Meatpacking, Refugees and the Transformation of Brooks, Alberta

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Meatpacking, Refugees and the Transformation of
Brooks, Alberta

• By
• Michael Broadway
• Visiting Fulbright Scholar
• Department of Rural Economy
• University of Alberta

2
Purpose

• To explain the restructuring of Canadas
  meatpacking industry and discuss the consequences
  of this process for Brooks, Alberta.

3
Overview

• Restructuring and the Meatpacking Industry
• Boomtowns and Meatpacking
• Brooks
• Brooks and its Newcomers
• Challenges to Service Provision
• Conclusions

4
Restructuring and Meatpacking

• Cattle were raised on the prairies and shipped by
  rail to stockyard locations.
• Meatpackers purchased cattle at the stockyards.
• Cattle were slaughtered in multi-species plants.
• Most major Canadian cities had plants.

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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• Industry controlled by an oligopoly, Canada
  Packers, Burns Meats and Swift Canadian.
• In 1948 a union master contract was established
  that set industry wide pay and working
  conditions.
• By the early 1960s industry wages were above the
  average for Canadian industry.

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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• In the post World War Two period the industry
  expanded, hired more people.
• By late 1970s red meat consumption began to
  decline.
• The industry had an overcapacity problem.
• Solution cut costs- reduce wages/close plants.

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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• In 1984 the Master Contract was challenged by
  Burns Meats.
• At Lakeside striking workers were replaced with
  workers at 3.00 - 3.80 an hour less.
• Other plants shut down.

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Canada Packers Plant, St Boniface
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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• IBP revolution south of border associated with a
  series of cost cutting innovations.
• Locating plants close to where cattle are raised.
• Adoption of disassembly line.
• Construction of large slaughter capacity single
  species plants.

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IBP plant, Denison, Iowa
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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• Refused to abide by terms of master contract.
• Developed boxed beef.
• Carcasses were fabricated into smaller portions
  and vacuum packed- fat and bone removed at the
  plant.
• Combined effect of innovations to shift plants
  from urban to rural areas.

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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• In Canada old packing companies ignored the IBP
  revolution.
• Cargill in late 1980s opened its High River
  plant- produced boxed beef.
• Received funding from the provincial government.
• Initially its labour force was non-union.
• Lower cost producer led to more plant closures.

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Ontario Stockyards
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Canada Packers Smokestack, Edmonton
Canada Packers Smokestack Edmonton
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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• Relatively low paying, physically demanding jobs
  with a high injury rate have a limited appeal.
• Little surplus labour in rural areas.
• Initial plant start-up labour turnover 200.

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Restructuring and Meatpacking

• High turnover rate- 6-8 a month for line workers
  after a plant is established.
• So where do the workers come from?
• Solution recruit immigrants from the developing
  world to staff plants.

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Boomtowns and Meatpacking

• Boomtown model developed by studying western
  energy boomtowns in the 1970s.
• Gillette syndrome sudden rapid population
  growth produced a host of adverse social impacts
  (Kohrs 1974).
• Theoretical basis for model is found in studies
  of social disorganization and urbanization (Wirth
  1938).

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Boomtowns and Meatpacking

• Pre-boom communities are characterized by
  stability and social cohesiveness.
• Social control is maintained by a high density
  of acquaintanceship.
• Sudden influx of population is presumed to
  disrupt this pattern.

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Boomtowns and Meatpacking

• Social interaction and watchfulness are reduced,
  contributing to a rise in social disorganization
  and formal controls replace informal control.
• Critics charge that boomtown studies fail to link
  the causal mechanism of population growth
  reducing social interaction since the studies
  occur after the boom!

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Boomtowns and Meatpacking

• But despite the weak theoretical underpinning
  of the model- plenty of evidence for the
  phenomenon (Finsterbusch 1982).
• Camasso Wilkinson (1990) found evidence linking
  newcomer social isolation and child abuse in a
  boomtown.

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Boomtowns and Meatpacking

• Broadway and Stull (2006) argue that small
  meatpacking towns represent a new kind of
  boomtown.
• The worst of both worlds- challenges of rapid
  population growth and increasing social disorders
  brought about labour recruitment plus increasing
  demand for social services as a result of a low
  wage economy.

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Brooks

• Town is a regional service centre for agriculture
  and oil and gas sectors.
• Irrigation has transformed the semi-arid
  landscape.
• Lakeside started out with a feedlot 3 miles west
  of town in 1966.
• Brooks 1971 population 4,010

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Brooks

• 1970s- the towns first boom- energy related-
  population doubles during the decade to reach
  9,421 in 1981.
• Lakeside adds a packing plant in the early 1970s
  it specializes in production of carcasses.
• 1981- 1996 towns population increases by just
  700 persons.

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Brooks

• 1994 Lakeside purchased by IBP- and IBP
  immediately announced expansion plans.
• Addition of a boxed beef plant and a second shift
  will mean hiring about 2,000 more employees.
• 1996 unemployment in Brooks 310.
• Where will the employees come from?

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Brooks and its Newcomers

• Initial recruitment in southern Alberta, then the
  Maritimes and interior BC.
• Sudden influx of population leads to boomtown
  problems- housing shortages, increase in rents.
• Recruitment of young adult, less educated, single
  males leads to familiar social problems.

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Brooks and its Newcomers

• Some resentment towards newcomers.
• By 1998 Calgary Catholic Immigration Society
  involved in placing immigrants at the plant.
• Lakeside allows SAAMIS Immigration Society to
  have an office at the plant- most of the
  paperwork deals with family reunification.

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Brooks and its Newcomers

• In 2000 Lakeside paid a 1000 bonus to employees
  who recruited a friend or family member to work
  at the plant for a minimum period.
• Result chain migration and establishment of
  newcomer enclaves.

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Brooks and its Newcomers

• 2003 Global Friendship Immigration Society data
  indicate 90 of clients are refugees- leading
  source countries Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
• Influx of young people leads to a baby boom.
• Brooks birth rate 17/1000 in 1996- 19/1000
  (Alberta 14/1000 12/1000).

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Brooks and its Newcomers

• Baby boom is now beginning to be felt in schools-
  enrollment in K first grade up 111 students
  between 1996 2005 school years.
• 2000 civic census indicated 53 different
  languages and dialects spoken in Brooks- today
  the number is estimated at over a 100.
• 2006 estimated 25 of population are of refugee
  origin.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Immigrant assimilation is a function of migrants
  social class, their conditions of exit, and the
  context of reception provided by host communities
  (Portes and Böröcz 1989).
• Communities cant do much about the first two
  items but they can provide a positive context of
  reception.

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Kakuma Refugee Camp
The heat in the evening, which only drops to
around 30 degrees, heats up the tin-roofed
shelters like an oven, and the three open walls
and others with flax roofing does little to stop
the elements, which includes flooding in the
rainy season. People sleep on thin straw mats on
concrete floors and share pit toilets.
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Kakuma Refugee Camp
Their lives can be in great danger. Local people
are often antagonistic towards the refugees and
there are conflicts between groups within the
camp. There is a high incidence of sexual abuse
and a prevalence of AK47 rifles. Source Senator
Amanda Vanstone, Australian Minister for
Immigration Multicultural Affairs
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Challenges to Service Providers

• Employment at Lakeside offers an immediate
  solution to finding that first job in Canada
  since it doesnt require any preexisting job
  skills or knowledge of English.
• Challenge for service providers to meet the needs
  of non-native English speaking population some of
  whom are illiterate in their own language.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Education- Language issue- ESL solution. Numbers
  increased from 138 in 1999 to 303 in 2005.
• Biggest impact is in the early grades- about 18
  of students in K-first grade are ESL.
• High School 3.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Brooks Central School (K- 1)- Born to Learn
  program.
• High School a different set of challenges.
• Language difficulty or learning disability?

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Health care- communication issues.
• Brooks is short of doctors, difficult to get an
  appointment- so people resort to using the
  Emergency Room.
• How do you provide services to people who speak
  Arabic, Dinka, Nuer (Sudan), Amharic (Ethiopia),
  Somali (Somalia) and Oromo (Eritrea)?

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Communication use a translator!
• Language line used at the hospital.
• Some people dont want to use a translator they
  fear that word of their problem/issue will spread
  among the community.
• Long term solution- people will learn English.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Cultural differences- differences in expectations
  regarding service delivery in schools and law
  enforcement.
• Role of women- isolation issue.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Against this background, the town is dealing with
  boomtown issues.
• The reported crime rate in Brooks almost doubled
  between 1996 2004 from 131/1000 to 257/1000.
• Caseloads at Alberta Child Family Services
  doubled between 1999 and 2005- AADAC similar
  story.

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Challenges to Service Providers

• Economically- the town/city approved new
  construction worth 200 million from 1996 to
  2005.
• Comparison of 1996 2001 census data indicate-
  employment up, labour force participation up,
  unemployment down- and a relative decline in
  income levels from 104 to 93 of AB average.

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Challenges for Service Providers

• Brooks Food Bank established in October 1998
  demand for its services continues to grow at a
  rate of about 8 percent a year. Last year it
  distributed over 280,000 lbs of food.

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Conclusions

• Brooks shares all the characteristics of a rural
  meatpacking boomtown.
• But is unique in its multicultural character.
• Service providers have responded to challenges by
  hiring additional staff, ESL instructors, health
  care liaison workers and others.

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Conclusions

• The town will continue to grow, more refugees
  will continue to arrive in Brooks.
• Some of the problems identified will over time be
  solved as people adjust to life in Brooks and
  learn English.

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Lakeside Packers, September 1996
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Lakeside Packers, January 2006
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Conclusions Policy Implications

• Refugees are there because of Lakeside and
  Canadian governments humanitarian refugee
  policy.
• Refugees have unique needs and require more
  services.
• Responsibility for providing the services rests
  with the province.
• The federal governments role in assisting the
  province with Brooks is limited.

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Conclusions The Future

• Refugee children are at greater risk of
  developing mental health problems such as alcohol
  abuse, drug addiction, delinquency, depression
  and post traumatic stress (Hyman 2000).
• What kind of future will we provide for this next
  generation of Canadians?