Read on Twitter
*A PERSONAL ACCOUNT* 
For two summers in 90s, I worked for ABC Group in Brampton and Rexdale. Plastic parts supplier to automotive industry. Nonunion. Lean and mean. Line workers all recent immigrants from South Asia and Caribbean. Privately owned by Mike Schmidt and family.1/5
For two summers in 90s, I worked for ABC Group in Brampton and Rexdale. Plastic parts supplier to automotive industry. Nonunion. Lean and mean. Line workers all recent immigrants from South Asia and Caribbean. Privately owned by Mike Schmidt and family.1/5
When plastic part leaves injection mold it goes in a trimmer. Excess âflashâ then put in big grinder with 3-ft rotating blades. When blades get dull, plastic melts to blades and machine stops. My job? Use hammer and sharpened flathead screwdriver to break plastic off blade.
2/5
2/5
Task becomes impossible and dangerous when plastic hardens. Many blue thumbs Secret solution we all turned blind eye to? Blowtorch!!! Fast and painless. Problem? Starts fires that are sometimes difficult to put out and makes air quality real bad real fast. 3/5
I once asked the stupid question: why donât we send the blades to get sharpened or invest in a sharpener? Answer? Too expensive. Cheaper to hire another worker in the long queue of applicants. (I know cause my girlfriend was running the HR department.) 4/5
Now ask yourself - how much do you think operations like this are investing in technologies to reduce workplace transmission of Covid? And how much do you think recent immigrants in these places want to risk their job by not showing up cause they *might be* sick? 5/5
