Year: 1998
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Peter Zotek worked in Edmonton slaughterhouses for most of his working life. 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. He worked in almost every department at Burns before it closed its Edmonton plant in 1980, leaving 400 workers unemployed. One job of Zotek’s at Burns involved carrying 250 to 300 pounds of meat on his shoulder. He suffered considerable injuries from that work. But pay was decent, and Zotek notes that several workers died of heart attacks from the stress of losing what were believed to be stable jobs.
Soon afterwards Zotek began working at Swifts. When Peter Pocklington bought that plant and stuck the Gainers label on it, speed-ups resulted in many injuries. Zotek served as the UFCW’s strike commander on the night shift in the 1986 Gainers strike. In his view, all the workers got from that strike was control over their own pension so that workers who did not stay until retirement at Gainers got a prorated pension. Zotek’s wife was also a Gainers worker who played an important role in the strike.
Keywords: Burns; Gainers; Peter Pocklington; Shutdowns and workers’ health; Slaughterhouse jobs; Speedups; Strike commander.
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See also: Meatpacking Workers in Alberta; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; Summer of ’86 in Alberta; United Food and Commercial Workers