Year: 2007
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Glen Walker performed several different jobs during a year of work at Celanese in Fort Saskatchewan in 1974-75 during which he observed the gendered character of work in the plant and a “very lax” attitude to occupational health and safety (OHS) and environmental protection. Walker worked a number of other industrial jobs before coming to Celanese. His first Celanese job was in the pentaerythritol unit, catching 50 hot pounds of that material used in explosives from a conveyor belt and putting it into semi-trailers and boxcars. It was “an awful job.” He preferred his later work as a junior operator in the formaldehyde unit though he hated unloading tanker cars full of hydrogen sulfide.
Celanese dumped formaldehyde into the sewers that flowed into the North Saskatchewan River “for the folks downstream,” symbolizing the company’s and government’s indifference to environmental protection. The company was similarly indifferent to OHS. It didn’t require workers to wear protective equipment though the formaldehyde unit contained lots of flammable, toxic chemicals. The chemical areas only employed men. Half the Celanese workers were women, and they predominated in the fiber and cigarette tow areas. Those areas had the least safe conditions. Their workers suffered the most injuries.
Keywords: Cigarette tow; Fire crew; Formaldehyde; Hydrogen sulfide; Immigrant workers; Oil, Chemical, and Autoworkers International Union; Pentaerythritol; Protective equipment.
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See also: Celanese Edmonton: Workers’ Stories; Occupation Health and Safety in Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta; Unifor