Fish plant fined $30K for failing to protect temporary foreign workers from abuse
Hadeel Ibrahim | CBC News | Posted: August 30, 2023 5:42 PM | Last Updated: August 30, 2023
Lebreton Fisheries, under scrutiny since workers spoke out, denies wrongdoing
A lobster processing plant at Grande-Anse in northeastern New Brunswick has been fined for failing to provide a workplace free of abuse and reprisal against temporary foreign workers.
Lebreton Fisheries is now barred from hiring any more foreign workers until it pays the $30,000 fine, according to a June decision.
The fine is the highest one levied against a New Brunswick employer of temporary foreign workers since the first fine reported in 2017.
Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said even though the fine is large, what he sees as a lack of transparency, lack of serious consequences and lax inspections mean these fines and the entire compliance process doesn't protect the workers affected.
"It's not one bad employer, it's a systematic abuse of migrants. … Even when the individual employer is being fined, it's not enough to protect the workers because they can continue that same practice year over year."
This particular company has been under scrutiny since it sent the majority of its 80 employees back home two months early.
Employees say they received a letter of termination one day after they spoke up about living conditions, not getting work for weeks and having to pay rent to the employer. The company said it sent people back because there was no work for anyone.
Kathlin Lebreton, one of the business owners, said the fine the company received in June was related to a violation last year, not this year. He said the company was fined because the same person was performing HR duties as well as recruitment.
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He said if a worker has issues and talks to HR, the person in charge of resolving those issues also has the power to make decisions on who to hire back next year.
Lebreton said he's not sure why this is wrong and why it might be related to abuse or reprisals.
"It doesn't make sense really to me," he said. "To me, [I] just follow the rule, but it's not always easy to know the rules in advance."
He said he will pay the fine and plans to hire more workers next year.
The temporary foreign worker program grants people a closed work permit, which means they're only allowed to work for one employer. If that employer is abusive, exhibits favouritism and racism or doesn't have work for them, there's not much they can do, said Hussan.
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Employment and Social Development Canada said it will not be sharing any details about the complaint, fine and investigation, citing "privacy."
A department spokespersons said the government is spending an additional $14.6 million in 2022-2023 to improve the quality of inspections and "hold employers accountable for the treatment of workers."
Hussan said the complaints process is "worse than a Tim Hortons comment card," because it's anonymous and workers don't hear back about the results of their complaints. Also, the money from the fines goes to the federal government and not to the employees affected by the abuse, he said.
The spokesperson said temporary foreign workers "have the same rights and protections as Canadians and permanent residents."
While temporary foreign workers are protected by the same federal and provincial employment laws, the process of finding out whether the employers are complying with laws is different for these particular workers, Hussan said.
"There is no court, there's no right of appeal," he said. "There's no mechanism to get the fine and give it to the worker. There's no reporting back to the worker. That is to say, the worker has no standing in the complaints process."
He's also heard anecdotally that it takes between 12 and 36 months to resolve a complaint, though that's an estimate because no one is told when their complaint results in a fine, and which complaint caused which fine.
Lebreton previously said he sent the employees home this year because there was no work during some bad weather this summer and not enough lobster for processing. He denied any acts of reprisal.
Workers signed a contract with Lebreton to work an average of 30 hours a week between April and October.
Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada said for low-wage positions in fish and seafood processing, an employer must provide a minimum of 30 hours of work per week.
"This means that employers must top up employees to 30 hours a week worth of compensation regardless of whether the work is available," a spokesperson said.
Kathlin Lebreton said he did indeed pay employees for 30 hours in the weeks they worked fewer than 30. He said for weeks when there was no work, he did not pay them.
Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada did not respond to questions about whether that's allowed, and about whether employers would effectively "owe" the employer for the topped up hours on weeks they work fewer than 30 hours but get paid for 30.
One worker, Francisco Javier Montaño de Dios, said he had seven weeks of work in total since he'd come to Canada, and was asked to pay rent for April and May despite the lack of work.
Lebreton confirmed he charged employees rent for April and May even if they didn't have work. In July, he said, after the employees sent a letter asking for relief, he agreed to waive rent for that month.
Montaño de Dios said he came to Canada to work and send money back to his wife and child in Mexico. Unable to work elsewhere in Canada by law, he found that he himself was struggling to buy food, and his wife had to take out loans to feed their child.
He and two other employees are staying in Canada, as their work permits are still valid until October, to find a way to hold the employer accountable, get an open work permit and hopefully send money home.
"I'm doing this for my family," Montaño de Dios said.