Date: 1998
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Kip Connolly is a slaughterhouse worker who became a long-time UFCW official. When interviewed, he was executive assistant to the Canadian Director for UFCW. Connolly joined Canada Packers in Calgary in 1972. He was active in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, which joined with the Retail Clerks International Union to form UFCW in 1979. He became president of the Alberta Provincial Council of UFCW and was involved in negotiations from 1982 to 1999. Connolly played a role in both the Fletcher’s and Gainers strikes of 1986. He views the Fletcher’s strike as a success because, after only 2 weeks, the company agreed to higher starting rates for employees and dropped calls for worker concessions.
Connolly justifies the concessions made in the Gainers strike, claiming that despite the well-publicized union movement boycott of Gainers, the company proved able to keep production high. That viewpoint has been challenged by many Gainers workers. When Maple Leaf bought the plant, says Connolly, the company, while threatening to close the plant in response to a strike, invited a strike by demanding a 40% wage cut.
Connelly appears in the ALHI documentary video about the meatpacking plant on 66th Street here.
Keywords: Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America; Canada Packers; Concessions demanded of workers; Fletcher’s; Gainers; Maple Leaf Foods; Retail Clerks International Union; Strikes in meatpacking, 1986.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Meatpacking Workers in Alberta; Summer of ’86 in Alberta; United Food and Commercial Workers