UFCW Canada calls on Fiera Foods to protect workers’ health and safety

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Toronto – October 4, 2019 – UFCW Canada activists recently joined dozens of labour allies and legal advocates to protest unsafe working conditions at Fiera Foods, an industrial bakery in Toronto, and demand that the company protect workers’ health and safety.

The protest came in the wake of yet another tragic death at Fiera Foods, this time claiming the life of 57-year-old Enrico Miranda, a cleaner at the bakery. Miranda was the fifth temporary employment agency worker to die at Fiera Foods or one of its affiliated plants.

At the protest, activists from UFCW Local 175, UFCW Local 1006A, and the UFCW Canada National Office, together with allies from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), Workers Action Centre, and Fight For $15 and Fairness, called on the company to put an end to its unsafe working conditions and practices by allowing workers to unionize. UFCW organizers also handed out information to Fiera Foods employees about the benefits of joining UFCW Canada, the country’s leading union for food workers.

In addition, protestors called on the Ontario government to enact stronger health and safety protections for temporary employment agency workers in order to prevent further workplace deaths, and encouraged the government to hold negligent employers, like Fiera Foods, to account when an employee dies in the workplace.

“UFCW Canada has long stated that if you kill a worker, you should go to jail,” says Debora De Angelis, UFCW Canada’s Regional Director for Ontario. “Temporary employment agency workers are particularly vulnerable to workplace accidents, injuries, and deaths, which is why we need to reform our laws to better protect these workers.”

“We are also saying to Fiera Foods employees that the best way to make your workplace healthier and safer is to join a union – and UFCW is the leading voice for food workers in Canada.”

If you are a Fiera Foods employee who is interested in making your workplace better, visit UFCW Canada’s Join the Union webpage. After completing the Join Now form, you will be contacted by a UFCW organizer. All contact with UFCW Canada is treated as strictly confidential.