In the summer of 2020, the Cargill meatpacking plant in Alberta, Canada, had to shut down briefly because of a COVID outbreak among its mostly Filipino workforce. This was a major concern, not only because of the virus’s spread, but also because shutting down the plant negatively affected the food supply chain.
Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Deena Hinshaw, was quick to imply that Filipino culture and work ethic that mandates going to work even when sick was to blame for the spread of COVID. But she conveniently forgot to mention that managers threaten workers with reprisal if they miss too many shifts, as well as ignoring structural workplace conditions. Hinshaw also implied that Filipinos spread COVID because of their purported cultural preference to live in large households, conveniently overlooking the systemic racism and classism that often forces people to do so.
According to a report my collaborators and I published in February, Filipino and other racialized migrant workers have a hard time accessing housing because of endemic racism against them by landlords and because of the perception that some migrant workers present security risks.
