Health and Safety Advocates
Tarik Accord: Somalia-born Tarik Accord worked in several cleaning firms. Injured on the job at one of them, she helped form a union at Bee Clean and served as a union steward, emphasizing education of members regarding their legal rights with regards to occupational health and safety.
Edeline Agoncillo is a Filipino immigrant who worked for K-Bro for two years as a temporary foreign worker, before completing a college program that she was misinformed would lead to her receiving a Canadian work permit.
Aisha Amin became a journeyperson welder after coming to Alberta from Ethiopia in 1988. She emphasizes the importance of proper personal protective equipment to the health and safety of workers in the construction trades.
Ruth Alexander was a long-time ICU and community nurse in Edmonton and UNA activist who faced workplace discrimination as a Black nurse.
Brian Alleyne arrived in Canada in 1969 with medical training from London, England and had to redo his postsecondary studies; Alberta’s first epidemiologist; conducted Health & Safety research in Alberta’s meatpacking plants. President of Cariwest for a number of years.
Lisa Andrews, the daughter of the first woman bus driver with Edmonton Transit Service (ETS), also works for ETS as a transit training instructor.
Elisabeth Ballermann served as president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta from 1995 to 2016, and as a prominent activist in Friends of Medicare.
Lorne Bantle and Dwight Krislock were long-time machinists at Celanese who were among the workers left jobless by the plant’s closure in 2007.
Anne Baranyk-Broad was president of Local 120, United Garment Workers, at GWG from 1956 to 1970.
Reg Basken was president of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1972 to 1978 and president of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union from 1984 to 1992.
Sheila Berrisford is a senior nurse in Edmonton who began work in Health Link after a patient assault reduced her ability to do bedside work.
Alan Besecker RN, participated in the merger of the Staff Nurses’ Association of Alberta with the United Nurses of Alberta, and became a member of the UNA negotiating team that was involved in intense bargaining with Ralph Klein’s government in 2001. He is a strong advocate for public healthcare.
Gerry Beauchamp, former president of the Gainers UFCW local, was one of two people charged with tracking where company products were taken during the Gainers Strike in 1986 so that picketers could pressure companies to join the union’s boycott.
Vicky Beauchamp was a meat packager at Gainers, a union activist, and a strike leader during the Gainers Strike of 1986.
Tim Bouwsema is a member of the Emergency Mental Health Team in the Emergency Department of the University of Alberta Hospital.
Linda Bridge: Linda Bridge and Barb Charles both had long nursing careers in the Chinook Health Region where both were long-time officers of the UNA local.
Lou Broten was a long-time president of the Edmonton local of the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.
Lynn Bue, lifelong feminist activist, was the first woman to be the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ first vice-president, first chief national negotiator, and first openly LGBTQ2S+ member of the national executive.
Brad Bulloch, union carpenter, had a long career as a staff member for Local 2013 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, during which he focused on organizing carpenters and fighting to improve worker safety for carpenters. .
Kathie Bzdel is a proud union leader who recovered from a life-threatening stroke and faced disability bias before joining HSAA as a palliative homecare social worker and union activist.
Barbara Campbell is a veteran oncology nurse and union activist in two provinces who has experienced the reduction in patient services that hospital cutbacks involve as well as the resentments that bumping resulting from cutbacks produce.
Catherine Canning, president (in 2024) of Unifor Local 707-A, is a Red Seal electrician who earlier served as 707-A safety representative for electronics at Suncor in Fort McMurray.
Kathleen Cariaga-Estapa has been active in AUPE’s local at Chartwell in Edmonton where she first began work as a housekeeper who was a temporary foreign worker.
Evangeline Cayanan is an undocumented worker whose harrowing tales are an indictment of the Temporary Foreign Worker program and treatment of undocumented workers in Canada.
Barb Charles: Linda Bridge and Barb Charles both had long nursing careers in the Chinook Health Region where both were long-time officers of the UNA local.
Sam Cholak worked for Celanese, mainly in the cellulose acetate area, for almost 18 years.
Bill Climie worked for Celanese for 27 years, mostly as a lab tech but also for two years as the full-time Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP, now Unifor) health and safety officer.
Donato Colangelo: During 31 years of work at the Swift Meats/Gainers plant in south Edmonton, Donato Colangelo experienced deteriorating management attitudes that produced the Gainers strike and finally the plant closure.
Larry Connell’s long nursing career has included stints in industrial nursing, corrections, and orthopaedic nursing.
Kim Conway became safety chairperson for Unifor Local 707A after working as a lab technician at Suncor from 2001 to 2013.
Joy Correia has been involved in struggles of the Non-Academic Staff Association at the University of Alberta as first a member and then a staffer since 1982.
Wayne Covey: Long-time UFCW, Local 1118 employee Wayne Covey played the lead role in coordinating strike action among meatpacking workers in Alberta in 1986, including strikes at Gainers in Edmonton and Fletchers in Red Deer.
Crowsnest Pass Coal Mining Community Group Interview 1: The 13 people interviewed together in Coleman reflect various relationships with mining in the Crowsnest Pass.
Crowsnest Pass Coal Mining Community Group Interview 2: The nine people interviewed together in Coleman reflect various relationships with mining and life in the Crowsnest Pass.
Collette Cullen is an Indigenous woman who has served in the Canadian military, and has also worked as an emergency medical technician, a cementer, a police officer, a prison guard, and a vehicle salesperson, among other jobs.
Delanee Daviau: Red Seal journeyperson welder; member of Ironworkers Local 720; one of the original members of Build Together Alberta.
Danilo De Leon is a Filipino immigrant who has been both a temporary foreign worker and an undocumented worker in Alberta.
Bev Dick, before her retirement in 2013, had been a UNA activist since its founding and served as first vice-president from 1995 to 2013.
Drumheller Valley Coal Mining Community Group Interview (re: 1930s to 1970s): The 4 people interviewed together in Drumheller in 2003 discuss
Lisa Dubbeldam‘s work in community nursing caused her to become an advocate for full assessments and adequate staffing to support the needs of her patients.
Leon Dyrgas and Bill Pasemko were long-time miners in Canmore-area mines. When the mines closed, they received no severance pay and Dyrgas received no pension while Pasemko received a pittance of a pension.
Tom Enright, a 25-year employee of Celanese, served as a shift steward, area steward, then local vice-president of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union local which later became Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (today part of Unifor).
John Ewasiw: John Ewasiw worked in meatpacking for 40 years, and was a UFCW activist before, during, and after the Gainers strike of 1986.
Mary Ewasiw: Mary Ewasiw worked at the Swifts/Gainers plant for over two decades, and became active in the UFCW.
Mary Jane Fisher: When she became an LPN, former Jehovah’s Witness Mary Jane Fisher replaced her former religious activities with a struggle, as an AUPE activist, for workers’ rights to a safe workplace.
Dewey Funk describes nurses’ struggles against management in their efforts to secure safe working conditions in Alberta hospitals and the Edmonton Remand Centre.
Bruno Gentil spent fifty years working for the mines in Coleman as first a horse trainer and driver, then later as a blacksmith.
Vicki Gillingham is an Indigenous woman and union activist who works as a process operator at Suncor.
Willa Gorman: Willa Gorman’s 40-year career as a lab technician in the women-dominated fiber department of the former Celanese plant gave her firsthand knowledge of the department’s unsafe working conditions and promoted her union activism.
Holly Heffernan is a long-time UNA activist who was in practice throughout all of the nursing strikes in Alberta.
Tilly Herman, a miner’s daughter in East Coulee, and a miner’s wife in Drumheller, recalls the lives of miners’ children and wives, both in terms of hardships and community entertainments.
Sister Theresa Horvath took the lead in organizing a UNA local at Extended Care Holyrood in Edmonton and then Extended Care Leduc as well as playing a role in organizing Extended Care Mayerthorpe.
Jack Hubler served as business agent for the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, Local Union 488 for 20 years.
Peter Jany is a South Sudanese origin refugee in Canada who played a key role in the UFCW union organization campaign at Lakeside Packers in Brooks in 2004-2005.
Cathy Jones was a long-time registered nurse in both Toronto and Banff when she became involved in heritage work in Canmore that included museum displays of the lives of miners, miners’ wives, and miners’ families.
Kate Jacobson is an internal organizer for the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) who describes her earlier oppressive working conditions in non-union jobs and her years as a social and environmental militant.
Wally Land worked as an electrician in a coal mine and a pulp mill, in both cases focusing on pressuring employers to take measures to protect workers’ workplace health and lives.
Tets Kitaguchi, an Alberta trade union activist in a lime kiln and a pulp mill, had been forced to return to Alberta, his home province, from BC when the federal government evacuated Japanese-descended people from the Pacific Coast during World War II.
Ronald Klassen, a Métis worker who heads up an Indigenous members’ committee for Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, explains how the union movement and the Indigenous community are both guided by core principles that are crucial to achieving the aims of truth and reconciliation.
Jenna Knight, RN, is a nurse at the University of Alberta Hospital who has served on the UNA executive since 2011.
George Kozak, a 46-year mechanic at Swifts Edmonton, describes the improvements that UFCW and its predecessor won in terms of correcting unsafe working conditions.
Karen Kuprys is a gerontology nurse who was a leading United Nurses of Alberta activist from 1993 to 2021 when she became secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
Emmanuel (Manny) Lacson is an immigrant worker from the Philippines who became active in a UFCW Local 401 union organizing drive at Lakeside Packers and then in two strikes in 2005.
Wally Land an electrician, mourned the loss of fellow workers in a coal mine and then, moving to Hinton and joining the pulp mill and CEP Local 855, he participated in a wildcat strike demanding asbestos removal throughout the mill.
Laurie Lang, RN, RPN, served as president of the Alberta Hospital Edmonton local where he was particularly active on Occupational Health and Safety issues.
Roy Lazzarotto mined in the Crowsnest Pass from 1950 onwards and fought successfully with his union to improve mine safety.
Barb LeBlanc is a Registered ICU Nurse and former Staff Nurses Association of Alberta (SNAA) president, who used the Professional Responsibility process to challenge changes affecting the effectiveness of nurses in fulfilling their roles, and helped bring SNAA into UNA in 1997 to better fight for nurses and patients.
Pam Little focused on developing best practices for rural nursing during 20 years of nursing in Banff.
Lyla Luciano & Olivia Wilson are friends and both work part-time while attending university classes. They struggle to balance precarious employment, workplace safety issues, and rising tuition costs with immersion in community and family.
Liz and Steve Liska describe the many dangers of working underground as well as the day-to-day experience of work and life raising a family in Coleman and Bellevue.
Cyriline Lynch-Parker Worked as a laundry worker at the Calgary General Hospital; union activist who participated in the 1995 Laundry Workers Strike.
Jerry Macdonald, a former president of CARNA, transferred out of hospital nursing to community nursing because understaffing at a time of increased patient acuity and demands on hospital nurses made his ICU work unbearable.
Dennis Malayko was health & safety officer for AUPE, creating the government’s joint worksite health and safety program, as well as initiating efforts to create both provincial and national occupational health and safety organizations with strong union presence.
Siobhan Mangal is an apprentice in both the Plasterers’ Local 222 and the Insulators Local 110. She describes the support she received from other women, her response to discrimination, and the importance of health and safety training on the job.
Wesley Mapp was born in the Black settler community of Amber Valley. One of Alberta’s first insulators, active as a union steward and focused on health and safety.
Lori McDaniel: As a heavy equipment operator at Suncor, Lori McDaniel experienced the sexist discrimination faced by women in non-traditional jobs, as well as an uphill struggle to promote occupational health and safety and progressive politics.
Eugene Mitchell (1931-2018) played leading roles in both the Alberta labour movement and the fledgling NDP over several decades, including serving as an executive officer of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1968 to 1981.
John Mitchell grew up in the coal-mining town of Luscar and became a coal miner like his father until the Coal Branch mines were all closed down.
Arlene Moreside explains why the provincial UNA strike in 1988 proved a pivotal event in achieving gains in the area of occupational health and safety.
Clara Montgomery, who grew up on a farm in the Drumheller area, describes the coal-related work of members of farm families.
Stennie Noel, welder/fitter and union activist in Operating Engineers Local 955 and Boilermakers Local 146, has experienced racism as he worked as a tradesperson for a variety of Alberta employers.
Sam Nuako is a Ghanian-born labour relations officer for UFCW who focuses strongly on diversity issues and on encouraging members to always speak up about their concerns.
Doug O’Halloran was president of UFCW Local 401 when he was permanently disabled as a result of a car chase during a first-contract strike at Lakeside Packers.
Cynthia Perkins, a nursing veteran of over 45 years, describes the many health and safety issues for nurses at Rocky View General Hospital in 2007.
Diane Poynter lived the downgrading of Lethbridge and area hospital facilities and staffing during her 25-year nursing career, and had to transfer hospitals when one of the two hospitals in Lethbridge was closed.
Doris Proulx is an Indigenous nurse with experience across emergency and ICU/CCU who mentors new Indigenous nurses and challenges culturally inappropriate and outright racist treatment of Indigenous patients.
Joyce Pui-Porretta is a Southeast Asian-origin psychiatric nurse with over three decades of experience who has served as an advocate for nurses of colour within UNA and the AFL.
Helen Pulido’s nursing career has included work in a dialysis unit, in ICU, in long-term care, and in an acute geriatric facility where she became a unit manager.
Jennifer Rading is a former postal clerk who, along with the Edmonton local of CUPW, has fought for systemic changes at Canada Post to end persistent sexism in its operations.
Enrique Reyes is a Chilean refugee and CUPE Local 474 activist who advocates for Health & Safety, and workplace diversity.
Pat Richardson is a long-time UNA activist who, at the time of her interview, was working at Calgary Health Link doing telephone triage.
Lisa Rose is a journeyman instrumentation technician at Suncor, a longtime resident of Fort McMurray, and an active member of Unifor Local 707A’s Women’s Committee.
Lucien Royer became a leader in trade union action on the environment and health and safety at the national and international levels, including the organization of national and international Days of Mourning for workers injured or killed on the job.
Cecile Sangster-Locker is an RN and midwife who played important roles in all the nursing strikes in Alberta to date.
Jessie Saruk, the granddaughter and daughter of Ukrainian-Canadian homesteaders, became a teacher and activist in the Alberta Teachers’ Association.
Robyn Schaapman is a journeyperson electrician dedicated to involving more women in skilled trades.
Rashpal Sehmby, a long-time CUPW activist, also served for several years as an interim organizer for Service Employees International Union, focusing on elderly Punjabi-origin janitors at Bee Clean in Edmonton.
Steve Senio raised in the Ukrainian settlement near Calmar, was the postwar organizer and then business manager of Local 720 of the Ironworkers Union.
Michelle Senkow is a long-time Maternal Child Care nurse throughout Alberta who became active in UNA and serves as a mentor to other nurses.
Lena Shellian, born and raised in Canmore, was the daughter, grand-daughter and wife of coal mine workers, and watched her dad and her husband die of silicosis.
Heather Smith, RN, who took part in all 4 province-wide United Nurses of Alberta strikes between 1977 and 1998, has served as president of UNA since 1988.
Anna Sokolawski was, at the time of her interview, a new graduate nurse, who was discovering the impact of nursing shortages on both her own, and patient, safety.
Trevor Stace’s diverse employments include instrument technician, paralegal, and historian.
Mary Strong is the pseudonym for an Indigenous woman, a Sixties scoop survivor, who has become a leader in her AUPE local of homecare workers.
Desmond Thomas is an Indigenous member of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, Local 488, who benefited from an Indigenous-run program that works with the trades unions to provide an entry into the trades for Indigenous people.
Karen Three Persons is a veteran Indigenous nurse and UNA local president, who has managed training programmes for Elders’ care and home care.
Vincent Venne had spent 34 years as an insulator by 2017, and his interview provides many examples of companies that employ insulators suppressing accident reports.
Jennifer Ward is a long-time registered nurse on the psychiatric unit of the Grande Prairie Hospital where she, as a local UNA executive member, has fought for nurses’ rights to refuse unsafe work.
Amanda Whillans is a healthcare aide in a Cold Lake assisted living home where a bitter strike occurred in 2017.
Kevin Wilibnisky is a psychiatric nurse at Red Deer General Hospital and an activist in Local 2 of UNA.
Carl Wilson is a pressure welder and journeyman welder who has served as a job steward and business agent for the Pipefitters Union.
Louis Yakimyshyn (1938-2023) worked a variety of jobs at Celanese over 39 years and was president of the OCAW local during a 6-week Celanese strike in 1974.
Peter Zotek (1929-2022) was a slaughterhouse worker, and his interview provides vivid descriptions of the dangerous work that he and others performed, and their struggles to win improvements in working conditions, pay, and respect as human beings.
Documentary on Trade Union Action for Health & Safety
The Hinton Asbestos Wildcat Workers trying to clean up asbestos in Hinton’s pulp mill for over a decade, finally shut the plant down on July 1st, 1997, arguing that they faced an “imminent danger”. Union members talk about this action and how the removal of the carcinogen benefited not only the workers, but the whole community of Hinton.
Maria Dunn has written a song about the COVID related deaths in Alberta’s Meatpacking plants. Listen to it here.