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The COVID-19 death of a High River meat plant employee must be treated as a workplace fatality and a criminal investigation should be launched, the Alberta Federation of Labour said Tuesday.

In a letter Tuesday to provincial Labour Minister Jason Copping, AFL president Gil McGowan called for a formal Occupational Health & Safety investigation into the circumstances of the death — which was made public Monday and is the first fatality to result from a large-scale COVID-19 outbreak at the Cargill meat processing plant in High River.

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Occupational Health & Safety investigates serious work site incidents, including fatalities, which fall under provincial jurisdiction. OHS is currently working through the formal process to determine whether to open a fatality investigation, Adrienne South, spokeswoman for Copping, said Thursday evening.

The provincial labour group also called for the meat plant’s operator, Cargill Inc., to be subject to an RCMP criminal investigation under the federal Westray Act, a rarely used amendment to the Criminal Code that allows employers to be prosecuted in cases of negligence leading to a workplace injury or death.