UFCW Local 280P represented the workers at the meat packing plant on 66 Street in Edmonton, which was owned by Swift’s, Gainers, then Maple Leaf. The plant closed in 1998.
A video about the history of this plant can be viewed here.
The plant was involved in a major strike in 1986. A video about this and other strikes in the summer of ’86 can be viewed here
Gerry Beauchamp: 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: Vicky Beauchamp was a meat packager at Gainers, a union activist, and a strike leader during the Gainers Strike of 1986.
Norman Bezanson (1929-2022) was active as an activist, officer, and then organizer for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) for most of his working life.
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.
David Coles: David Coles was president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union (CEP) from 2006 to 2014 and played a large role in CEP’s subsequent merger with the Canadian Auto Workers to produce Unifor in 2013.
K.C. (Kip) Connolly: Kip Connolly is a slaughterhouse worker who became a long-time UFCW official who played key roles in the Fletchers and Gainers strikes in Edmonton of 1986 and the Maple Leaf strike in Edmonton in 1997.
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.
Alex Grimaldi: Alex Grimaldi’s many decades as a union activist included long periods as president of CUPE Local 30 and of the Edmonton and District Labour Council.
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.
Peter Hohlbein
George Kozak
George Matychuk
David Mercer
John Ventura
Vince Westacott
Peter Zotek 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.