by Jason Foster
Interviews with United Food and Commercial Workers in Alberta
Meatpacking is a highly unionized industry in Alberta. But it hasn’t always been that way. Early meatpacking workers attempted but failed to organize unions. The first meatpacking union in Alberta was Local 78, chartered by the Trades and Labour Council of Edmonton. However, the union was unable to represent workers with any effectiveness.
Things changed in 1943 when the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) entered Canada. They quickly organized plants across the country, including the major Edmonton and Calgary plants. Declining membership in the U.S. led the UPWA to merge with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (AMC), a U.S. union dating back to 1897. In 1979 the AMC merged with the Retail Clerks International Union to form United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The new UFCW had workers in many industries in Alberta, including grocery stores, food production facilities, warehouses and meatpacking plants. There were more than a dozen UFCW locals in the province, including a handful representing meatpackers. During the 1980s and 1990s a series of mergers amalgamated smaller locals, eventually resulting in two UFCW locals in the province. Local 1118 had primary jurisdiction over meatpacking while Local 401 was anchored by grocery store workers. However, Local 401 held rights to workers at Lakeside as the former union that represented them until decertification, UFCW Local 740-P, had merged with 401. Locals 401 and 1118 merged in 2017, creating a single, cross-industry for Alberta. In 2020, UFCW 401 had almost 35,000 members and was the largest private sector union in the province.
Women working in the Canada Packers plant, Edmonton 1941 PAA BL-361-4
UFCW is the largest private sector union in the province. They have been active in many of the most important labour struggles.
Local 401 is the major component of UFCW in Alberta. They are active in many workplaces from meat packing plants through Safeway grocery stores.
Staff – past and present
Doug O’Halloran – 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.
Shane Dawson – Shane Dawson was one of the organizers of the long but ultimately successful UFCW, Local 401 unionizing drive at Lakeside Packers from 1997 to 2004.
Archie Duckworth – Archie Duckworth played a leading role in organizing Lakeside Packers in Brooks in 2004 and the subsequent strike the union fought to win a collective agreement.
Norm LeClaire – Norm LeClaire spent 30 years as a full-time business agent in packinghouses for UFCW and its predecessor.
Sam Nuako – 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.
Brooks Packing Plant
A video about the organizing of the packing plant in Brooks can be viewed here.
A video about the 2005 strike to achieve a First Contract at the Brooks plant can be viewed here.
Peter Jany: 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.
Emmanuel (Manny) Lacson – 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.
Grocery Stores
Jim Connolly
Ronald Klassen – 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.
Serena Nelson– Serena Nelson is a proud Indigenous woman who serves as a workplace steward at the Safeway store in Lloydminster and who deals with racism both in the community and among fellow workers.
Ft. McMurray Camp Services
Angela Fiddler – Angela Fiddler, a member of the Waterhen Cree Nation, faced racism in oilsands’ work camps and was able, as a shop steward for UFCW Local 401, to bargain for Indigenous rights to worship in the camps.
Meatpacking Workers
Local 1118 represented the workers at the meat packing plant in Red Deer. In 2017, local 1118 merged with Local 401.
The plant was involved in a major strike in 1986, when it was owned by Fletcher’s meats. A video about this and other strikes in the summer of ’86 can be viewed here.
Local 1118 was able to achieve landmark contract language protecting Temporary Foreign Workers in the plant, as documented in the video here.
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.
Albert Johnson – Albert Johnson was president of UFCW Local 1118 from 1986 to 2014, and his notable accomplishments included a successful strike against Fletchers Fine Foods in 1986 and winning rights for temporary foreign workers hired by meatpacking plants covered by Local 1118.
Mohamed Kanu – Refugee from Sierra Leone who studied in Cuba before taking up residence in Red Deer. UFCW-appointed Safety Representative at a meat processing plant who upholds union advocacy and training.
Oscar Lopez – While a temporary foreign worker at Olymel in Red Deer, Oscar Lopez assumed the role on behalf of UFCW Local 1118 of persuading management against imposing penalties on workers who failed to follow instructions because of language issues.
Peter Zotek – 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.
Gainers Strike
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.
Ellen Bullock: When Ellen Bullock became a pork cutter at Burn’s from 1969 to 1980, doing “men’s work,” she endured endless male chauvinist teasing to earn wages to raise her three children on her own.
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.
K.C. (Kip) Connelly
John Ewasiw
Mary Ewasiw
Peter Hohlbein
George Kozak – 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.
George Matychuk
David Mercer
John Ventura
Vince Westacott
Peter Zotek
Local 120S represented the workers at the Great Western Garments plant in Edmonton, which shut down in 2004.
A website about the history of the GWG plant can be viewed from here.
See also: Meatpacking Workers in Alberta; Temporary Foreign Workers
Maria Dunn has written a song about the COVID related deaths in Alberta’s Meatpacking plants. Listen to it here.
Myrna Kostash has written about her grandfather’s life and work in the Edmonton packing plants. Read it here.
Read ALHI’s pamphlet: On the Line: Struggles of Alberta’s Packing Plant Workers
Watch ALHI’s documentary videos: Unionize to Survive. Alberta’s Summer of ‘86. Lakeside Packers: the Organizing Drive. Lakeside Packers: the 2005 Strike.
Photos by Mike Tulley of the Gainers strike in 1986.
Summer of ’86 Commemoration workshops held by ALHI in 2016
Visit: Packingtown Edmonton