Maple Leaf Foods intends to continue with plans for a second shift at its Brandon plant, even though it has stopped bringing in Chinese workers after reports they had paid thousands of dollars to come to Canada.
“Would this affect the second shift? The answer is no. This will have no impact on the second shift,” said company spokesperson Linda Smith, adding that Maple Leaf will continue to recruit locally and internationally.
It has been reported that 61 Maple Leaf employees paid up to $11,500 for training that would allow them to come to Canada from China for work.
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The extra fees are roughly four times the average annual salary in China.
The fees, which were paid to a large recruiting firm in China, covered six months of English language instruction and four months of training in meat-cutting. The payments were not illegal, according to Chinese labour laws.
“The issue for the company was transparency,” said Smith. “While they did receive training that benefited them, the amount of money appears to be excessive.”
Maple Leaf, which has permission from the federal government to bring in another 182 foreign workers, may look again to China for recruiting once it has finished investigating the situation.
“They are very good workers. While the current arrangement with the existing consultancy has been terminated, the company at some point in the future may revisit recruiting workers from China,” she said.
Maple Leaf’s Brandon plant has a slaughter capacity of 108,000 hogs a week. It now employs more than 1,300 workers and processes 50,000 hogs a week.
It plans to increase production to 75,000 hogs by adding a second shift sometime in 2007. To reach its target of running at full capacity by late 2009, it will need 2,300 workers.
About 44 percent of its workers are foreigners, from countries such as Mexico and El Salvador, on one-year work permits. After that, they can seek permanent residency permits and apply to bring their families to Canada.
