etc, which eventually cost CEO's their jobs. Actually working and living the life is even better than being a journalist and having to dive into it.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Your examples kind of undermine your point. Disgruntled Uber and Google employees have the writing skills to make their point, they have the technical savvy and the social capital to get their message to a wide audience, they have the confidence and financial resources to resist legal bullying. In a world without professional journalists, there's no-one to speak out for the poor and marginalised, no-one to unearth stories that are being kept well-hidden by unscrupulous people, no-one to do the months of digging and fact-checking that are involved in a major investigation. Journalism is a highly skilled craft that plays a vital role in society; we can't afford to delegate it to amateurs.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

I used to work in similar places. They suck. There's a reason people don't wear loose fitting clothing around machinery though. A lot of the author's complaints are just part for the course in these kinds of environments. Low margin industries suck in general. The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. Obviously there's temp agencies that cater directly to this but the problem is on the demand side. Some companies want to treat people badly and they can use temp agencies to do it. I know people who have done very well (or as well as you can for those kinds of jobs) at temp agencies. Employers can use a temp agency and if they like the temp(s) they get they can direct hire the temp(s) and cut out the middle man. This doesn't happen when your entire workforce is temps though.

exelius 9y ago
> The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. The problem is worse than that. Companies are providing insufficient worker trainings/protection to save money and hiding behind a temp agency for any consequences of that decision. That way, when they get inevitably get sued, the temp agency can declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the plant reassigns the contract to a "new" company who then hires most of the same workers. Here's how it works: - A holding company owns the factory and everything in it (equipment, etc). Skilled labor (technicians, etc.) work for this company. This is also the company that is most likely to be a subsidiary or joint venture of a publicly traded company that you've heard of. - An operating company leases the factory from the holding company with the goal of manufacturing something (but often something that the parent company wants). The plant managers are probably the only people who work for this company. - The operating company hires a temp agency to staff the line. - The temp workers are employed by the agency to work the line. - If a worker gets hurt, the temp agency can declare bankrupcy. Temp agencies have few capital assets to go after, so even if you win, you're not likely to get much. - Even if you can somehow get the operating company included in the suit for negligent oversight, it too has very little in the way of assets. - The holding company (where the real assets exist) is protected by several layers of liability. - The publicly traded company is out of the loop entirely, but still gets cheap products to sell at their stores. Risk is transferred to workers in order to save money.

walterbell 9y ago

> Fiera’s current clients include some of the continent’s biggest brands including Dunkin’ Donuts and Sobeys; over the years it has made pastries for Costco, Tim Hortons, Metro, Walmart, and Loblaw. Its factories churn out baked goods by the truckload, destined for markets across North America and around the world. They can produce 2 million bagels alone per day. Retail boycotts have been used against clothing sweatshops. Is there a reliable way to identify North American baked goods which originate from these temp-labor factories? If all the large distributors use the same suppliers, are there local bakeries which provide better labor conditions and create better product?

castle-bravo 9y ago
Consider getting a bread maker: Keurig for bread.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Or a mixing bowl and 15 minutes or so to hand-knead. You don't need a machine, likely also made in a factory under similar conditions, to make bread dough.
  - yial 9y ago
    I agree. As someone who bakes bread frequently there are many recipes that don't require anything beyond ingredients , a bowl, and oven and some trays. However, if you're really doing some serious dough, or just want to branch out. A kitchenaid mixer makes it way easier to get windowpain, and if you're all about the yeast, a food thermometer can be good.
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  The results for me have always been sub par, and the varieties very limited. The better solution, I found, was the bakery. Bread is cheap there and there is a ton of variety. It's all made expertly by a baker, not some gimmicky machine.
- crispyambulance 9y ago

transverse 9y ago

How is it not her own fault for wearing dangerous clothing (a hijab) in a factory workplace? Something as simple as long hair can be dangerous in such an environment, and a hijab or scarf is unthinkable. Darwin award.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
It's still the employer's fault though, they're supposed to have managers etc that make sure people conform to safety rules and don't wear loose clothes, have their hair tied back, wear hair and beard nets, remove jewellery, wash hands, etc. Actually (reading further in the article myself now), the journalist is told all that. But on the other hand, there's religious freedom and rules that come into play. In this case though, if she didn't want to remove or replace the loose clothing, she shouldn't be allowed to work near dangerous machinery.
- csours 9y ago
  https://www.quora.com/Are-hijabs-safe-in-industrial-areas https://www.quora.com/Are-hijabs-safe-in-industrial-areas In case you don't want to visit quora, there's a picture of what looks like a tearaway hijab.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Agree, but in the PC climate of today people are afraid to criticize any expression of Muslim faith even for legitimate reasons such as "wearing a hijab when using this machine will likely get you killed."
mcguire 9y ago
"Darwin award." I'm a little unclear about your point. Do you mean that Moslems deserve to die, or low skilled workers in general?
- mikeash 9y ago
  A Darwin Award is when a person removes themselves from the gene pool (usually but not always by dying) in a particularly idiotic manner. It may be distasteful, but it has nothing to do with bias against a particular religion or against low-skilled workers.

benlorenzetti 9y ago

Having worked at two manufacturers in the Midwest, anecdotally the majority of forklift drivers, line workers on specific lines, and even many white collar office roles were filled by temp agencies. A similar structure existed for engineering too; we would have a problem and the engineering firm with workers under the same roof would develop a solution. For the temp workers the motivation was always very clear and very much based on working around labor laws. If a forklift driver got in an accident, it wouldn't be counted in the same way. Line workers could be less rigidly brought on board or let go with seasonal or other varying demand. They were cheaper too and everyone worked hard to try and become a regular employee. I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a bit too much. On the other hand what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? Growing the economy, but that isn't something a politician can honestly promise. Pulling back from globalization would, but that is bad economics and bad for national security. Perhaps something like earned income tax credit? Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes constrained.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Ending right to work laws and bringing back unions.
- RHSeeger 9y ago
  Of course, that too comes with it's negatives. Unions have both positives and negatives. It's not a simple discussion.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Unions are a counter-balance to corporate power which helps to preserve the power of labor. That unions have some negatives does not mean we should not have them.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    What is an alternative to unions that gives workers some power in the relationship between worker and employer?

asdfasdfasd333 9y ago

In August, charges were laid against Fiera Foods under the Occupational Health and Safety Act for the 2016 death of a temp agency worker named Amina Diaby. Her hijab was caught in a machine, strangling her. /thread.

FLGMwt 9y ago
Not sure what you're trying to convey?
- err4nt 9y ago
  Every single woodworking shop, electric shop, factory, etc I've been in they always make a big deal about _never_ wearing loose-fitting clothing, long hair or necklaces or bracelets - anything you wouldn't want torn off you at a fast rate of speed with force you remove or restrain. This is common sense and common instruction - I'm not sure what employment safety laws say about this. If the cause of her death was loose-fitting clothing that's normally prohibited from those environments because it's a serious danger and workers have been getting caught in machinery as long as we've had machinery to get caught in - and the only reason she was able to wear the clothing in that environment was because of her religious rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which states that her religious rights supersede any written legal code) then this mortal risk might be something she fought to take on, even if the company recommended against it. Imagine for a second that you're a motorcycle police officer, where it's customary (even law) to wear a helmet, but you (for religious reasons) wanted to wear your religious headwear in lieu of a helmet. Then imagine you were killed on the job in a motorcycle crash due to a blow to the skull. Would there be a need for a month-long undercover investigation to uncover the reason you died?
  - frandroid 9y ago
    That's the point of the article, I think. Because Fiera doesn't have an employment relationship with the employee, their workers' comp rates will never increase, no matter what happens to the workers. So they don't take the kinds of precautions which would have prevented this worker from dying. I mean, it also severs to human connection between workers and managers, where they just see workers as a dispensable resource, so there also less every day care about safety.

Jeremy1026 9y ago

The last letter sent from Fiera to The Star[1] is scathing. Fiera is trying so very hard to play the victim to The Stars mean and "underhanded" tactics to get information about their operations. It probably would have served them better to just remain silent instead of sending this response. [1] http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/letters/letter-to-ms-mojtehedzadeh.pdf http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/letters...

Danihan 9y ago
I don't know, I find that letter pretty convincing actually. They seem pissed, but they also make a lot of valid points.
- lovich 9y ago
  At this point isn't it reasonable to assume that companies will not tell you the truth if it puts them in a bad light, and you would need to go undercover to find that truth? Companies cant tell their shareholders on one side that they are doing everything to maximize profit, and on the other side say that they will show their operations with all the good and the bad to anyone who asks.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Not really. I believe the journalist did sign a document that she knew where the emergency exits were, and the only "damning" thing she found on-site was an unclean bathroom and generally difficult work. This whole thing seems like such a non-story to me. Maybe it's because I've worked in factories before, but I've personally had more harrowing experiences on my 1st day than anything mentioned in this article.
    - jakobegger 9y ago
      Unreachable emergency stop buttons? Moving parts of a fan next to workers without safety covers? Workers fighting for space next to a crowded conveyor belt? Missing guard rails? Repeated fines for lacking safety? Everything about this factory sounds like a death trap.

CryptoPunk 9y ago

If you impose mandatory higher standards for pay, benefits and training on temp employment agencies, a great many of these jobs will simply cease to exist. Given they're employing some of the most resource-challenged people, such a social intervention is liable to cause far more harm than good. Perfect is the enemy of the good.

sushid 9y ago
Not sure if you read the article, but no one is talking about a higher standards for pay and benefits. You're literally making generic libertarian points. The only direct criticism is that they don't enforce their own safety guidelines which leads to the death of their workers. A great many of these jobs can continue to exist even if their managers simply request those with loose garbs or improper safety shoes, etc. to show up with proper clothes. Moreover, if there were some sort of government mandated safety check (which I'm not arguing for, just saying) the imposed burden is equal to all other competing firms. Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that they suddenly decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue to exist.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  A lot of people are talking about higher mandatory standards in the wake of this report, most importantly Ontario's Labour Minister: https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-work-growth-is-alarming-and-changes-are-coming-says-ontario-labour-minister.html https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-work... Publicity of the working conditions and pay of low-skilled workers invariably leads to calls for more stringent mandatory standards, as if you can outlaw poverty and low-living standards. >>Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that they suddenly decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue to exist. The effect is on the margins. No single mandate will have a significant impact, but each one adds costs, and in the aggregate, they have a significant effect on economic growth, which is a compounding effect that translates to massive long-term effects.

markvdb 9y ago

A classic in this type of undercover journalism is the work of Günter Wallraff in (West-)Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercover_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercove...