Year: 2003
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Anne Ozipko was a long-time United Garment Workers Local 120 official who fought for benefits and safety provisions for garment workers. Her family came to Canada from Ukraine when she was a toddler, and homesteaded near Boyle in a Ukrainian-speaking community. Moving to Edmonton in 1943, she worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital as a janitor and server. Then she joined GWG as a piece work sewer, soon learning that “people were sewing their fingers.” She quit work when her son was born but returned on the nightshift in 1963 to earn money for her son’s university tuition and a piano for her two daughters. Encouraged by Local 120 president Anne Baranyk, Ozipko became nightshift shop steward. In 1967 or 1968, she became Local 120 president and later a full-time union employee. She campaigned for straight wages to replace piece rates. Gradually the company relented. Ozipko also fought for benefits, and the company eventually conceded several. Ozipko also served as secretary-treasurer for the Edmonton and District Labour Council for 13 years. In 1986, Ozipko became a panel member of the Unemployment Insurance Board of Referees, dealing with appeals. “I always took the employee’s side—I did for my whole life.”
Anne Ozipko appears in a number of documentary videos on the GWG: Piece by Piece website here.
Keywords: Anne Baranyk; Benefits; Local 120, United Garment Workers; Nightshift shop steward; Piece rates; Royal Alexandra Hospital; Secretary-treasurer; Sewing; Ukraine; Unemployment Insurance Board of Referees.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Edmonton and District Labour Council; Great Western Garment Company (GWG) in Edmonton; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; United Garment Workers; Women and Work in Alberta