Date: 2007
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Bill Climie worked mostly as a lab tech for Celanese, but for two years served as full-time Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP, now Unifor) health and safety officer. He persuaded Celanese to let welders choose their own gloves, and to purchase massive supplies of earplugs to protect workers’ hearing. Climie was a graduate student at University of Windsor in the early 1980s. When he lost his research grants, he came to Alberta seeking employment. A 6-week Celanese posting became 27 years employment. After his many years as a lab tech, his final jobs were as an operator in the cellulose acetate unit and finally 3 months in the liquid chemical loading department learning how to put methanol into rail cars. Celanese hired a shutdown expert in the late 1980s, but the union worked with him to persuade Celanese to keep the Edmonton plant alive. But, as a multinational, Celanese restricted the plant’s products and markets. Blackstone, the final owners, sold off equipment, making no effort to keep the plant going. It was “pure corporate greed.” Climie’s non-indexed pension and loss of company subsidies for his diabetes medications presented special challenges for him. His age made finding new work difficult.
Keywords: Cellulose acetate unit; Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union; Earplugs; Health and safety officer; Lab tech; Liquid chemical loading department; Loss of health benefits; Multi-nationals and restricted operations; Pension losses; Shutdown specialist.
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See also: Celanese Edmonton: Workers’ Stories; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; Unifor