Cars sit parked at a Cargill Inc. turkey processing plant on Aug. 4, 2011, in Springdale, Ark. The beef processing industry is heavily consolidated in Alberta, with 70 per cent of Canada’s beef produced at just two plants: Cargill in High River and JBS Foods in Brooks.Danny Johnston/The Associated Press
Bronwyn Bragg is an assistant professor in the department of geography and environment at the University of Lethbridge.
Jennifer Hyndman is professor at the Centre for Refugee Studies and in the faculty of environmental and urban change at York University.
Since 2020, we have been conducting research on migration and work in relation to Canada’s beef-processing sector. We have found terrible standards of living among the low-paid temporary foreign workers and immigrant workers that populate the sector. A family of five, for example, is living on $40,000 a year.
The beef-processing industry is heavily consolidated in Alberta, with 70 per cent of Canada’s beef produced at just two plants: Cargill in High River and JBS Foods in Brooks. Workers at these plants make wages well below Alberta’s median wage. Many are temporary foreign workers (TFWs), who fill what the industry claims is a perpetual labour shortage.
Up to 20 per cent of workers in food/meat processing are allowed to be TFWs under current federal rules; this number is higher than the 10-per-cent cap applied to other “low-wage” sectors. But the industry maintains it faces a perpetual labour shortage that can only be met by hiring more TFWs and argues that a 20-per-cent cap is too low.
The government should resist such calls, which are based on a questionable premise. Canadians and Canadian policy makers would be better served turning their attention to “wage shortages” and scrutinize the beneficiaries of this arrangement, namely a few highly profitable transnational corporations.
It’s argued that TFWs are the only solution to labour shortages in Canada’s food supply chain and, in particular, labour-intensive industries such as food processing. Yet this argument fails to address the fact that low wages and difficult work conditions may be at the root of the industry’s difficulty in securing workers.
A meat packer at the JBS plant in Brooks begins with an hourly wage of $21.85/hour, well below Alberta’s median wage of $29.50. And our research finds that immigrant and migrant workers endure conditions of work that are characterized by a lack of safety, high levels of injury, intense mental strain and very low wages.
These conditions were brought to light during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Alberta alone, six people – all with immigrant backgrounds – died from COVID-19 in relation to outbreaks at meat-packing facilities. TFWs are particularly vulnerable to “3D” – dirty, difficult, and dangerous – labour conditions as they are tied to one job through employer-specific work permits.
Any conversation about labour shortages must include a conversation about the conditions of work and low wages.
To be clear, such low wages are not some necessary factor to ensure the likes of Cargill and JBS stay in business or that consumers are able to buy meat at the prices we do.
In fact, low wages are a relatively new phenomenon in meat-packing. The decline in wages coincides with the consolidation of the industry and the relocation out of cities into smaller centres and more rural communities. Historically, slaughterhouses were located in urban areas, jobs were characterized by powerful organized labour unions, and workers had wages that were among the highest in manufacturing, with meat packers earning 12 per cent above the manufacturing average.
So, why are meat packers now being paid so low? The answer is profit.
When Cargill first opened in 1989 in High River, it was the first non-unionized plant that bused immigrant workers from Calgary to High River paying them below union industry rates. According to media reports at the time, industry analysts estimated that the High River plant was losing $300,000-$500,000 a week. This strategy of short-term losses was part of a longer-term strategy to drive out urban competitors with higher labour costs.
And it was successful, breaking the powerful urban meat-packing unions in Edmonton and Calgary, depressing wages across the industry and consolidating around two highly profitable plants in small communities, out of sight, in rural Alberta.
Now, low-wage workers are key to the profitability of transnational firms that dominate the food-processing sector, yet this profitability is rarely part of the conversation when it comes to Canadian labour or immigration policy. Cargill is the largest private company in the United States, posting profit of US$5-billion in 2021. JBS reported a net profit of US319.7-million in the first quarter of 2024.
By allowing the hiring of low-wage temporary workers, the Canadian government effectively underwrites the earnings of these transnational firms.
Rather than focusing on the companies’ questionable claims of “labour shortages,” Canadian policy makers should focus on this: Higher wages, better conditions of work, and stronger oversight in this highly concentrated sector might lure Canadian residents back to work in this industry.