Class Struggle and Solidarity in Neo-Liberal Times:

The 1986 Gainers Strike

A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Trent University

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

(c) Copyright by Andrea Samoil 2013

History MA Graduate Program

January 2014

ii

Abstract

Class Struggle and Solidarity in Neo-Liberal Times: The 1986 Gainers Strike

Andrea Samoil

The lengthy and raucous 1986 Gainers meatpacking plant strike in Edmonton, Alberta was

one of the most important events in recent Alberta labour history. In the midst of the

economic crisis of the 1980s and the rise of neo-liberal ideas, the strike marked a backlash by

both the labour movement and ordinary citizens against attacks on workers and unions.

Characterized by widely covered picket line violence, repressive police and court actions, and

government unresponsiveness, the strike generated massive solidarity within and beyond the

labour movement. This solidarity originated in a rejection of the neo-liberal new reality of

Alberta typified by high unemployment, anti-union laws and practices, and lack of

government welfare support, and it generated a provincial change the law campaign, national

boycott, and rising class consciousness. The working class mobilization during the Gainers

strike was a watershed for the Alberta labour movement.

Keywords: Gainers strike, working class, neo-liberalism, solidarity, Alberta Federation of

Labour, Labour Legislation Review Committee, boycott, Alberta, Edmonton

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Acknowledgements

To begin, thank you to Bryan Palmer, my supervisor, for his concise commentary and for his

encouragement, which was especially welcome before my first paper presentation. Thank you

also to Joan Sangster for her encouragement; I always felt inspired to write after our

conversations. Thank you to my examining committee: Dmitry Anastakis, Finis Dunaway,

and Alvin Finkel for their thoughtful and thought-provoking comments and questions.

I would like to thank the archivists and staff at the Provincial Archives of Alberta for their

assistance, from finding me file listing after file listing to helping me to navigate FOIP

requirements. A special thank you, as well, goes to Maureen Werlin and Renée Peevey for the

invaluable documents they shared with me.

Thank you to all my interviewees for their openness and efforts to help me better understand

how people lived the strike, not just personally but as a society.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the Alberta Labour History Institute, whose

inaugural conference gave me the opportunity to spend three days with trade union activists

and labour historians, and to meet some of the Battle of 66th Street veterans.

I have been inspired throughout this project by the conviction and dedication of the

participants of the 1986 Gainers strike to fight for a better future, both in their words and

actions.

Finally, I dedicate this thesis to Dave Werlin: for workers’ struggles in the past, the present,

and the future.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Figures vi

List of Abbreviations vii

1 The Battle of 66th Street 1

2 Backdrop to the Gainers Strike 10

3 Prelude to the Strike: Concessions and the New Reality of Alberta 26

Enter Pocklington and the Entrepreneurial Project 27

Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board and the Hog Wars of 1985 29

Labour Relations into Depression 39

The Long Hot Summer of ’86 45

Bargaining at the Brink: The Negotiating Prelude to Overt Class Conflict 48

4 Violence on the Picket Line: The State in Action 60

Violence on the Line and Public Opinion 60

Picketers and Police on the Line 70

Alberta’s Laws and Courts: Injunctions and Civil Rights 78

5 In Solidarity: Edmonton’s Ecumenical Coalition, A National Boycott, and the Change the

Law Campaign 97

Ecumenical Solidarity 99

Boycott Gainers! 108

The Change the Law Campaign 122

6 Victory and Defeat: The Settlement and Aftermath 138

Details of the Settlement 139

Meaning and Origins of the Settlement 145

v

Gainers, Pocklington, and a Post-Strike Alberta 152

A Class Struggle Perspective on the Gainers Strike: Success and Failure in Canadian

Labour History 163

Bibliography 170

vi

List of Figures

Image 1.1 Picketers drive back buses of strikebreakers. Front page of the Edmonton Sun, June

10, 1986. Photo by Robert Taylor, courtesy of Sun Media Corporation. 1

Image 4.1 Rally at the Legislature on its opening day, Edmonton Journal, June 12, 1986. Photo

courtesy of the Edmonton Journal archives. 94

Image 4.2 Police arresting a picketer. Edmonton Sun, June 13, 1986. Photo by Gary Bartlett,

Sun Media. 94

Image 4.3 Police breaking up the picket line. Front page of the Calgary Herald, June 4, 1986.

Photo by Jim Cochrane, Edmonton Journal archives. 95

Image 4.4 Strikebreaker buses, police, and picketers. Front page of the Edmonton Journal, June

3, 1986. Photo by Chris Schwarz, Edmonton Journal archives. 95

Image 4.5 Police dragging picketer out of road to make way for a bus, Edmonton Sun, June 4,

1986. Photo by Gary Bartlett, Sun Media. 96

Image 4.6 Riot squad running toward picket line in full gear. Edmonton Journal, June 9, 1986.

Photo by Bruce Edwards, Edmonton Journal archives. 96

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List of Abbreviations

AFL: Alberta Federation of Labour

AAPMC: Alberta Agricultural Products Marketing Council (the Council)

APPMB: Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board (the Board)

AUPE: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees

CLC: Canadian Labour Council

Coalition: Edmonton Churches Coalition for Labour and Justice

CUPE: Canadian Union of Public Employees

CUPW: Canadian Union of Postal Workers

EDLC: Edmonton District Labour Council

EVA: Edmonton Voters’ Association

LLRC: Labour Legislation Review Committee

NDP: New Democrat Party

PAA: Provincial Archives of Alberta

UFCW: United Food and Commercial Workers union

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Chapter 1 The Battle of 66th Street

On June 3, 1986 Police Superintendent Robert Claney was struck over the head with

a picket sign on 66th Street outside the Gainers meatpacking plant in Edmonton, Alberta.

Later that day he assured the press that there had been no intention to harm him, and that

everything was under control on the Gainers picket line. The 115 trade unionists arrested

there the same day, many of them for the first time ever, including the Alberta Federation of

Labour’s president Dave Werlin, did not agree.

The six and a half month long Gainers strike began at midnight on June 1, 1986.

Over the course of the strike over 500 people were arrested and over $500 000 was spent by

the city of Edmonton on police overtime – the entire overtime budget for the year. The

provincial government’s response, the Labour Legislation Review Committee, spent double

its original budget, over $500 000, on

an international tour before it even

began its Alberta-wide hearings. More

than 150 000 work days were lost and

over $390 000 was paid out in strike

pay.

Gainers was demonstrably a

major conflict and it was widely

viewed as the most violent strike in a

year marked by the most violent

Image 1.1 Picketers drive back buses of strikebreakers. Front page

of the Edmonton Sun, June 10, 1986. Photo by Robert Taylor.

2

labour confrontations in the province in the post-war era. The Gainers strike made the news

across Canada as members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union,

local 280-P, fought for the same contract that their fellow UFCW members employed by

Canada Packers enjoyed. Gainers’ owner Peter Pocklington, noted local businessman, owner

of the Edmonton Oilers NHL team, Progressive Conservative Party national leadership

contender, and free market proponent, insisted that the workers needed to make wage

concessions in the face of the economic downturn. The strike was not restricted to UFCW

280-P workers and Pocklington, however, as over 380 picketers, many from the wider

Alberta labour movement, were arrested by the police in the first 18 days under the direction

of two successive court injunctions.1

The violence which served to focus so much public attention on the strike was the

result of a confluence of factors, including the intervention of the courts and police to clear

the picket line so strikebreakers could enter the plant. It was also a consequence of the high

unemployment and depression that induced many companies, including Gainers, to simply

hire replacement workers at much lower rates of compensation rather than negotiate a

collective agreement with their unionized workers. The attempts of strikebreakers to cross

the picket line was a direct threat to the union workers’ job security as owner Pocklington

publically stated that he would be happy to operate the plant without his unionized

employees, making workers determined to prevent the strikebreakers from entering the

plant, including through the use of physical violence. Although the violence ebbed in late

June when UFCW 280-P decided to obey the injunction in the face of rising fines, the strike

1 CBC news, Edmonton, June 9, 1986; Therese Kehler, “More Violence and Arrests,” Edmonton Sun, June 19, 1986; and Edmonton Journal, December 2, 1986.

3

continued to capture public attention and sympathy. An ad hoc coalition of concerned

citizens and civil rights groups launched a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge over the

injunctions, an ecumenical coalition formed to seek justice and a peaceful resolution to the

conflict, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) initiated a labour law reform campaign, and

the national office of UFCW led a cross-Canada boycott tour of Gainers in the fall.

The attitude of many Albertans was one of frustration with the economic and

political situation. The Gainers strikers’ struggle resonated with many working Albertans who

faced hardships brought about by concessions, as well as their fears for the future in the

uncertain economic climate with high unemployment and a government making little

apparent effort to guarantee their welfare. The anti-worker bias of the courts, police, and

employer’s treatment of the strikers, along with the lack of provincial government

intervention under the newly elected Premier Don Getty, helped to mobilize the working

class in Alberta.

In June Labour Minister Ian Reid appointed a one-man Disputes Inquiry Board in

the person of Alex Dubensky, a move that finally prompted Gainers to make a first contract

proposal. It was during the Disputes Inquiry Board that Gainers’ actions to terminate the

workers’ pension plan was exposed. The resulting Labour Relations Board (LRB)

investigation ruled in October that Gainers had bargained in bad faith. Instead of prompting

a good faith effort to reach a new collective agreement, the LRB ruling spurred the company

to shift the conflict further into the time-consuming legal system, by challenging the ruling in

the provincial courts. The strike was finally settled on December 14 when the workers

4

ratified an agreement that Premier Getty belatedly facilitated. The next day they returned to

work.

The Gainers strike is widely perceived by the Alberta labour movement as a struggle

of historic importance: some have even gone so far as to compare it to the Winnipeg

General Strike. It was a moment of realization on the part of workers across Alberta of the

injustices produced by the labour laws, of the close ties among the government, judiciary,

police, and major capitalists like Gainers owner Peter Pocklington; and of the state’s class

response to economic recession. The Gainers conflict also demonstrated a stunning

solidarity as Albertans, critical of the inequalities and injustices so evident in a 1980s crisis,

rallied around the Gainers strikers. In 1986 Albertans were taking a critical look at their

society. The Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and Justice released a book that

observed “today’s world is built on labour from the past; tomorrow’s world will be built on

the foundations of today’s society.” Albertans witnessing the police violence on the Gainers

picket line, hearing about Peter Pocklington’s seizure of the workers’ pension plan and

intention to destroy the union, were gravely concerned about what kind of society Alberta

was becoming.

To most Canadians Alberta is regarded as a bastion of conservatism, both socially

and politically. There is some reason for this, and Albertans themselves often share the

opinion.2 Politically the province has been ruled by two dynasties since the mid-1930s. In

1935 Alberta elected its first Social Credit government, and the Socreds continued in power

2 “For decades, Alberta has been depicted as the most conservative of provinces, with an unshakable commitment to free enterprise.” Kevin Peterson, “Pocklington Has Created Climate for Change,” Calgary Herald, Sunday June 29, 1986.

5

until 1971, when the Conservatives swept into office. Under Social Credit, the government

passed laws based on a view of labour as subversive, something that needed to be controlled,

both in its form and its thinking. Little changed under the Progressive Conservatives, who

still govern today. The labour movement, from a proud radical past exemplified in most

minds by the miners in the Crowsnest Pass in the opening decades of the twentieth century,

by the 1980s had every appearance of being non-militant, conservative, subordinate, and

subjugated. In the words of Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz, the determined resistance of

Alberta workers in the 1980s was “made even more remarkable by the province’s reputation

over the past half-century for its allegedly monolithic right wing populism.”3 As the events of

the 1986 Gainers strike forcibly demonstrated, even within an unpromising and inauspicious

setting, the working class was capable of mobilizing and critiquing the political, judicial, and

economic system in Alberta when confronted with economic depression and the antagonistic

neo-liberal policies of the Conservative government.

How was it that a strike in Edmonton, Alberta, in the center of one of Canada’s most

conservative provinces, gained national attention? The answer entails something more than

picket line violence, which was always paralleled by mass demonstrations of solidarity on the

part of Gainers workers, the Alberta labour movement, and other members of civil society.

Part of the answer is quite obvious: the media focused on the Gainers strike for the

sensationalism of the violent and mass confrontations between strikers and strikebreakers,

workers and police. Another aspect is the role of Peter Pocklington, local millionaire

entrepreneur, who served as a locus for protests with his clearly anti-union stance. This

3 Leo Panitch, and Donald Swartz, From Consent to Coercion: The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms, 3rd edition (Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Press, 2003), 111.

6

certainly strengthened the resolve of the union members to stay out on strike for over six

long months. Yet the answer for why Gainers garnered so much support in Alberta is better

answered by describing it as a moment of crisis.4

The Gainers strike not only occurred during an economic and political crisis, it

heightened and exposed that crisis. The Gainers strike provided an opportunity for people

across the province, and to some extent throughout the nation, to glimpse the political,

economic, and judicial elements of society without their protective ideological camouflage,

which was stripped away by the severity of human suffering from economic depression and

by the use of force majeure. The Gainers strike was the culmination of tensions in Alberta due

to the global recession of the 1980s, which hit Alberta particularly hard given its export-

dependent economy. The post-war labour accord, such as it was in Alberta, was fraying by

1986 both in terms of labour board and court rulings against labour, changing government

conceptions of how labour relations should function, and the rise of concession bargaining.

Recession created severe social problems relating to unemployment and underemployment,

including house foreclosure and divorce, exacerbated by the introduction of neo-liberal

policies by the provincial government that included massive tax breaks to corporations and

cuts to public spending.

At the moment that Gainers workers walked out on strike, working Albertans, both

unionized and not, were frustrated by the continuous demands for concessions. Gainers

workers had, in fact, agreed to significant concessions two years previously, but in 1986 they

were prepared to take a stand not only against further concessions, but for the parity with

4 Radcliffe also describes the Gainers strike as a moment of crisis. Deborah Radcliffe, “Understanding Labour Law Reform in Alberta: 1986-1988,” PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1997, 110.

7

meatpacking industry standards they had given up in 1984.5 Their slogan was simple:

“Justice Means Parity.” Their message spoke to the sense of grievance and the sense of siege

that workers across Alberta were experiencing, and it was not just Gainers that became

locked in a bitter labour dispute in the summer of 1986. The meatpackers in Red Deer, oil

workers in Fort McMurray, and forest processing workers in Slave Lake, as well as Alberta

Liquor Control Board workers across the province were all out on strike that summer.

Unorganized workers were subject to wage freezes and cuts, hours and benefits reductions,

and layoffs. Workers’ rights were under attack and Gainers was framed by the Alberta

Federation of Labour as the line in the sand. Workers were going to war, and Gainers was

going to be the battleground not only for Alberta, but for Canada.6

The strike itself can be broken into four periods: the prelude, including the

concessions of 1984 and the 1986 negotiations; the first month characterized by mass public

demonstrations and widely publicized picket-line violence as workers attempted to prevent

the plant from returning to operations; the campaign phase after the injunctions were obeyed

as the union sought to win their conflict through boycott efforts and a change the law

mobilization; and finally the settlement and aftermath, including the results of the Labour

Law Review Board and the ultimate fate of the plant.

In the first chapter the larger context of the strike will be discussed: the global

recession and the rise of neo-liberalism that resulted in concession bargaining, the end to the

post-war labour accord in Canada and the failure of the national pattern bargaining in the

5 Parallels can be drawn to the ‘no concessions’ stance of the CLC and the autoworkers earlier in the decade. 6 The Hormel strike in the US in the fall of 1985 and into the spring and summer of 1986 had a similar national scope.

8

meatpacking industry, and the trends in Alberta labour laws. In the next chapter the

immediate lead up to the strike will be explored, including how changing ideas of labour

relations in the province of Alberta played out. Reflecting the problematic ideas of consensus

and corporatist cooperation that legal scholar Harry Glasbeek has analyzed in terms of health

and safety legislation, concessions were viewed as logical and sensible by the Alberta Minister

of Labour in the early 1980s. However, these ideas ultimately contributed to the outbreak of

industrial disputes in 1986. In 1984 Gainers local UFCW 280-P accepted concessions under

the combined pressure of threats and promises, and the memory of those negotiations in

combination with high pressure tactics in 1986 that resulted in such strong solidarity within

the local.

In the third chapter the violence on the picket line will be examined. The

introduction of injunctions and the use of police in what most citizens considered the

capacity of a private security force exposed the bias in the legal system. The injunctions were

challenged on the grounds that they infringed on citizens’ (and strikers as citizens) freedom

of assembly, political expression, conscience and religion. The media’s coverage was

surprisingly neutral to positive of the workers’ actions and demands and this cautious to

supportive attitude reflected that of the provincial population. The provincial government,

however, resisted taking action on the matter until the majority of the violence had occurred,

and only then when a massive rally on the opening day of the legislature demonstrated that it

would be politically unwise to continue to ignore the strike.

In the fourth chapter expressions of solidarity are explored, ranging from the basic

action of fellow trade unionists reinforcing the Gainers picket line to unaffiliated citizens

9

joining marches and planting “Change the Law” signs on their lawns. One of the unique

features of the Gainers strike was the ecumenical attention the strike received with the

formation of the Edmonton Churches Coalition for Labour and Justice, which spoke out for

a peaceful resolution to the conflict and justice for the workers. With the decision by the

union to obey the injunctions, other forms of support gained importance, most notably a

national boycott that sent strikers to different provinces to explain their demand for parity,

to raise strike funds, and to extend the boycott to consumers, stores, and institutions. The

Alberta Federation of Labour’s Change the Law campaign directed the widespread public

dismay with the picket line violence into efforts to change labour laws to prohibit

strikebreakers and jettison other anti-union provisions. The campaign triggered and then

targeted the province’s Labour Legislation Review Committee. When the Gainers strike

ended in mid-December it removed the critical public pressure on the government to change

the laws and benefit workers.

The last chapter will explore how the final settlement was reached and the lasting

impact of the strike. Most people in the Alberta labour movement agree that the Gainers

strike was special, the most important strike in living memory, but their final evaluations

differ. For some, the Gainers strike represented a major loss for both the workers and the

labour movement. Others have heralded it as the greatest example of solidarity in modern

Alberta labour history, a triumph for the labour movement. This final chapter will attempt to

explain why such different opinions prevail today, and try, in part, to reconcile these

conflicting views.

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Chapter 2 Backdrop to the Gainers Strike

In order to understand the Gainers strike it is important to appreciate its economic

and political context. Part of this context is the localized particularities of Alberta labour

relations situated within the economic malaise of the 1980s. Never progressive to begin with,

Alberta’s labour legislation, and more importantly the decisions of the labour relations board

and courts, were clearly hostile to unions in this period.1 The labour movement found itself

on the defensive as collective agreements, especially in the building trades, were unilaterally

terminated by employers. Concessions became the norm.

In Canada free collective bargaining began at the end of the Second World War with

the legal recognition of the right of private sector workers to organize, bargain collectively,

and strike. Alberta did not participate in a golden post-war age of labour peace, and labour

legislation was in fact still improving in some areas in the 1970s when government

involvement in industrial relations began to take a coercive turn in other Canadian

jurisdictions, especially federally under Ottawa’s Anti-Inflation Program that regulated wages

without a corresponding regulation of prices.2 Despite the limitations of legislated rights, the

general assumption in the labour movement at the time was that fuller rights would gradually

be won, and that the rights that had been won would not be reversed.3 More broadly, the

reversals of the post-war labour peace in the 1970s and 1980s reflected the transition from

long boom to long downturn and the corresponding rise of neo-liberal ideas. As recession

1 Alvin Finkel, “The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (Spring 1988): 123-52. 2 Leo Panitch, and Donald Swartz, From Consent to Coercion: The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms, 3rd edition (Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Press, 2003), 29. 3 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 4.

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increased unemployment, underemployment, and precarious work and introduced

concession bargaining, neo-liberal ideas introduced new ways of thinking about work and the

rights that workers were justified in demanding not only from their employers, but also from

their governments.

Historian Robert Brenner argues the underlying cause of the long downturn from

1973 onwards was a decline in the rates of profits of US manufacturing due to overcapacity

and overproduction, which created massive job losses across advanced capitalist economies

in the early 1980s and a zero sum game between US, Japanese, and German manufactures

with regards to profit increases.4 The American working class maintained its standard of

living in this period by working longer hours and going into debt.5 Brenner critiques the

dominant supply-side theory that blames long downturn on the increased pressure on profits

from workers’ direct and indirect wage growth outrunning productivity growth and then

failing to adjust to the declining productivity with a corresponding deflation of wages.6 He

blames the long downturn on the “unplanned, uncoordinated, and competitive nature of capitalist

production.”7 Worker-management conflicts in the 1980s were not merely over labour’s

share of the so-called economic pie, but also more fundamentally also over conditions of

work and more broadly, societal organization.

Despite efforts by Progressive Conservative Premier Peter Lougheed to encourage

diversification of the economy by private means in the 1970s, most entrepreneurs continued

to invest heavily in energy and real estate before the 1981 recession. The fall of oil prices in 4 Robert Brenner, The Boom and the Bubble: The US in the World Economy (New York: Verso, 2002), 37, 38. 5 Joshua Freeman, “American Empire,” presentation at Trent University, March 28, 2013. 6 Robert Brenner, Economics of Global Turbulence: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945-2005 (New York: Verso, 2006), 7. 7 Original emphasis. Brenner, Economics of Global Turbulence, 7.

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1981, consequently, had devastating effects on the Alberta economy.8 Oil companies slowed

or halted exploration and drilling, causing lay-offs across the energy sector, including in

ancillary companies.9 In 1982, a year after the real gross domestic product reached its height

for the period 1970 to 1985, unemployment doubled from 5.2% to 10.3%.10 By September

1984 unemployment in Alberta reached 12.4%, with higher rates in the major cities and in

the construction industry (32.2% in 1982-83). 11 Unemployment stabilized and declined

overall between 1984 and the beginning of 1986, but remained above 10% from May

through December of that year. The Alberta Federation of Labour estimated the rate was

closer to 13.6% in June of 1986, not including the people who were underemployed and

seeking full-time work.12

In the May election of 1986 Peter Lougheed, Premier since the Progressive

Conservatives assumed power in 1971, stepped down and was replaced by Don Getty. For

the first time in 15 years the Conservatives faced a sizeable opposition, as the New Democrat

Party (NDP) under Ray Martin won 16 seats, the majority of which were in Edmonton, and

the Liberals won four seats, up from none. Martin attributed these gains in part to the

8 Robert Brenner argues the 1979-80 depression was second only to the 1930s Great Depression. Record high interest rates that were meant to induce large-scale shakeouts combined with restricted credit and a rising dollar to create the 1982 Los Angeles debt crisis that endangered the solvency of leading international banks and threatened a worldwide crash, Boom and Bubble, 36; and Winston Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” in Working People in Alberta: A History, ed. Alvin Finkel (Edmonton: AU Press, 2012), 174. 9 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 175. 10 The previous post-war unemployment peak was in 1971 at a mere 5.7%. Statistics Canada: CANSIM Table 282-0087. 11 Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Construction Owners Association of Alberta April 18, 1984, Westin Hotel Edmonton, Department of Labour, Information/Communications Branch GR1992.219, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton (hereafter PAA). 12 Labour Legislation Review Committee, Final Report (Edmonton: Government of Alberta, 1987), 1-5, GR1993.39, PAA; and Alberta Federation of Labour, The Activist, 1, no. 4 (June 1986).

13

government’s lack of attention to urban unemployment.13 Overall real per capita incomes in

Alberta dropped, as did real estate prices, while the number of people using the food bank

rose in the 1980s.14

The meatpacking sector did not escape the effects of the downturn. Prior to the

1980s, according to historian Cynthia Loch-Drake, “Edmonton packing workers formed one

of Alberta’s most vibrant and militant working-class communities during the decades

following World War Two.”15 Although the majority of the workers were Canadian-born in

the post-war period, including many second-generation eastern Europeans, especially

Ukrainians, the heaviest, most disgusting and disturbing jobs were typically filled by new

immigrants and had a high turnover rate.16 In the 1970s Chileans filled these positions and in

1986 recent Vietnamese workers with little English were used as strikebreakers.17 The four

packinghouses in Edmonton were not organized until WWII by the United Packinghouse

Workers of America (UPWA).18 In 1979, two union mergers later, the union in the plant was

the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).19 The new union had an inauspicious

start as from January 1980 to July of 1982, 201 meatpacking plants were closed as

13 CBC digital archives of As it Happens. http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/provincial-territorial-politics/electing-dynasties-alberta-campaigns-since-1935/1986-finally-a-mixed-up-legislature.html 14 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 175. 15 Cynthia Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’: Class, Gender, and Culture in Edmonton Packinghouses During the Era of National Pattern Bargaining, 1947-1979,” (PhD diss., York University, 2013), 38. 16 Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 68. 17 Aboriginals, Asians, and blacks were purposefully excluded by management due to racism. Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 86-89; and Konstantinos Koskinas, “Prolegomena to a Theory of Working Class Culture: Organizational, Ideological, and Ideological Praxis of the Alberta Federation of Labour, 1979-1986,” PhD diss, University of Alberta, 1987, 159. 18 Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 3. 19 Charles Perry and Delwyn Kegley, Disintegration and Change: Labor Relations in the Meat Packing Industry, Issue 35 of Labor Relations and Public Policy Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Industrial Research Unit, 1989), 106, 115; and Alain Noël and Keith Gardner, “The Gainers Strike: Capitalist Offensive, Militancy, and the Politics of Industrial Relations in Canada,” Studies in Political Economy 31 (Spring 1990): 32.

14

conglomerates, some of which had originated in expanding meat packing companies,

divested themselves of their holdings in the meat industry. Plants were sold and others

reopened months later without a union and with a lower wage rate. Rather than the

continual, if sometimes moderate increases to wages and benefits, concessions became the

norm in the 1980s.20 UFCW itself abandoned master agreements or national pattern

bargaining in the US and Canada in an ultimately futile attempt to keep plants open. Wage

concessions and freezes, with no cost of living adjustments and long contracts became the

standard in return for paltry promises from companies to remain open for two more years.

In some cases union locals took desperate measures to keep their plants open: in Waterloo,

Iowa the workers went so far as to buy-out the Rath company in the hopes that they would

be able to improve productivity and lower costs to save their jobs. This gamble was

ultimately unsuccessful, and the sacrifices that workers made, including wage and benefit

deferrals and cuts, did not prevent the company’s bankruptcy in 1983.21

In Canada, pattern bargaining in the meatpacking industry crumbled between 1984

and 1988 though it had appeared unshakeable for 40 years.22 Prior to the 1980s, rather than a

formalized national industry wide settlement, one or two key collective agreements were

created in Toronto amongst the largest three meat packers (Canada Packers, Swifts, and

Burns) and these formed the basis of settlements throughout the industry for smaller

packers. This national pattern was approved by an arbitrator in 1947 because meatpackers

20 Perry and Kegley, Disintegration and Change, 149. 21 Perry and Kegley, Disintegration and Change, 151-53, 224, 232, 233, 252. 22 Anne Forrest, “The Rise and Fall of National Bargaining in the Canadian Meat-Packing Industry,” Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations 44, no. 2 (1989): 398.

15

operated on a national scale, but even then a differential existed between the east and west.23

In 1984 Burns demanded wage concessions from the workers to keep their jobs, and

challenged their need to follow the national pattern with the Labour Relations Boards in

Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. In June the Calgary plant struck and Burns closed it, forcing

UFCW to take them to court to secure $12 million in severance pay owed to the 600

workers. Canada Packers also demanded concessions that year, including the introduction of

a second, lower wage rate for new workers. Gainers workers settled with a concessionary

agreement, but Canada Packers and Burns workers struck. The settlement that was reached

by these two included the two tiers of wages, but with only a two year period for workers to

reach the previous base rate, as well as increased severance pay, and a wage increase at the

end of the contract.24 With the closure of the Burns plant there were over 1000 unemployed

meat packers in Alberta in 1984.25 In 1986 Canada Packers achieved a settlement without a

strike that included a wage differential between the east and the west, with moderate wage

increases, which Burns and many other packers (excluding Gainers) followed. In 1988,

however, Canada Packers was no longer setting the rate for other packers to follow.

Anne Forrest notes that companies such as Gainers could “thrive in the non-union

haven that Alberta has become,” but she argued that the collapse of the Alberta labour

market was not the cause of the end of national bargaining, though it certainly aided

23 Nonetheless, Canada did not see the rise of companies like the IBP which undercut the national pattern in the US, in part because of the predatory practices of Canada Packers that bought out smaller, more modern plants which then came under the national pattern. For a further discussion see Loch-Drake, “Management and the Manly Modern,” in “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 36-115; and Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 393, 394. 24 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 397. 25 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 396.

16

companies.26 Instead, she argues that national bargaining broke down when it no longer

served employers’ best interest. Before the 1980s the national pattern served to regulate

competition by stabilizing the market through removing labour costs from the highly

competitive equation and allowing monopolistic style pricing.27 Global and local recession

contributed to the declining of meat purchases, as did changing patterns of consumption as

more people purchased prepared goods rather than fresh cuts of meat due to changes in

family’s employment and leisure, including more women entering the workforce.28 When

meat consumption decreased in the early 1980s, it brought about a crisis due to the

overcapacity and inefficiency of older plants.29 Meat packing was a high volume business

with low return rates, which remained labour intensive even in the 1980s as the dis-assembly

(or butchering) process was difficult to automate due to the variability between animals.30 In

Canada meatpacking transformed from a high to low wage industry in the 1980s.31

Charles Perry and Delwyn Kegley claim that although raw materials were the largest

operating expense, that labour costs were targeted because they were easier to control:

Downward pressure on prices and profit margins generally leads to pressure

to reduce operating costs . . . despite its more limited role in determining

industry operations cost, labor costs have had to bear the brunt of the burden

26 From 1985 to 1990 Alberta had the lowest manufacturing and processing income tax in Canada at 5% (and 0% for small businesses). Memorandum from Minister Larry Shaben to Government Members of the Legislative Assembly Regarding Economic Diversification, attached paper: “Alberta Government Policies and Programs to Assist Economic Diversification and Trade, November 1986,” 1, File 103: Economic Development and Trade (Honourable Larry Shaber), Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0045, PAA; and Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 397-98, and 404. 27 Meat packing wages rose on average by 716% compared to a 236% consumer price index increase between 1948 and 1979. Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 46; and Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 399-402. 28 H. J. Swatland, “Meat Products and Consumption Culture in the West,” Meat Science 86 (2010):80. 29 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 402. 30 Perry and Kegley, Disintegration and Change, 21, 22, 25. 31 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 403.

17

of adjusting to more stringent market constraints in the red meat segment of

the industry. The result has been managerial pressure for changes in work

rules to increase productivity and changes in wages and benefits to decrease

compensation costs which have raised issues of job security, safety, and

equity to be resolved by the industry’s labour relations system.32

Although this quote is certainly descriptive of what did occur in the 1980s, it would be

misleading to think that the pressure on workers was the only way for packers to survive. As

the same authors argue in their case study comparing Rath and Wilson, who both filed for

bankruptcy the same year, Wilson succeeded in recovering (admittedly with half its

workforce) by focusing on further processed and prepared meat products.33 Investment in

new technology or new plants was also possible to increase efficiency and there were

numerous possibilities in Alberta for government assistance and funding. For example in

1985 the provincial government and federal government’s Energy Resources Research Fund

helped to retrofit the packing plant in Brooks, Alberta. The project was meant to study the

potential cost savings from the installation of a heat recovery system that used the waste heat

from the refrigeration units to heat water for the slaughter process, and Lakeside Packers

recouped its costs (not including the monitoring equipment for the study) within one year of

operation.34 Despite hailing the competitiveness of the free market as the solution to

32 My emphasis added. Perry and Kegley, Disintegration and Change, 25. 33 Perry and Kegley, Disintegration and Change, 233. 34 The study concluded that more typical results for plants that did not suffer utilities failures as regularly as Lakeside did at Brooks could expect a more modest three to four years. The retrofit resulted in an annual saving of $78 000 per year, for an initial outlay of $125 000. Crawford Consulting Engineering Ltd., “Heat Recovery in a Meatpacking Plant: Project WHR/85/1-3 for Lakeside Packers, Brooks, Alberta and Alberta/Canada Energy Resources Research Fund: Final Report 1985,” Calgary, 1987, 1.

18

recession, the government of Alberta was willing to intervene in the economy to aid capital

including by providing large quantities of public money to various private businesses.35

Panitch and Swartz refer to globalization as “the effective subjugation of even

advanced capitalist countries to the competitive logic and contradiction of production and

finance on a world scale,” that both caused and was a consequence of the crisis of the post-

war order. 36 The global neo-liberal order that emerged in the 1980s was defined by “free

capital flows, the ascendancy of financial capital, and the spread of commodification into

every aspect of social life.”37 By the 1990s, not only was work more precarious in the private

sector, but the government was withdrawing from social services both by restricting access

to the social safety net and privatizing public services.38

The political response to the downturn in the late 1970s was exemplified by the tight

credit policies and the austerity of supply-side economics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret

Thatcher. Policies were directed toward raising profitability by increasing unemployment to

dampen wage growth, redistributing income to capital through reduced corporate taxes and

reduced social spending, and by reducing the surplus manufacturers through a purge of high

cost, low profit firms to clear room for low productivity service sector companies. This

approach was characterized by a shift to the financial sector, by the suppression of inflation,

35 “Alberta Government Policies and Programs to Assist Economic Diversification and Trade,” November 1986, file 103 Economic Development and Trade (Hon Larry Shaben), Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 36 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 164. 37 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 183. 38 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 183-84.

19

deregulation, and the elimination of capital controls.39 One consequence was the increase in

the inequities in the distribution of wealth after the 1980s.40

A crucial goal of neo-liberal policies, according to Panitch and Gindin, was to break

the power of labour, as well as the power of inflation, in order to not only win back the

confidence of financial markets, but also to set an example to other countries so that they

too might redress the balance of power between classes that had tipped in favour of labour

in the post-war period.41 In Canada back to work legislation, the labeling of large numbers of

workers as essential (and therefore prohibited from striking), and the jailing of union leaders

were among the most obvious examples of the restrictions and attacks on unions. Perhaps

more subtle and insidious were changes to collective bargaining legislation that allowed

interference in unions’ internal mechanisms during collective bargaining (in Alberta, for

example, the right of the employer to demand a vote on their last offer), and new restrictions

on picketing and on secondary strikes, which served to weaken solidarity and extinguish

members’ consciousness of their power and ability to halt economic production.42 The

reason for this concerted and continuing attack on organized labour was the ongoing

economic crisis, exacerbated by international competition, which forced capital to

reconstitute itself. In its attempts to do so employers demanded continual concessions not

only in wages, but in conditions of work.43 A common tactic was the promise of shared

39 Brenner, Boom and Bubble, 35. 40 Brenner, Boom and Bubble, 221. 41 Panitch and Gindin, “Finance and American Empire,” 33. 42 At the Alberta Labour History Institute in June 2012 a member of the Health Sciences union commented that the labour movement should look to youth, as they had more power, to change society. The fact that some unionists today do not think about their own power in terms of shutting down production perhaps explains why they are, in fact, powerless to affect societal change. 43 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 6.

20

profits once the company had weathered the recession through workers, management, and

owners coming together to make sacrifices to keep the company afloat, though the

commonality of those sacrifices was always questionable.44

Panitch and Gindin have noted that neo-liberalism is falsely associated with a period

of de-regulation, when in fact it is typified by changing relationships and sometimes even

closer ties between business and the state.45 In the 1980s the neo-liberalism the Alberta

government espoused centred on the necessary ascendancy of capital’s interests over

workers’ in order to improve the economy. Cooperation and concessions were required by

workers in order to maintain the competitiveness and profitability of companies as

globalization intensified and free trade agreements were signed. The Alberta government

actively worked to suppress labour militancy and solidarity through its labour legislation

while cutting public services and subsidizing the private sector through grants and tax cuts.

The construction industry and public sector were singled out in numerous legislations

for further restrictions. It was only in 1970 that the Alberta Labour Act finally recognized

trade unions as legal entities, while extending the emergency powers of the government to

deal with work stoppages, and in response to the public pressures and the Royal Commission

on the Status of Women, affirmed the necessity of equal pay for women. In 1974 the

construction industry figured prominently in the Alberta Labour Amendment Act as oil

sands projects (a large source of construction employment in Alberta) were exempted from

44 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 174. 45 In particular, they note the link between finance capital and the state, especially how the US Federal Reserve intervened directly with Wall Street companies to preserve others (e.g. through the use of the Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, or the resuscitation of the LTCM). Eric Newstadt, “Neoliberalism and the Federal Reserve,” in Panitch and Konings, American Empire, 108, 112; and Panitch and Gindin, “Finance and American Empire,” 35.

21

various provisions of the labour code. More importantly, although bargaining was made

simpler as the principal contractor on a project was empowered to bargain for all employers,

while the project was active there could be no lockout or strike.46 In 1977 the Alberta

Labour Amendment Act declared not bargaining in good faith to be an unfair labour practice

and under the jurisdiction of the Board of Industrial Relations, rather than a criminal offense

before the courts.47 1977 also marked the passage of the Public Service Employee Relations

Act (PSERA) with only ostensible consultation with the Alberta Union of Public Employees

(AUPE), despite the government’s stated intention of crafting the legislation with input from

the union.48 According to Panitch and Swartz, “Alberta stood out among Canadian

jurisdictions for grimly resisting the extension of trade union rights to public employees.”49

In 1981, with the beginning of the recession, the government decided to split the

Alberta Labour Act into two sections: the Labour Relations Act to regulate employer-union

relations and the Employment Standards for all workers that was to serve as the minimum of

employment contracts for the majority of workers who were not unionized. The Labour

Relations Act introduced a new procedure for certification, with a prohibition against strike

or lockout for 60 days if notice of intent to bargain was served or if the Labour Relations

Board (the new name of the Board of Industrial Relations) appointed a Disputes Inquiry

Board.50 The working conditions at the time of the application for certification were to be

frozen until the process was complete. Such initiatives echoed provisions of Mackenzie

46 LLRC, Final Report, 57, GR1993.39, PAA. 47 Alberta Labour Relations Board, “The Labour Relations Act, 1980, as amended and UFCW local 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” File L.R. 302-G-1, October 28, 1986, 24. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 48 The acronym is pronounced puh-seer-ah. LLRC, Final Report, 57, 58, GR1993.39, PAA. 49 Panitch and Swartz, From Consent to Coercion, 56. 50 Alberta Labour Relations Board, “History of the Labour Relations Board,” Online, Alberta Labour Relations Board, Government of Alberta, updated May 2010, 3.

22

King’s 1907 Industrial Disputes and Investigation Act; labour militancy could be undermined

by freezing conditions while delaying strikes.51

The Health Services Continuation Act marked the beginning of a period of open

government hostility towards unions.52 In March of 1982 the Health Services Continuation

Act made it illegal for already striking nurses to take job action until December 31, 1983, and

ordered them back to work. The government imposed binding arbitration, prohibited union

members from union activity for two years if the strike did not end immediately, and

outlined provisions for union decertification.53 The following year the Labour Statutes

Amendment Act (Bill 44) clarified the criteria for determining wages and benefits under

compulsory arbitration: arbitrators’ agreements were subject to approval by a tribunal that

considered government fiscal policy and general economic conditions before approving

awards. Arbitrators themselves were required to consider non-union wage rates, government

guidelines, and the government’s ability to pay, while a minister determined the items that the

arbitrator was permitted to consider. Bill 44 extended the Health Services Continuation Act’s

strike prohibition to include hospital workers and those few members of the Alberta Union

of Public Employees who had the right to strike.54 It also included a provision for the

employer to suspend union dues for six months if job action was taken.55 As one might

51 For opinions on the purpose of the IDIA see Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, Labour Before the Law: The Regulation of Workers’ Collective Action in Canada, 1900-45 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 54-55; Joan Sangster, “The 1907 Bell Telephone Strike” in Through Feminist Eyes: Essays on Canadian Women’s History (Athabasca University Press, 2011), 69, 74; and LLRC, Final Report, 60-61, GR1993.39, PAA. 52 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 42. 53 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 43. 54 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 43. 55 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Addendum to the Submission to The Standing Committee on Public Affairs of the Alberta Legislature on Bill 44, Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1983,” April 26, 1983. From the private files of Maureen Werlin.

23

surmise from the quick follow up to the 1982 Health Services Continuation Act, simply

banning nurses from striking had not had the desired result: in fact, between the formation

of the United Nurses of Alberta union in 1977 through to 1988 the nurses struck seven

times.56 An International Labour Organization (ILO) mission to review Canada’s labour laws

stated that the 1983 Labour Statues Amendment Act went “beyond acceptable limits” in

prohibiting public sector workers the right to strike. The criticism was ignored by the

provincial government, just as the ILO’s earlier judgment in 1980 that the ban on strikes by

public sector workers was far too broad, violating workers’ freedom of association, had

been.57 Despite the Alberta Federation of Labour’s campaign “War on 44,” to mobilize

workers across the province, the bill passed.58

In 1983 the Labour Relations Amendment Act, Bill 110, received assent, but was

never read into law and subsequently repealed.59 The Building Trades, as well as the labour

movement more generally, mobilized against this bill. The amendment would have allowed

construction companies to appeal to the Labour Relations Board (LRB) to have spin-off

companies declared separate entities from the original company, and therefore not bound by

the same collective agreement.60 In 1973 the Alberta Labour Act declared multiple

corporations, persons, partnerships, and associations to be a single employer when those

56 Rebecca Priegert Coulter, “Alberta Nurses and the ‘Illegal’ Strike of 1988,” in Canadian Working-Class History: Selected Readings, 3rd edition, Laurel Sefton Macdowell and Ian Radforth (Toronto: Scholars’ Press, Inc., 2006), 407-17; LLRC, Final Report, 62, GR1993.39, PAA. 57 The ILO is a tripartite UN organization that Canada joined in 1919. Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 110, 54, 56. 58 For a discussion of both Bill 44 and Bill 110 see Deborah Radcliffe, “Understanding Labour Law Reform in Alberta: 1986-1988,” PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1997, 49-51, and 70-76. 59 E. G. Fisher and James C. Robb, “The Labour Legislation Review Committee’s Final Report 1987,” Alberta Law Review 26, no. 2 (Winter 1988): 303. 60 Panitch and Swartz, Consent to Coercion, 43.

24

separate entities carried out business under common control. This definition of an employer

neutralized the value of spin-off companies, where a unionized employer would create a

subsidiary company that was not unionized to avoid the labour costs from a collective

agreement with the original company’s union.61 Despite this, since 1982 construction

companies used spin-offs and the 24 hour lockout (sometimes called the 25 hour lockout) to

unilaterally terminate collective agreements. Judge J. B. Dea ruled in January 1984 that

bridging clauses, which continued the terms of employment of the expired collective

agreement until the next agreement was signed, were null and void, allowing employers to

lockout their workers for a day and then rehire them at much lower wages or simply hire new

non-union workers.62 Labour activists speculated that Bill 110 was withdrawn because Dea’s

decision rendered it redundant.63 Politically it was more expedient for Labour Minister Les

Young to appear to be listening to the concerns of labour while a judicial ruling effectively

accomplished the same goal of freeing unionized construction companies from their

collective bargaining obligations. Although Justice Dea’s decision was struck down by an

Alberta Court of Appeals, the Alberta Labour Relations Board’s rulings continued to allow

spin-offs and placed the burden of proof on unions to prove not only common control of

companies, but to be able to detail exactly how companies legally related to one another,

making both the successful appeal of Dea’s decision as well as the withdrawal of Bill 110

moot.64

61 LLRC, Final Report, 56, GR1993.39, PAA. 62 “Notes for an Address by Young to the Construction Owners Association of Alberta,” Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR 1992.219, PAA. 63 Dave Werlin, “President’s Address,” 28th Alberta Federation of Labour Convention, 1984, from the private files of Maureen Werlin. 64 Fisher and Robb, “Labour Legislation Review,” 304.

25

The Employment Standards Act of 1984, a state effort aimed at “eliminating

frivolous and unwarranted” appeals to the Labour Relations Board, required a petitioner to

pay a $300 fee, making it more difficult for workers to have their grievances heard. 65 In 1985

the Individual Rights Protection Amendment Act prohibited discrimination against women,

but an employer could (if a worker paid the $300 to lodge their complaint) successfully

defend their discriminatory actions as “reasonable and justified.”66 The 1986 Employment

Pension Plan Act, passed on September 18, and going into effect on January 1, 1987, was a

clear response to the debacle over the Gainers pension plan, with workers assured of

sufficient information on a regular basis about benefits and accumulated contributions, and

guaranteeing that if a worker left, their pension would be locked into an RRSP, life annuity,

or another pension plan.67

Labour relations expert Winston Gereluk characterizes the 1980s as the most militant

decade in Alberta labour history, when the attacks by employers and the provincial

government spurred “workers’ efforts to defend and extend earlier gains [and] produced a

decade that transformed the province’s labour movement, reviving a tradition of protest

politics that had characterized its earlier days.” Workers became increasingly militant in the

face of private sector and government efforts “to make the workers, rather than those whose

decisions had caused the mess, pay the price to bring back prosperity.”68

65 LLRC, Final Report, 62, 63, GR1993.39, PAA. 66 Specifically this included prohibitions on firing, denying promotion or training to women due to pregnancy, programs meant to remove barriers to equal access, and maternity leave for all workers, even public sector, domestic and agricultural labourers not covered by standard labour legislation. LLRC, Final Report, 63, GR1993.39, PAA; and Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 179. 67 LLRC, Final Report, 64, GR1993.39, PAA. 68 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 173.

26

Chapter 3 Prelude to the Strike: Concessions and the New Reality of Alberta

Local butcher John Gainer built the first packinghouse in Edmonton in 1904.1 In July

of 1979 Peter Pocklington bought the southside Gainers company, based in the original

gravity-fed plant, and in the fall of 1980 he arranged to buy Swift’s northside plant on 66

Street and the Yellowhead Trail and its related distribution centres as the company sold off

its meatpacking interests in Canada.2 Gainers operations moved to the northside plant in

1981. Previously a family owned operation, under Pocklington’s ownership the character of

the work at Gainers changed. Working conditions worsened in the previous Swift plant in

the 1980s – the number of hogs processed increased from 130�000 in 1979 to over

730�000 in 1984 and the line continued to speed up. This speed up (the number of hogs

processed increased by over 400�000 between 1982 and 1984), alongside wage concessions

from workers and political pressure on producer prices, made Gainers viable in the face of

industry wide decline. 3

1 Pocklington changed the name of the company to Gainers Inc. when he bought the plant and the 66th Street Swift plant in 1980/81. Alberta Labour Relations Board, “The Labour Relations Act, 1980, as amended and UFCW local 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” File L.R. 302-G-1, October 28, 1986, 5. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 2 The acquisition of Gainers was slightly more complicated that I have detailed here, involving buying shares and the creation of a Gainers Foods Ltd company by Pocklington to buy the assets, and then a renaming of everything. ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 10. 3 Memorandum to All Delegates from Grey Whaley, March 27, 1985, file 10 Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton (hereafter PAA); and Winston Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” in Working People in Alberta: A History, ed. Alvin Finkel (Edmonton: AU Press, 2012),180.

27

Enter Pocklington and the Entrepreneurial Project

Peter Pocklington played a central role in the Gainers strike. Although most

statements about the strike came from Gainers management, there was a constant conflation

of Pocklington and the company in the strikers’ minds. From the comments that

Pocklington made to the media and his lobbying of the provincial government, it was

apparent that he took a direct interest in the company that he was the sole owner of, and

from documents that came to light during the pension scandal, that he actively directed

policy decisions.4 Peter Pocklington, despite the official Gainers spokespeople, embodied the

company. He was a local public figure as owner of the NHL Edmonton Oilers, a high profile

Alberta entrepreneur, a member of the conservative Fraser Institute who believed unions

negatively affected the operations of the free market, and a survivor of a hostage situation.5

In 1983, however, his Fidelity Trust Company was placed on probation by the Department

of Insurance due to bad real estate loans. When the company collapsed, the Canada Deposit

Insurance Corporation spent $359 million to bail out depositors.6 Gerry Beauchamp, a long-

time worker at Gainers, stated that he knew that nothing good would come from having

Pocklington as owner of Gainers due to his previous financial misdealings with his Fidelity

Investment fund:

someone said Pocklington’s going to buy it; I said we’re in big trouble. In the past, when he was in Fidelity Trust, he was buying all this land and everything

4 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 48. 5 Konstantinos Koskinas, “Prolegomena to a Theory of Working Class Culture: Organizational, Ideological, and Ideological Praxis of the Alberta Federation of Labour, 1979-1986,” PhD diss, University of Alberta, 1987, 154; and Deborah Radcliffe, “Understanding Labour Law Reform in Alberta: 1986-1988,” PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1997, 83. 6 Brent Jang, “Peter Puck's Last Stand,” Globe and Mail, December 23, 2008 (online, last updated Tuesday, March 21, 2009).

28

else. How many people, he took their money and they never got nothing? He was stealing, that’s what he was doing. Me and you doing that would be in jail tomorrow, but he got away with it. And that, then that tells you the story about Pocklington. You can’t trust him.7

Pocklington brought in consultants from Mississippi to reduce the compensations

paid out due to workplace injuries, including by securing workers’ agreement to perform light

duties while injured, when in fact they were performing regular duties.8 The company used

probationary periods to deny workers full benefits, and conflicts and grievances increased

between the workers and management. According to John Ventura, president of UFCW 280-

P during the 1986 strike:

Prior to Pocklington, we had good management, and things got resolved — could go for years without an arbitration . . . In fact, when I first became a chief steward, there were only three or four grievances filed for an entire year. After Pocklington, we never had less than a hundred grievances per year.9

In 1986 Pocklington came to be seen as an almost stereotypically greedy owner, and

he very clearly gave a personal dimension to management, “not some corporate stuffed shirt

without a face.”10 Observers noted that Pocklington seemed to enjoy the publicity that

accompanied the strike: “he kind of revelled in it, right? I mean one of his quotes, ‘it’s my

plant I can do whatever I want with it. It’s mine: I can shut it down, I can do this, I can do

that,’ it just struck people as wrong – the agricultural industry in the province, people’s lives,

wages” depended on the Gainers plant.11 People both inside UFCW 280-P and among the

7 Gerry Beauchamp, personal interview, August 20, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 8 Memorandum from Greg Whaley, APPMB to all delegates, March 27, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA; and Anne Forrest, “The Rise and Fall of National Bargaining in the Canadian Meat-Packing Industry,” Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations 44, no. 2 (1989): 396. 9 John Ventura quoted in Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 182. 10 Linda Winski, personal interview, October 23, 2012, Edmonton Alberta,. 11 Bob McKeon, personal interview, October 23, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

29

public noted that Pocklington brought in people who shared his antipathy toward unions:

there was a sense “that all that mattered was the profit and the wealth and keeping the plant

going and it was hard to gain much sense of any empathy for the conditions of the workers.

The people that were brought in to solve things were, you know not very sympathetic to

unions.”12 Striker Vicky Beauchamp was not the least reticent to state that Pocklington’s aim

was to break the union, claiming that President and Chief Executive Officer Leo Bolanes was

brought in from the US to do just that. Ann Evans, a former Gainers worker of 18 years told

the union during the strike that when she was working “the company was very good to their

employees, they treated us like a family. We never had to fight for our rights like you have to

with Mr. Pocklington.”13 It was not just his workers that Pocklington was in conflict with,

but other meatpackers, the pork producers marketing board, and even the government of

Alberta as he constantly sought a personal advantage.

Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board and the Hog Wars of 1985

The closure of the Canada Packers and Burns plants in the 1980s in Edmonton

meant that production at Gainers nearly doubled. The kill rate increased from 250 to 450 an

hour, shipping was up from 2.5 million pounds a week to 7.5 million, and the company

stated that production was higher than they thought possible. 14 Gainers also conceded that

it was virtually impossible for the plant to increase its efficiency through workers efforts –

workers were already operating at peak efficiency. Gainers was one of the fastest growing

12 Gail Allan, personal interview, November 19, 2012, Toronto, Ontario. 13 “Who Says People Don’t Support Us?” Porklington News 4, no. 3 (September 19, 1986). From the private files of Renée Peevey. 14 Ed Seymour, “They Can’t Jail the Strike,” Canadian Labour, October 1986,.

30

meat packing companies in North America and was expanding both in Canada and into the

US.15 Pocklington had increased the volume of sales to the US by 300% between 1984 and

1985, as well as increasing sales from $300 million in 1983 to an estimated $400 million in

1985, and he had sufficient resources that year to buy three plants in the United States.16

Despite Pocklington claiming to only be able to afford a seven dollar per hour wage or risk

going bankrupt within two years, Canada Packers Ltd. Spokesman Murray Stewart stated “I

just don’t understand if we can afford it how he can’t. There’s no magic in our industry,” and

“I think Mr Pocklington is being a little extreme with his figures.”17 In March of 1985 retired

Conservative Minister of Agriculture and former Deputy Premier Hugh Horner wrote to

Premier Peter Lougheed to condemn Pocklington’s management of Gainers, stating that the

company was in trouble because “they have literally been milked by the owners to use that

cash for other things (paying debts and investing in a resource company).”18 Horner’s

comments were in response to Pocklington’s increasing pressure on the provincial

government to intercede on his behalf with the hog producers’ organization. The Alberta

Pork Producers Marketing Board (APPMB) came under siege by Gainers, and then the

Alberta Agricultural Products Marketing Council (AAPMC) in 1985 in what Alberta

15 UFCW 280-P, “For the Record,” 3, file 138 UFCW strike publications, leaflets, posters, etc., EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 16 File 11 a submission to the Government of Alberta from Gainers, May 27, 1985, Appendix E, 3, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA; and and Alain Noël and Keith Gardner, “The Gainers Strike: Capitalist Offensive, Militancy, and the Politics of Industrial Relations in Canada,” Studies in Political Economy 31 (Spring 1990): 40. 17 Gordon Kent, “Pocklington’s Wage Figures Questioned,” Edmonton Journal, June 7, 1986. 18 Hugh Horner to Premier Lougheed, regarding Hog situation – Fletchers, March 14, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

31

newspapers termed the “Hog Wars,” and what Leo Bolanes ironically later referred to as

“securing peace with pork producers.” 19

The APPMB was responsible for selling all Alberta hogs through a single desk, with

meatpackers placing bids for however many hogs they wished to purchase and the price per

hog they wished to pay. The highest bidder’s order was filled completely, and then other

meatpackers had the opportunity to buy any remaining hogs. The system was put in place in

1969, according to the APPMB, because “a Board with single desk selling powers was

essential to overcome the evils which existed in the marketplace,” and was supported by 87%

of hog producers of the time.20 Gainers began their attack on the APPMB’s single desk

selling system in the winter of 1984 and by the beginning of 1985 Gainers had launched a

media campaign against the Board, accusing the APPMB of creating a monopoly through its

ownership of the Fletchers packing plant, the only other pork processer left in the province.21

Horner wrote to Premier Lougheed to condemn Gainers actions, stating “Gainers’ campaign

against the Pork Board is in my view scandalous,” as there was no evidence of unfair

treatment and independent observers judged the one desk selling system as efficient and fair

to both producers and processors.22 Competing pressures from the Alberta Agricultural

Products Marketing Council (the supervisory body of the APPMB) for immediate changes to

the pricing system on the one side, and the Meat Industry Task Force’s call for calm

deliberations uninfluenced by the Gainers media campaign on the other, resulted in

19 Bolanes to employees, May 26 1986, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 20 APPMB news release, August 23 1985, file 9 Hog Selling System, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 21 Alberta Livestock Industry Initiative news release from the Office of the Premier and the Department of Agriculture, July 3, 1985, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 22

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negotiations between government representatives, Gainers, Fletchers, and the APPMB, to

revise the pricing system. The talks stalled in late spring, however, on the critical issues of

pricing formula and volume arrangement.23

In May president Bolanes of Gainers wrote to Premier Lougheed to ask for a

meeting with the Edmonton Caucus. Revealing both the economic power of Gainers and

Pocklington’s political influence, the request was granted and late that month the Edmonton

Caucus met with Gainers representatives Pocklington, Bolanes, and VP Corporate Affairs

Dan Harrington, who attempted to secure commitments from MLAs to investigate their

complaints against the APPMB. Although the tone of the meeting was described as open and

friendly, the Minister of Labour appeared unimpressed by the hard sell approach, dryly

describing Harrington’s presentation: he “discussed the intentions and ethics of the Board at

length as though he were trying to discredit the credibility of the Board in a court trial

setting.”24

Gainers claimed the APPMB was trying to drive Gainers out of business in order to

have a monopoly over packing in the province. An inadequate supply of hogs, Gainers

asserted, led to the closure in May 1984 of the Burns meatpacking plant and now due to an

irregular and insufficient supply of hogs from the APPMB the company claimed it was in

danger of bankruptcy as “a undependable supply of hogs will, more than any other factor

23 Report to the Alberta Minister of Agriculture on the Hog Industry Negotiations, May 6, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 24 Memorandum from Minister of Labour Leslie Young to A. Hiebert, MLA Chairman of the Edmonton Caucus, regarding notes on meeting May 27, 1985, 8:30-10:00 am, Gainers and Edmonton Caucus, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

33

drive a packer out of business.”25 Gainers threatened that if a revision of the hog selling

system was not immediately implemented, then Pocklington might have to move operations

to another province.26 In a letter from Gainers president Bolanes to Agriculture Minister

LeRoy Fjordbotten, he accused the APPMB of selling hogs for less than their net cost on

export to create artificial shortages for Gainers in retaliation for Gainers rejection of a

proposal to unilaterally fix hog prices.27 Producers, Gainers argued, much as the Minister of

Labour at the time was arguing about unions and businesses, needed to have a reasonable

expectation of profit and to cooperate with processors, because there would be no need for

producers without processors. This line of reasoning, however, was contradicted within

Gainers own submissions to government in their complaints that the APPMB was exporting

hogs to neighbouring provinces’ packers. In a paper that Gainers submitted in April Gainers

had argued that farmers had to go out of business to decrease the supply of hogs, thereby

enabling the maintenance of high prices. The APPMB’s effort to maintain high prices had

the capacity to destroy meatpackers without saving farmers since Alberta prices had to be

lowered in order to compete in the US market, according to Gainers. 28

25 The danger came from damage to Gainers reputation as a supplier, the cost of guaranteed pay for employees who were sent home when the kill floor shut down for the week, and, of course, the lack of product that adversely affected profits in a high volume business such as meatpacking. Further, Pocklington and Gainers charged that in October of 1984 the APPMB engaged in price fixing – setting the rate at above market value and then dumping surplus livestock out of province at, or below, market price. Letter from President and CEO Leo Bolanes of Gainers to Minister of Agriculture LeRoy Fjordbotten, August 19, 1985, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 26 Harrington to Lougheed, August 20, 1985, file 9, Premier files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 27 Pocklington claimed that when the APPMB shipped hogs out of province (including to a Britco processing plant in Langley, BC, of which the Board owned 45%), that producers realized a profit $28 000 less than they would have if those hogs had gone to Gainers. Bolanes to Fjordbotten, August 19 1986, file 9, Premiers’ Files, PR1995.0445, PAA; and Background Paper attached to letter from Bolanes to Lougheed, May 2, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 28 The report was prepared by Gainers retained lawyer and trained economist Peter Knack, who also wrote: “The subsidies paid by other provinces to their hog farmers is as serious to the hog industry in Alberta and as

34

Everyone involved in the hog production and processing business in the mid-1980s

needed to lower their expectations of remuneration be they farmers, workers, or customers:

everyone, that is, except Gainers. Gainers was suffering, so others had to accommodate

them, but the converse did not hold. While espousing the need for a fair free market,

Pocklington was in fact more interested in replacing the accommodations and privileges of

farmers for policies that would benefit Gainers alone.

In June the federal government agreed to allow provincial subsidies to livestock

producers in addition to federal subsidies, triggering an escalation in the hog wars after

Premier Lougheed announced on July 3 that the purpose of the new Alberta Livestock

Industry Initiatives was “to offset or eliminate specific disadvantages placing abnormal stress

on the operations of Alberta producers.”29 At both national and provincial levels red meat

stabilization programs were being discussed. Stabilization referred to:

a system that assures producers a certain level of income even though prices may drop or costs may increase relative to a commodity. Basically it is a form of income assurance whereby premiums are paid into a fund which builds during periods of higher prices and/or lower costs, and, pays out to producers a certain amount when the price/cost situation reverses.30

ruinous as the NEP was to the oil industry in Alberta.” “Hog Industry in Alberta: The Hog Cycle and the Affect of Subsidies in Other Provinces,” discussion paper attached to letter from Gainers president Bolanes to Premier Lougheed regarding Disputes between the Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board (the “Board”) and Gainers Inc., May 2, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 29 My emphasis. Memorandum from Agriculture Minister LeRoy Fjorbotten to Premier Lougheed, October 11, 1985, file 8 Red Meat Stabilization 1985, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA; and Alberta Livestock Industry Initiatives news release, July 3, 1985, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 30 Measures to create a level field for producers included the Alberta Feed Grain Market Adjustment Program to address shipping and grain prices, a review of the hog selling system, a stabilization plan, and a debt retirement grant to the APPMB for its outstanding loan used to acquire Fletchers Fine Foods, meatpacking plant in Red Deer, Alberta. Fjordbotten to Lougheed, October 11, 1985, file 8, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

35

The object of the stabilization program was to set the price so as only to limit the level of

loss, but some members of the legislative assembly believed the hog production and

stabilization program that was implemented in 1980 was acting as an incentive to enter the

hog production business.31

A review of the hog selling system in response to provincial and federal regulatory

changes was undertaken by the Marketing Council and on August 22 the chair of the

Council, Harvey Buckley, announced fundamental changes to the selling system, primarily

the abandonment of the single desk. Hog producers were to be allowed to independently

contract hog sales directly with processors in order to promote the long term viability of

both hog producers and hog processors.32 The APPMB’s immediate response to the

announcement was to pass a resolution not to negotiate away the single desk selling system,

nor to abandon price as the sole factor in the allocation of hogs, and to declare that any

potential changes to the system needed to be developed in conjunction with the APPMB and

farmers. The APPMB charged that the Marketing Council’s suggested changes were based on

the Gainers’ media campaign and the company’s direct appeals to the Council, with the aim

of driving hog prices down by creating direct competition between producers.33 Horner

claimed that the recommendations opened the system to favour large hog operations and

those producers who were close enough to meatpacking plants to deliver their hogs early on

31 Memorandum from Miller to Lougheed and Fjordbotten, September 9, 1985, file 8, Premier’s Files: Getty, PR1995.00445, PAA. 32 The plan also called for a new pricing formula and allocation system, included the commencement of an income stabilization plan and a $2.00/hog reduction of the APPMB levy based on the provincial government providing $5.1 million to cover the acquisition of Fletchers. News release of the Alberta Agriculture Products Marketing Council, August 22, 1985, regarding Alberta Hog selling System, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 33 APPMB news release, August 23, 1985, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

36

Monday mornings. The recommendations were unacceptable as farmers had “fought for

years to have equitable pooled pricing.”34

Indeed, the issue of private sales to packinghouses was the chief concern of the

APPMB, which was outraged by the Marketing Council’s refusal to take any action to

enforce the regulations that legally, if not practically, prevented Gainers from purchasing

hogs directly from producers in the fall of 1985. As of August 8 the Council had stated the

legislation “very clearly sets out the authorities and powers that the Government has

conferred on the parties in the industry and when and if such authority is violated or

misused, the Council will take such actions as may be necessary to preserve the integrity of

the legislation,” and the APPMB pointed out that the legislation still read “all hogs covered

by this plan shall be sold through the facilities provided by the Board and sales of hogs are

prohibited through these regular channels designated herein; i) sales by individual producers

direct to processors.”35 On November 27, 1985 Peter Pocklington wrote to APPMB

president Vern Meek to inform him that Gainers would fully accept the single desk selling

system since the APPMB had dropped its $2.00/hog levy (or subsidy as Pocklington termed

it) for Fletchers, but noting that the issues of bidding, allocation, and the pricing system

required redress and Pocklington hoped that a discussion between the Board, Gainers, and

34 Horner wrote to Minister of Agriculture LeRoy Fjordobtten to denounce the Marketing Council’s recommendations as “a sell-out to Gainers, who have had as their objective, a breakup of the single selling system, so that they could manipulate the market with non-productive schemes.” Hugh M. Horner, owner and operator of Westglen Farms, Barhead, to the Honorable LeRoy Fjordbotten, August 26, 1985, regarding Marketing Council Recommendations on Hog Sales, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA; and APPMB news release, August 23, 1985, file 9, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 35 Vern Meek, Chairman of the APPMB, to Harvey Buckley, Chairman of the Alberta Marketing Council regarding Gainers stated intention to breech the provisions of the Pork Producers Marketing Board, November 19, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

37

the provincial government would lead to reconciliation.36 Within two weeks, however,

Gainers had breached the single-desk system, buying 500 hogs directly from a producer for a

delivery on December 8, demonstrating Pocklington’s untrustworthiness and his

determination to make short term gains regardless of potential long term consequences.37

Clearly indicating his political clout, Pocklington was never penalized for violating the single-

desk system, although he encouraged hog producers to illegally sell to Gainers directly.38

Despite his political connections with the Progressive Conservative party, and of

course his economic status as a prominent entrepreneur, Pocklington’s actions in the Hog

Wars presented a problem for the provincial government as the APPMB also represented a

major conservative constituency: the half-mythologized Alberta rancher-farmer, the imagined

true Albertan. Not only were farmers the abstract true stock of Alberta, but they were a force

to be reckoned with politically as ridings in rural areas have typically been much more

sparsely populated than their urban counterparts where, not coincidentally, a higher

percentage of Liberal and NDP voters are concentrated.39 Even when a Disputes Inquiry

36 Peter Pocklington to Vern Meek, president of the APPMB, November 27, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 37 Letter to Premier Getty from APPMB president Meek, regarding breach of agreement by Gainers, December 9, 1985, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 38 Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches: 1986 (Edmonton: Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice), 8. 39 The disparity between the political clout of a single farmer from the Dunvegan area (predominantly cattle ranchers) and a Calgarian in 2003 was so pronounced that it exceeds even the Supreme Court’s 1991 ruling allowing for population disparities +/- 25%, with one vote from Dunvegan-Central Peace worth three from Calgary Northwest. Larry Johnscude, “The Value of Your Vote: rural votes are worth up to three times as much as urban votes, how Alberta is confronting this thorny issue,” Alberta Views, March 2010; W. A. Johnston, H Krahn, and Trevor Harrison, “Democracy, Political Institutions, and Trust: The Limits of Current Electoral Reform Proposals,” Canadian Journal of Sociology 31, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 165-182; and Josh Wingrove and Dawn Walton, “Alberta panel accused of drawing Tory-friendly electoral map,” The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2010.

38

Board was named in June after more than a week of violent picket line confrontations,

Labour Minister Ian Reid justified it as on behalf of the hog producers.40

Why did the provincial government take the complaints of one packing house so

seriously? The answer cannot simply be the political pressure of Pocklington’s media

campaign, as farmers represented an equally important constituency. Part of the explanation

lies in the countervail tariff leveled against Alberta hogs by the US. The US International

Trade Commission on July 25, 1985 placed a 4.4 cent/pound charge on all live swine

exported from Canada to the US, but not on pork.41 On June 11, 1985 the US Department

of Commerce ruled that the hogs from Canada were benefiting from subsidies in the form of

industry specific income stabilization programs. In 1985 Alberta had exported $26.4 million

worth of live hogs, and close to twice that in pork. It made obvious financial sense to

encourage packing in Canada and the export of pork products rather than live hogs, as this

would guarantee a better profit for hog producers.42 Alberta was one of only two provinces

capable of processing all the hogs it produced, but only if Gainers remained operational.43

Fletchers alone in 1985 could not handle all the hogs that farmers raised, and if Gainers did

leave (Pocklington having received a generous offer from Saskatchewan in terms of loans

and funds to build a plant there), then Alberta farmers would suffer from lower profits on

40 CBC news, Edmonton, June 11, 1986. 41 “International Trade Disputes of Interest to Alberta: Confidential,” October 1986, volume 1, no. 4, Economic Development and Trade, file 103 Economic Development and Trade (Hon Larry Shaben)1986, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 42 “International Trade Disputes of Interest to Alberta,” October 1986, file 103, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 43 Memorandum from Minister of Agriculture Fjordbotten to Premier Lougheed, July 29, 1985, regarding US Hog/Pork Countervail, file 9, P51995.0445, PAA.

39

their livestock due to duties as well as the cost of transport and concomitant shrinkage.44

This pressure allowed Gainers to continue to push for revisions to the pricing system.

Various trials were carried out under the supervision of provincially appointed consultant

Harry Haney. In order for the 60 day trial period to go forward Gainers agreed, among other

terms, to settle its past debts to the APPMB and to cease and desist from any and all legal

actions against the Board. At the end of January 1986 the APPMB requested that the

supervised trials be extended by 30 days.45 The same spring as the Gainers strike,

Pocklington remained locked in conflict with the APPMB. According to Vicky Beauchamp’s

assessment, “he wanted everything for nothing. He didn’t want a percentage of the profit, he

wanted 150%, he wanted it all plus,” whether that meant squeezing the farmers, his workers,

or the provincial government, all of whom were faced with difficulties of their own based on

the recession.

Labour Relations into Depression

The Ministers of Labour both before and during the Gainers strike wanted to remake

labour relations’ very nature into a class-less and conflict-less relationship, a goal made more

crucial by the economic downturn of the 1980s.46 Les Young, who held the post of Minister

44 However, it seemed likely to the APPMB that Gainers’ complaints had emerged after rumours that Flectchers was going to modernize and expand their plant so that it would have the capacity to handle all the hogs produced in the province. Ron Chalmers, “Hog Plant Expansion May Improve Prices,” May 8 1985, Edmonton Journal, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 45 Letter from APPMB chairman Vern Meek to Premier Don Getty, January 30, 1986, file 10, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 46 News release from the Government of Alberta on the release of the Final Report of the Labour Legislation Review Committee, February 17, 1987, file 140 Labour (Hon. Ian Reid), Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

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of Labour until May 1986, immediately before the Gainers strike, repeatedly discussed the

changing nature of labour relations in Alberta under the pressure of the recession. The

system, he stated, was under strain, and “what is really required is reason – cool, sweet,

dispassionate reason, combined with the willingness and co-operation of employers and

employees to get beyond their past differences to work together, to reach consensus.”47 As

Harry Glasbeek has discussed in his writings about occupational health and safety initiatives

in the 1980s and beyond, consensus is a dangerous myth when it comes to labour relations.

The problem is that workers and their employers have incommensurable goals: employers

seek to extract as much surplus value from their employees as possible to increase their

profits, while workers seek to increase their compensation for their work, and therefore to

narrow the margin of profit of employers, as well as increase their control of work.

Much as the Supreme Court was forced to do in their labour decisions in the 1980s,

Young had to admit that the potential for class conflict existed between employers and

workers. The tragedy is that it never seemed to occur to Young, even as he described the

Labour Relations Board’s purpose as “an impartial administrative framework to adjudicate

disputes,” that non-unionized workers lacked the ability to easily bring their grievances and

disputes before any impartial authority, even before the introduction of a $300 fee for the

Board to hear appeals based on Employment Standards.48 Young described the common

perception of collective bargaining as a power struggle where the strongest party benefited

47 Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Construction Owners Association of Alberta, Westin Hotel, Edmonton, April 18, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 48 Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Rotary Club of Edmonton, Chateau Lacombe, Edmonton, September 27, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA.

41

and where what one side won, the other perforce, must lose.49 Although Young portrayed

unions (not workers) as the more powerful partner, he emphasized that labour relations in

general, as well as collective bargaining, “must always be a win-win relationship” as it was

only when both employers and workers stood to benefit that the workplace ideal (positive

attitudes, cooperation, and communication) could become manifest.50

This idea that workers and employers share a common goal was made ironic by

Young’s example in the same speech of calls by unorganized (or non-unionized) workers to

the Employment Standards Office to complain that they were not receiving coffee and lunch

breaks. Young assumed that employers would act rationally to ensure full productivity and in

accordance with labour legislation: “Besides being unfair to employees, I think it is highly

unproductive not to consider these basic employee needs. I am sure that good employers

realize that such conditions are counterproductive.”51 Yet the fact that legislation was needed

to ensure that workers’ basic needs for breaks was being met, and even then employers were

prone to ignoring these laws and exploiting their workers, appears to counter Young’s

assertion that employers and workers could work together toward a common goal. Although

Young stated that legislation was only one aspect of labour relations, and on its own

insufficient to create harmonious labour relations, when a workplace condition as basic as

regular breaks required workers to fight for their legislated rights, how could the Minister of

49 Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Kiwanis Club of Calgary, Palliser Hotel, Calgary, May 6, 1985; and Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Canadian Construction Association, Four Seasons Hotel, Calgary, November 15, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 50 Young to Kiwanis Club, Calgary, May 6, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 51 Young to Kiwanis Club, Calgary, May 6, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA.

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Labour imagine that labour relations would be “strong, healthy, and productive” and

congenial.52 Further, Young explicitly acknowledged that conflict had a role to play in labour

relations, as he stated that “one of the great strengths of our labour relations system is its

capacity to resolve conflict through conflict,” but by conflict Young did not mean a work

stoppage.53 Work stoppages, instead, were indications that the power of reason had not

prevailed and marked a failure to communicate and to appreciate the other side’s position.

Effective solutions to labour relations problems, according to Young, could only be achieved

through cooperation, not confrontation, and the key to cooperation was effective

communication in the workplace.54 A strike or lockout in the 1980s marked most of all a

failure of workers to resign themselves to concessions to benefit their employers and to

“recognize economic change.”55

This economic change brought about by the global downturn meant that Albertans

had to adjust their expectations in order for Alberta to remain competitive. The

competitiveness, however, that the Minister of Labour wanted to preserve was that of

comparable profit rates, not workers’ standard of living. In 1984 40% of collective

agreements contained concessions or wage freezes, and it was “responsible” union leaders

who realized that taking concessions was the correct course of action. In the face of massive

52 Young to the Rotary Club, Edmonton, September 27, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 53 Notes for an Address by Young to the Alberta Hospital Association Trustee Institute, Westin Hotel, Calgary, March 1, 1985; and Young to the Canadian Construction Association, Calgary, November 15, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 54 “Building from the Recession”: Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Second Annual Convention of the Canadian Federation of Labour, Terrace Inn Edmonton, May 10, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 55 Young to the Kiwanis Club, Calgary, May 6, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA.

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and “unacceptable” levels of unemployment, Young assumed that it would be the private

sector that would create the jobs needed to pull Alberta from recession. To encourage the

private sector it was necessary to ensure that it was “receiving the right market signals and

information for both the short and long term. In suggesting that the private sector must

receive and respond to market signals, I would also add that as it affects people it should

respond with sensitivity and compassion.”56 The Alberta government did not succeed in

reducing social spending in a sensitive and compassionate way in conjunction with increased

private sector spending.57 Laurence Decore, the mayor of Edmonton, wrote to Premier

Lougheed in March 1985 declaring that “our citizens need help now,” and requesting the

province take steps to ameliorate the city’s unemployment rate of 15.5%.58 Mayor Decore

and others were not convinced that the private sector should be responsible for reviving

Alberta’s flagging economy, per neo-liberal ideas that the supremacy of the free market could

best provide for citizens’ welfare. Decore clearly believed that the province was shirking its

responsibilities: “You have the power, you have the resources, and you have that

responsibility. I plead with you to take action [to create jobs].”59 At the same time, critics of

the Alberta government’s budget pointed out that there would be no need for the province

to engage in deficit spending (which it publically castigated) or service cuts, and that there

would in fact have been surpluses until 1987, if not for tax breaks to corporations and

56 Young to Canadian Construction Association, Calgary, November 15, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 57 Young to Canadian Construction Association, Calgary, November 15, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 58 Laurence Decore, Mayor of Edmonton to Peter Lougheed, Premier of Alberta, March 8, 1985, file 113 Edmonton Correspondence, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 59 Decore to Lougheed, March 8, 1985, file 113, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

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massive corporate grants, especially to oil companies.60 The withdrawal of the provincial

government from public services fostered increasingly severe, as well as new social problems

as the private sector took advantage of depressed economic conditions to decrease

compensation to the bare minimum of employment standards, even when companies could

afford to pay more.61

Nonetheless, Young went so far as to suggest that workers who retained their jobs

had an obligation to take concessions or risk being labeled insensitive to the plight of the

unemployed. Living wages were not discussed and the public sector also faced massive

concession demands as the Alberta government decided it should not be setting a standard

of compensation, but rather should follow the private sector rates:

The public sector must share in the consensus of the private sector that new attitudes are required. It must do so in the name of its responsibility to the unemployed and the underemployed, and to the employed whose incomes reflect the impact of the new reality, for they are our neighbours.62

This consensus in the private sector was the consensus of business owners, not of workers.

Young discussed the trends in 1984 concessionary collective agreements as revealing

a focus on parochial not pattern agreements, the idea that job security was dependent on the

employer, and the notion that worker concessions were necessary to ensure the well-being of

the company. “There has been a new focus on the well-being of the employer and the

employer’s industry, and much less attention to national or provincial policies and strategies”

60 The exact phrase Young used was “We cannot go on loading the cost of today’s consumption on the generation of tomorrow.” Young to Canadian Construction Association, Calgary, November 15, 1984, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA; and Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 176. 61 M Kolmatychi to A E Kennedy, ADM of Labour, December 5, 1984. Employment Standards: Correspondence, GR1992.92, PAA. 62 Young to the Alberta Hospital Association Trustee Institute, Calgary, March 1, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA.

45

said Young. “All these adjustments are a recognition, in the face of unemployment, that real

security is only as certain as the viability of the employer. They are a recognition of a new

competitive structure of many of our business sectors. They are a recognition that there is a

new reality in Alberta.”63 This new reality, typified by unemployment, underemployment, and

the working poor, was not one Albertans were ready to fully accept. The eruption of strikes

and support for strikers in 1986, when many 1984 concession contracts came due across

sectors and across the province, revealed that few people liked the new reality of Alberta and

many were willing to fight for a different one.64

The Long Hot Summer of ‘86

In the summer of 1986 UFCW workers at Fletchers in Red Deer, Alberta Union of

Public Employees members across the province in Alberta Liquor Control Board facilities,

McMurray Independent Oil Workers at Suncor in Fort McMurray, and United Woodworkers

of America at the Zeidler forestry plant in Slave Lake all went out on strike. The Hog Wars

had pitted packing plants against each other, and served to drive wages down. Concessions in

start wages were demanded at Fletchers in 1984, and the company’s justification for this

demand was that it was necessary in order for the plant to expand, rather than simply to stay

open. As at Gainers, there was discussion of a strike in 1984, but the workers elected not to

go out. By 1986 the older trade unionists had made an effort to educate and inspire younger

63 Notes for an Address by the Honorable Les Young, M.L.A. Minister of Labour to the Camrose Rotary Club, Royal Canadian Legion Camrose, February 18, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA. 64 Radcliffe discusses the ideas of cooperation to ensure competitiveness and notes the narrative of new realities gained little traction during the Gainers strike. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 6, 40, 41, 108, and 140-144.

46

workers in order to create a solid common front, and they were prepared to fight to regain

what they had lost in the 1984 agreement. Despite injunctions, Fletchers had a strong picket

line, and the strikers came very close to rocking a bus onto its side as it tried to enter the

plant.65 Police were pulled in from surrounding areas to create a riot squad, but the strikers

managed to shut down the plants, though some producers were prepared to operate their

plant themselves. Fletchers workers achieved parity, in part because their sister plant in

Vancouver was also in negotiations and prepared to go out on strike in solidarity, and in part

because of injuries on the picket line. Several picketers were crushed against a fence by a bus

carrying strikebreakers and required hospitalization, and the media coverage of strikers who

had permanent injuries as a result of the encounter encouraged Fletchers to settle, as did the

escalating violence at Gainers, from which Fletchers wanted to distance itself.66 On June 19

Fletchers settled and achieved parity, offering strong encouragement to the Gainers strikers.67

The Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) also went on strike after cutbacks in the

1980s. The strike lasted 57 days and was one of Alberta Union of Provincial Employees’

(AUPE) longest strikes, involving clerks, warehouse workers, and maintenance staff. There

was a lack of public support, even a lack of support within the union in some places, as the

strike vote had passed by only 57%, with less than half the membership out to vote.68 The

solidarity of other unions, especially the brewery workers who had a clause in their

65 You Can’t Jail the Strike, Toronto: UFCW, 1986. 66 It was feared that one of the strikers, Norm Hinkel, would lose his leg. “Norm Hinkel Visits Picket Line,” Porklington News 3, no. 1 (August 5, 1986); and Albert Johnson, Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI Conference, June 13-17, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 67 “Fletcher’s Contract Accepted,” Porklington News 1, no. 2 (June 23, 1986). 68 Gord Christie, Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI Conference, June 13-17, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

47

agreement not to cross a picket line, was especially helpful to the ALCB workers efforts.69

Union activist Gord Christie described himself as naïve at the time, because he believed that

the court system could be impartial, but he and other strikers suffered from police

harassment. Violence against the members, however, galvanized the union and the night

after a picketer was beaten up, 150 strikers returned to the same line.70

In Fort McMurray, 1�100 Suncor workers belonging to the McMurray Independent

Oil Workers (MIOW) union struck in May against concession demands, after deciding

against striking in both 1982 and 1984.71 The RCMP also figured prominently in this strike,

with 160 officers appearing in riot gear at one point, and regular arrests of picketers. Kim

Cardinal still recalls his prisoner number and how strikers cycled through the jail on a daily

basis. Cardinal described the personal costs of the strike as it carried on far longer than

expected and workers struggled with depression and had to resort to the food bank. People

in Fort McMurray and from across the province supported the MIOW strikers, including the

United Nurses of Alberta. The nurses not only sent up money, but they helped rent a bus

and encouraged members to travel up to the strike site one weekend to help deliver

pamphlets outlining the conflict under the auspices of the Dandelions.72 Although the strike

was lost, solidarity was gained.73

69 “Don’t Buy Liquor,” Porklington News 3, no. 1 (August 5, 1986). 70 Gord Christie, Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI Conference, June 13-17, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 71 Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 91. 72 The Dandelions, a group of unemployed building trades workers, supported the strike despite the fact that the president of the Building Trade Council Bob Blakley sent a letter to members informing them that it was permissible to cross the MIOW picket line to do their contract work on the plant. Ken MacKenzie, personal interview, August 1, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 73 Kim Cardinal, Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI Conference, June 13-17, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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Trade unionists from across Alberta also bused up to Slave Lake to support the 90

strikers at Zeidler Forest Industries.74 The International Woodworkers of America (IWA)

members were unwilling to accept concessions in 1986 and the picket line in this small

Alberta community was marked by violence and property damage.75 The president of

Zeidler, Ken Campbell, wrote to Premier Getty to urge him not to concede to pressures to

change existing labour laws, as Campbell believed that the laws already favoured unions. He

wrote:

Alberta’s existing collective bargaining mechanism has demonstrated that it is capable of providing for increased wages and benefits during a buoyant economy. I suggest that there must be a continuation of existing legislation so as to provide for decreasing wages under adverse economic conditions and/or during changes in the market place for the work force.76

In Campbell’s view companies had been the ones making concessions throughout the

preceding boom years and it was unions and workers’ turn to be the ones to give up rights

and privileges, and it was appropriate to continue the collective bargaining trends that had

begun in 1984.

Bargaining at the Brink: The Negotiating Prelude to Overt Class Conflict

In 1984 the situation at Gainers worsened for workers when the union broke with

the national pattern of bargaining, and in the words of industrial relations scholar Anne

Forrest, “succumbed to the company’s demands for a major wage cut,” and concessions that

74 “Support Coming From All Over,” Porklington News 1, no. 2 (June 23, 1986). 75 Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 91. 76 Letter from Ken F. Campbell, President of Zeidler Forest Industries Ltd. to Premier Getty, June 10, 1986, file 5 Labour (Hon. Ian Reid), Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA.

49

extended far beyond wages and into almost all aspects of the contract.77 Forrest described

Pocklington as belligerently independent in his rejection of centralized bargaining.78 When

the 1982 contract expired in 1984, Gainers advertised for, then lined-up, hundreds of

replacement workers outside the plant when workers contemplated striking. According to

the union, it was “this gun-to-the-head approach” that “forced the workers into accepting

concessions far below the Industry standard.”79 A strike vote failed in the face of waiting

replacement workers and the union’s national office’s push for a settlement.80 According to

the union, Pocklington “pled poverty,” and the concessions the union accepted (with only

52% in favour) affected everything from wages and benefits, to probationary periods and

layoff notice requirements. 81

The concessions included a start wage rollback of $4.99 and a base wage freeze at

$11.99. Gainers workers as of 1984 started at $7.00/hour with $0.75 raises every six months,

meaning it would take three and a half years for workers to reach the base rate. In

comparison, the industry standard was a starting wage $2.00 higher and a two year period to

reach the base rate. In terms of health care benefits, the pre-1984 agreement had provisions

for Gainers to cover all of Alberta Health Care, dental, and Blue Cross insurance, and

additional coverage for vision care. Sick pay was covered 100% by the employer, and began

on the fourth day of illness. The 1984 agreement provided full coverage of Alberta Health

Care, dental care, and Blue Cross for workers with over ten years’ service, but reduced

77 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 396. 78 Forrest, “Rise and Fall of National Bargaining,” 396. 79 UFCW 280-P, “For the Record,” 1, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 80 Vicky Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 81 Vicky Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012; and Ed Seymour, “They Can’t Jail the Strike,” Canadian Labour, October 1986.

50

coverage to 50% for workers employed between five and ten years, and no coverage

whatsoever for workers who had been with the company less than five years. Sick pay was

reduced to 50% employer coverage, 50% worker, and did not begin until the seventh day of

illness. Vision care was cut completely.

In the 1984 agreement the union lost overtime rates of one and a half times the

hourly rate for all Saturdays and two times the hourly rate for all Sunday work, for a flat one

and a half times the hourly rate on the sixth consecutive day worked, with no special

provisions for weekends. Prior to the 1984 agreement, the company had to notify both the

worker and the union of a layoff, but in the 1984 agreement workers with up to three years’

service received no notice. The probationary period was extended from 60 calendar days to

90 working days, and became an issue of contention between the company and the union

when Gainers laid-off probationary workers and rehired them later with no conservation of

their seniority. This prompted the union to launch an unfair labour practices complaint with

the Alberta Labour Relations Board.82 In the 1984 agreement there were no improvements to

the Pension Plan, which remained at $16.60 per month for every year of service, and the

union gave up one holiday, reducing the total number to ten. Most importantly, the contract

included the provision for two-tier wages, an almost sure way to breakdown union solidarity,

which although common in the US meatpacking by this time, was not widespread in Canada.

In 1985 Gainers described the 1984 agreement as “wage and benefit competitive,

relative to its competitors, but which more importantly permitted Gainers the necessary

82 File 139 correspondence, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA.

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flexibility to operate its plant on a highly efficient basis.”83 Further, the company assured the

provincial government that “Gainers’ relationship with the Union and its employees is

excellent, productivity is good and Gainers is proud of its people.”84 Pocklington’s attitude

the previous Christmas was certainly gracious. In 1984 Pocklington threw a Christmas party

for his employees to thank them for the concessions they had taken and to assure them that

when the plant was profitable again (due to their sacrifices), that they would share in those

profits.85 This personal touch, reminiscent of Eaton’s and the paternalistic management

practices of the early twentieth century, did not deceive union members. By the next round

of bargaining they were ready for concession demands and prepared to fight. Between their

last session of negotiations and 1986 the executive of the union changed. Dave Werlin,

president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) at the time, stated: “Here was this

young John Ventura, a shop steward and then he became the president and all of a sudden

he had this strike on his hands. He didn’t know what the hell to do . . . He turned out to be a

really good leader, but he was green as grass.” His colleague Jim Selby, a researcher for the

AFL, agreed: “I think that John Ventura was elected president of the local because he hadn’t

been involved in the previous round. That he had no experience, that was one of the

pluses.”86 The new leadership reflected the attitude of the members who wanted parity with

Canada Packers (and back into the national pattern) and they were certainly not prepared to

accept further concessions.

83 “The New Gainers: A Modern, Efficient Meat Processor asking only to compete in an equitable marketplace,” file 11 A submission to the government of Alberta from Gainers, May 27, 1985, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 84 “The New Gainers,” file 11, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR19995.0445, PAA. 85 Vicky Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 86 Dave Werlin and Jim Selby, personal interview, August 21, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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The union proposal in 1986 included a starting rate raised to $9.38 the first year and

$9.77 the second year, a base rate of $12.50 the first year and $13.00 the second year, a wage

increase of $0.51 the first year and $0.52 the second year. In the course of the Dubensky

Disputes Inquiry the union learned that the company was prepared to offer the same wage

increases, but with a starting rate increased from $7.00 to only $8.00 and no offer to change

the base rate. The union proposed a return to full company coverage of Alberta health care,

dental coverage, Blue Cross, and sick pay, and a $75.00 maximum coverage for vision care

every two years. In terms of the pension, UFCW suggested a $1.08 increase per month for

each year of service in the first year, and $0.80 increase per month for each year of service in

the second year of the contract, and a $500 per month supplementary pension for early

retirement (paid from age 61-65), which would cease when a former worker began receiving

CPP and OAS. The union also wanted survivor benefits to be 50% on the deceased’s earned

pension. Rather than the existing $20�000 cap for long-term disability payment, 280-P

proposed a $1�100 a month rate. The union was scrupulous to keep their proposals within

the limits of the national pattern, even though in some cases that was less than the benefits

they received before 1984. For example, the union requested that weekend work be paid at

one and a half times the hourly rate regardless of whether it was the sixth consecutive day

per the national standard, but did not request double time for Sundays.87

In 1984 the workers were promised rewards if they made sacrifices and in 1986, after

production had increased again, they believed they had the right to their reward.88 Alex

87 UFCW 280-P, “Justice for Gainers Workers!!! Parity is Justice” pamphlet addressed to members with attached spread sheet, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 88 Seymour, “They Can’t Jail the Strike,” Canadian Labour, October 1986,

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Dubensky, who headed the Disputes Inquiry, described the reasons for the animosity of the

workers towards management, especially their sense of grievance and misuse:

on the question of overtime, management was often insensitive to the feelings and wishes of the employees. It was production at all costs. In addition, certain verbal promises were made to the employees but the promises were not fulfilled. This attitude and approach by management created a deep resentment and bitterness which was carried on into negotiations and erupted on the picket line. The management did not in any way show its appreciation for the concessions given by the employees when the concessions were largely the reason for the improved financial position of the Company.89

The workers were perfectly cognizant after the 1985 Hog Wars that they would have to be

prepared to fight for improvements to their collective agreement. By the time bargaining

started in 1986 the union had already arranged for a trailer and land for a strike headquarters,

so unpromising did the situation look.90 Letters from the Gainers management during

negotiations made it abundantly clear that the company was unwilling to uphold its promises

without compulsion. The letters collectively amounted to an attempt to bully workers into

backing down from a demand for parity, to intimidate them so that they would not carry

through with strike action, and to sow discord between the rank and file and the union

executive.

On April 21, 1986 the union sent notice to Gainers of their intent to amend the

collective agreement, along with a 20 page paper on the changes they were seeking. Gainers

89 Alex Dubensky, “Findings and Recommendations of the Disputes Inquiry Board Report,” 4. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 90 “I learned today the following information: At the Union membership meeting on the evening of May 6, the membership was advised that land and a strike trailer had been rented in anticipation of a strike and that strike pay of $150.00 a week was ready. The local N.D.P hopeful was there to rail against the owner of your company.” Bolanes to employees, May 8, 1986, 1, file 139, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA.

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replied by giving notice of their intention to terminate the collective agreement on April 28.91

Negotiations began on May 6 and the first letter from Bolanes to the workers was sent two

days later on May 8.92 In it Bolanes stated that the company wanted to discuss the future of

the company, but the union was only interested in the contract that Toronto’s Canada

Packers had, and was unwilling to negotiate. Bolanes tried to foment dissent, asking “Do you

think that your Union Committee is dealing with your future in a responsible way?”93 The

company was, according to Bolanes, desperate to maintain its position in the industry and to

avoid bankruptcy, but Bolanes was willing to explain every position the company took in

negotiations. The implication was that even if the union wanted to engage in power games

and political grandstanding, the company would deal honestly with its employees, giving

them the straight truth about what was economically feasible to guarantee their jobs in the

future. Also implicit in the letter was the threat that lack of cooperation with the company

would result in the plant closing: “We must avoid the mistakes that have seen a number of

companies in this industry close or fall into receivership and bankruptcy over the past two

years.” These other plants, workers were meant to infer, were places where workers did not

take concessions and so lost their jobs completely, though as UFCW was forced to admit in

the late 1980s, granting concessions was not an effective guard against plant closures.94

91 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 3. 92 Bolanes to Gainers employees, May 8, 1986, file 139, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 93 Original emphasis removed (entire sentence underlined). Bolanes to employees, May 8 1986, 1, file 139, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 94 Charles Perry and Delwyn Kegley, Disintegration and Change: Labor Relations in the Meat Packing Industry, Issue 35 of Labor Relations and Public Policy Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Industrial Research Unit, 1989), 151-53.

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The next letter, written after the union had arranged for a strike vote, was much

more aggressive in tone. Bolanes noted that a strike would jeopardize workers’ job security

because the plant could be run with an alternate workforce:

I hope you understand that if you vote to strike next Wednesday you will be putting your job security on the line. Anyone is sadly mistaken if he thinks we cannot operate this plant with a new work force. We don’t want this confrontation and we’ll do everything possible to avoid it. But if you vote for it and the Union calls it, I assure you we will do everything within our power and the laws of Alberta to protect the long term future of our business.95

The threat of strikebreakers was not an idle one given that the previous day Gainers had

anonymously run ads for a large industrial workforce prepared to cross a picket line.96

Bolanes repeated the argument that Gainers was facing difficult financial times, leaving no

lee-way for a strike or for major contract improvements. Sacrifices would have to be made by

workers for the company collectively to continue, he claimed: “We will bargain but it will be

hard bargaining and difficult choices will have to be made. But look around, our company

and yourselves are still here because we made tough decisions in the past. They are needed to

be made again if Together we are to survive.” Bolanes tried once again to emphasize that the

company and the workers’ interests aligned, and that it was the union that was creating

problems. He asserted that the workers did not have to be caught in the middle between the

company and the union, and helpfully recommended workers read an article about Hormel

entitled “A Union in Crisis: UFCW looks to survive hard times and dissention within its own

ranks.”

95 My emphasis. Leo Bolanes to employees, May 12, 1986, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 96 Dan Harrington admitted that the company had run ads in May, including on May 11, in August, though they had adamantly denied it before. “So What Else is New?” Porklington News 3, no. 5 (August 22, 1986).

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The next letter came on May 20, six days after a successful strike vote. In it Bolanes

accused the union of being precipitous in preparing for a strike before truly negotiating.97

Despite claiming that the company was coming to the table with no preconditions (unlike the

union), it was clear that the company was unwilling to consider accepting the national

standard. Bolanes characterized the union’s call for the Canada Packers agreement as an

ultimatum whereas what was needed was a discussion of Gainers specific problems. Bolanes

and the company wanted “an agreement which will compensate our employees in line with

community standards . . . and enable this company to preserve and increase jobs in

Edmonton.” Despite denying that pointing out the job security risk of going on strike in his

last letter was an attempt at intimidation, Bolanes included an article about a plant closing in

Winnipeg that left all the workers jobless. He further contended that it was the grace of

Gainers alone that could guarantee workers’ job security and that the union could only

endanger that with a strike:

Of course, if you still want to strike there is nothing we can do to stop you. By the same token, we are free to take whatever steps are necessary to protect our right to operate the plant. We don’t think it is intimidation to warn you of the consequences of job action on your security of employment or offer to keep you advised on developments within the company and the industry before you decide to walk out. 98

In this letter the conflict is even easier to perceive as, despite stating that there was no threat

in the last letter, Bolanes reiterated that a strike would jeopardize workers’ employment. The

tone of this letter was less solicitous than the previous two, and Bolanes adopted the posture

97 “It seems that the Union is continuing to take steps to bring on a strike without fully discussing the issues.” Letter from Bolanes to employees, May 20 1986, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 98 Original emphasis. “Your job security can only be provided by the company making sound decisions which enable it to stay competitive. You and your Union can destroy your job security by rushing into strikes without hearing us out.”

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of the injured party while presenting the union as unwilling to negotiate in good faith by

refusing to accept the necessity of further sacrifices. There was, however, no mention of

what sacrifices the company had or would make in the supposedly cooperative further

ventures of the workers and management.

The last letter the company sent out was on May 26, five days before the strike

began. In it Bolanes once again tried to exploit tensions within the union to weaken

solidarity, implying that some workers were taking the company’s side and would scab if a

strike started. Once again the threat of job loss, of a busted union, was implied as Bolanes

stated: “You have every right to walk away from your years at Gainers, the choice is yours.

We will defend your right to leave just as we intend to stoutly defend the rights of those who

choose to keep a job at Gainers.” It is clear that the company did not expect workers who

went out on strike to come back to their positions (or be allowed back). Once more the

union was presented as the aggressor seeking conflict, with Bolanes stating “we are preparing

to defend our position against this economic battle that your Committee has dictated must

happen” and “we are surprised that your committee is choosing to begin an economic

conflict rather than discuss the future of our Company in the North American Meat

processing industry.”99 It is ironic that in this last letter Bolanes makes reference to the larger

meat packing industry given that the company had been insisting that the national standard

contract was not meaningful in Edmonton’s context. Important to note is despite the stated

purpose of the letters at the outset to explain the company’s position on key bargaining

points (and to explain the economic necessities underlying what would obviously be

99

Leo Bolanes to employees, May 26, 1986, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA.

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otherwise unpalatable offers), the letters never addressed a single contract point. There was

no mention of what the company was offering, either in terms of wages or benefits. There

were, in fact, no offers made by the company to the union at all.

UFCW member Rubin Bobb decried Bolanes’ letter as “an overt attempt to

undermine the efforts of the Bargaining Committee, and to create feelings of mistrust not

only among the membership, but also the home.”100 Bobb’s scathing retort continued,

contradicting Bolanes’ assertion that the negotiating team was not representing the will of the

members, or acting in their best interests. He wrote “the Union Executive has been the

object of much abuse and criticism over the past two years and have received a clear message

as to the type of settlement which the membership will accept.” The Minister of Labour had

characterized union leaders who accepted concessions in 1984 negotiations as responsible

because they:

sincerely evaluated the economic circumstances of their business sector and employer and have provided leadership to their members for very difficult adjustments. Those union leaders who by their actions have minimized layoffs and helped keep the employer in business, and have avoided work stoppages while doing so, deserve a big bouquet.101

As in many cases where the actions of a union executive were deemed responsible by

government and employers, the concessions were more obviously to the benefit of the

employer than to rank and file union members.

Bobb reiterated the union’s position: its members had made sacrifices in order for

the company to remain solvent two years prior and now it was the company’s turn to uphold

100 Letter from Rubin Bobb to Leo Bolanes, May 12 1986, file 138, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, PAA. 101 Young to the Camrose Rotary Club, February 18, 1985, Department of Labour Information/Communications Branch, GR1992.219, PAA.

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its end of the bargain and reward their patience and dedication. The AFL’s president Werlin

concluded that one of the unique aspects of the Gainers strike was that “the workers drew

the leadership into the strike, not the other way around. There was no leadership . . . This

wasn’t a movement where they’d had a big meeting involving the national or anybody else.

They walked just walked out. There was a lot of anger.”102 That anger translated into one of

the most violent conflicts in Edmonton’s history, and in the history of Canadian class

conflict, beginning on June 1, 1986.

102 Dave Werlin, interview, August 21, 2012; and for the surprise of the national office at the “militancy, radicalism, and determination” of the local, Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 166.

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Chapter 4 Violence on the Picket Line: The State in Action

The morning the strike began the Edmonton Sun ran a picture of Alberta Federation

of Labour president Dave Werlin and the chief and assistant chief stewards of UFCW local

280-P making strike signs.1 On Monday June 2 the interviewees on CFRN’s Eyewitness

evening news could barely be heard over shouts from hundreds of picketers chanting “Send

them home! Send them home!,” referring to the strikebreakers.2 The first month of the strike

was dominated in the news by images of violence, from strikers throwing rocks at buses

filled with strikebreakers to the police arresting and manhandling strikers.

Violence on the Line and Public Opinion

Labour in general, and strikes in particular, usually receive unfavorable news coverage

when they are dealt with at all, and if there is violence, then the union is portrayed in a

negative light.3 Yet the Gainers strike captivated not only the local press, but garnered media

attention across the country and internationally, and much of it was cautiously sympathetic.4

Canada’s myth of the peaceable kingdom contrasts sharply to the fact that Labour’s gains

have been made through conflict. According to the Report of the Royal Commission on

Violence in the Media, the majority of violence in Canada in the twentieth century was

1 Edmonton Sun, June 1, 1986. Newspaper clippings from the private files of Maureen Werlin. 2 Eyewitness News, CFRN Edmonton, June 2, 1986. Television news recordings from the private files of Renée Peevey. 3 Herbert Gans, Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time (New York: Pantheon, 1979), 46. 4 Deborah Radcliffe, “Understanding Labour Law Reform in Alberta: 1986-1988,” PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1997, 90. Between the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun, the strike made the front page 19 times and multiple stories appeared in both papers each day for the first week, and daily coverage continued into the third week of June.

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labour related, characterized by extensive, bitter and incredibly vicious acts.5 Gainers was

labelled “Alberta’s most violent labour dispute,” a dubious but appropriate honour in a year

rife with police interventions on picket lines.6

The violence in Edmonton was between hundreds of strikers battling both

strikebreakers and the police who were present to enforce an injunction that limited the

number of picketers to 42. The first injunction was granted to the company on June 2, and

the second injunction followed on June 10, a day after police superintendent Robert Claney

complained in a press conference that the first injunction was too general, and did not allow

police to clear an area for strikebreaker buses to come and go.7 The second injunction

proved nicely specific for Claney, as it limited the picketers to only members of UFCW 280-

P, and these picketers were required to sign a register at the site and carry written permission

from their union to be on the line. The second injunction authorized a maximum of six

people in front of each of the three gates, and 12 stationary pickets on two side streets with

no secondary or solidarity picket lines. Two groups separately appealed the injunction on

constitutional grounds and although it cannot be said that the media presented an approving

image of the violence perpetrated by strikers or the police on the Gainers picket line, neither

was it as condemning of the strikers as one would expect, given just how shocking the

5 “Report of the Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry,” in Violence in Canada, ed Mary Alice Beyer Gammon (Toronto: Methuen, 1978), 218-51. 6 CBC news, Edmonton, June 9, 1986; Kenneth D Tunnell, “Workers’ Insurgency and Social Control: Violence by and Against Labour in Canada,” in Violence in Canada: A Sociological Perspective, ed. Jeffrey Ross (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1995), 93; Jack Danylchuck, “Cost of Policing Alberta Strikes Estimated at More than $ 1 million,” Edmonton Journal, June 12, 1986; CBC news, Edmonton, June 9, 1986; Therese Kehler, “More Violence and Arrests,” Edmonton Sun, June 19, 1986; and Edmonton Journal, December 2, 1986. 7 “Order of Injunction: Gainers Inc. as Plaintiff, UFCW and Ventura for 280-P as Defendants, June 10, Cavanagh,” file 140, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0399, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton (hereafter PAA); and Claney directly referred to the distasteful task of making mass arrests in order “to clear the area and then move some transport in and out.” CBC news, Edmonton, June 9, 1986.

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images were. On June 10, while anchor Dana Lewis announced the top stories of the

evening, footage blended almost seamlessly from confrontations at Gainers into violence in

Apartheid South Africa.8

It is difficult to describe the immediacy of the violence on the televised footage. As

arresting as the still photos that appeared in papers were (and remain – see end of this

chapter for images 4.1 to 4.6), they lack the vitality of the video footage. It is hard to capture

in a still image, or in words, how quickly a striker’s movements were as he reached into a bus

to try to snatch the keys from the ignition, the casualness with which an officer grabbed a

picketer’s head and slammed him into a nearby vehicle when the picketer reeled into him

(after being shoved by another officer), the din of protestors’ chants, or just how quickly the

buses filled with strikebreakers accelerated backwards and away, leaving the running strikers

who chased them far behind.9 The emotion that is hinted at in the newspaper photos is

explicit in the film coverage, and the importance of media coverage is that, as a site of

hegemonic struggle, it affects public opinion. Public opinion, in turn affects government and

police policy. As historian A. J. Frank points out, in a strike situation it is the company and

the government (and the police) who have the greatest control over the situation and,

therefore, on the outcome of a strike.10

The first violent month of the Gainers strike marked a rupture in consensus over the

rights of workers and a crisis of legitimacy for the provincial government, the police, and the

judiciary, which clearly favoured the interests of capital in the form of Peter Pocklington and 8 Dana Lewis, CBC news, Edmonton, June 10, 1986. 9 Eyewitness news, CFRN Edmonton, June 2, 1986; CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986; CBC midday news, Edmonton, June 5, 1986. 10 J. A. Frank, “The ‘Ingredients’ in Violent Labour Conflict: Patterns in Four Case Studies,” Labour/Le Travail 12 (Fall 1983): 112.

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Gainers, over the interests of workers. The ability of the Gainers strike to polarize the

Edmonton and Alberta population was aptly demonstrated in the war analogies and military

comparisons that prevailed in the media, and in the comments in editorials such as “the

community is being divided by this dispute.”11 For the first time in some 15 years, according

to the CBC’s Deborah Lamb, the Conservative provincial government faced an opposition

and was “under pressure to act, and act now, to ease the economic burdens facing all

Albertans.”12

One major question that the Gainers strike forced Albertans to face was what were

the appropriate methods of affecting societal change? Was collective economic action, law

breaking, and violence in order to win a better collective agreement and change the labour

laws acceptable? The use of violence created problems of legitimacy for the courts, police,

and government, since they could not claim to be upholding a neutral social consensus when

clearly no such consensus prevailed. Konstantinos Koskinas argues “the exercise of power

by the state, as perceived by the participants of the [Gainers] strike was not simply in the

name of ‘law and order’, but rather an open effort to protect the interests of the capitalist

owner of the plant.”13 It was the unfairness of the injunctions the courts granted Gainers that

provoked such assessments of the power alignment between Pocklington, the government,

and the courts. Without the injunctions and the mass arrests of picketers by the police,

neither strikebreakers nor hogs would have been able to enter the plant and production

would have halted. Without police interference the picket line was too strong to be run by 11 “Viewpoints on the Gainers, Fletcher’s Strikes,” Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986. 12 Deborah Lamb, CBC news, Edmonton, June 10, 1986. 13 Konstantinos Koskinas, “Prolegomena to a Theory of Working Class Culture: Organizational, Ideological, and Ideological Praxis of the Alberta Federation of Labour, 1979-1986,” PhD diss, University of Alberta, 1987, 152.

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strikebreakers – the buses carrying them were turned back in the first week of the strike.

Without a strong picket line, enforceable only through a certain level of violence to resist

strikebreakers, the strike would have been broken quickly and there would have been little

public attention or political focus on how to change the law, or collective pressure against

the force majeure tactics of the government, police, courts, and Pocklington.

Yet that same violence had the potential to drive away moderate supporters or

previously non-partisan Albertans who were crucial to creating sufficient political pressure to

force the government to change the labour laws or Pocklington to deal fairly with the

workers.14 With sufficient public support not even unjust laws or discriminatory police

action would be able to tip the balance of power in favour of the employer. As one editorial

commented: “Getty would need the Canadian Army, never mind the Edmonton police, to

enforce his bad laws if a sufficiently large number of peaceful, normally law abiding citizens

were to link arms and take a stroll down 66 Street to let Pocklington, Getty and the courts

know they had enough of this.”15

There are numerous theories of violence, including arguments that it is society’s

reaction to violence which determines whether actions are considered deviant or not;

phenomenological theory that the symbolic meaning of acts depends on the context and

therefore that the acceptance of violence varies depending on the circumstances; and quite

basically, that violence is part of power struggles, as it is a tactic used to control the conduct

14 The provincial government typically justified its intervention in labour disputes as in the public interest, but the government failed to successfully challenge the narrative that the labour movement created, and public sympathy was predominantly with the workers. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 57, 6. 15 Michael James, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986.

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of other people.16 Although the ecumenical Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and

Justice that formed in response to the Gainers strike contended that the initial media

attention on the violence hid the underlying issues of the confrontation (meaning the

particular details of the negotiations, such as the union’s request for parity), in truth

Albertans and Edmontonians were perfectly well aware of the underlying issues of the

strike.17 Even the detractors of the strikers who wrote to the Edmonton Journal spoke of the

right to work, of high unemployment, of the obligations of employers to workers, and

workers’ individual responsibilities. The underlying issue of the Gainers strike was not a

matter of parity with Canada Packers, but rather the new reality of Alberta characterized by

concessions, job insecurity, and of the difficult political-economic choices that individuals

across the province were being forced to make.

Not everyone supported the strikers among the general public. Some people blamed

unions for the downturn in the economy – a line of reasoning that has been repeated in

scholarly work that blames the widespread declining rates of profit on workers squeezing the

profit margin with their increasing wage and benefit demands.18 William Puette detailed the

stereotypes cultivated in the media, including that “big, powerful unions have forced the

nation’s employers to pay exorbitant union wages to unproductive laborers.”19 Although he

was describing the US, it is clear that people in Edmonton had been exposed to the idea that

unions were destroying the international competitiveness of companies. “All trade unions

16 Mary Lorenz Dietz, “The Violent Subculture: The Genesis of Violence,” in Gammon, Violence in Canada, 24. 17Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches: 1986 (Edmonton: Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice, 1987), 16. 18 Robert Brenner argues against this interpretation in his first chapter “Supply-Side Explanations: A Critique,” in Economics of Global Turbulence: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945-2005 (New York: Verso, 2006), 13-26. 19 William J Puette, Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor (Ithaca: IRL Press, 1992), 154-155.

66

should be abolished for all time . . . Everywhere from Poland to Canada, unions have been

and still are ruining the economies of their countries and affecting world welfare,” wrote one

Edmontonian on June 14, 1986.20 Rather than seeing the workers striking against further

concessions as victims of the same forces that were creating high unemployment rates in

Alberta and declining real wages, unions were viewed as greedy for asking for even indexed

increases given the rise of unemployment and underemployment. Edmontonian David

Jordan wrote to the Edmonton Journal in mid-June to inform the strikers and public that:

You do not have a ‘right’ to a job. You have the right to take a job only if someone chooses to hire you. There is no right to a fair wage if no one chooses to pay it. (The key word here is ‘chooses.’) You may reply that Gainers is forcing you to accept lower wages and fewer benefits. This is not true. The company is not forcing you to accept anything. If you do not choose to work under the conditions Gainers offers, it is your right not to do so. But it is not your right to prevent others who wish to work under those conditions from doing so. You may not think Gainers offers a fair deal, but many of the unemployed think the offer is fair.21

Echoing the common criticisms of unionized workers that Puette identified, letters to the

editor in Edmonton during the strike decried Gainers workers as lazy, greedy, and ungrateful.

As the preceding quote aptly demonstrates (as well as the Minister of Labour’s rationales for

concessions in the previous chapter), workers who asked for wage increases in the face of

inflation were considered entitled. The picket line violence merely confirmed for many union

detractors what they had already known – that the strikers were irrational, rebellious, and

extremists. “The Gainers pickets have already portrayed Edmonton as inhabited by a bunch

of rough-and-tumble hooligans,” one letter to the editor in the Journal asserted, while another

condemned the behaviour of the union members and leaders as “unacceptable. . . . We have

20 R. Horne, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986. 21 David Jordan, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986.

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listened to union members curse and scream anyone who opposes them. We have watched

union members attack, harass or resist Edmonton’s policemen.”22

Yet, as Deepa Kumar pointed out in his study of the 1997 UPS strike, there is

nothing irrational about picket line violence against strikebreakers.23 The power of a union in

a strike situation is its ability to stop production and therefore disrupt the accumulation of

profit by the company.24 When strikebreakers are used they weaken the union’s bargaining

position substantially by allowing the company to continue producing goods and profits so

that the union is the only side being hurt economically by the strike. In the case of Gainers,

where Pocklington stated that he had no intention of negotiating another contract, the added

incentive for strikers was the fear that the people crossing their picket line were going to steal

their jobs.25 While the violence of workers is often depicted as the product of emotional

outbursts, and used to portray workers as irrational, uncontrolled ‘others’, on the contrary, to

respond forcibly to prevent a strikebreaker from assuming one’s work duties is perfectly

rational. As Alberta Federation of Labour President Dave Werlin explained, that does not

mean that there is no emotion involved:

When you are standing on the picket line and someone is there to steal your job it’s hard to become philosophical about their concerns and their plight . .

22 Beverly Reid, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986; and D. R. Simmonds, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986. 23 Deepa Kumar, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 87, 112. 24 Kumar, Outside the Box, 85, 113. 25 David Holehouse, “Thursday Interview: The following is a verbatim transcript of Gainers owner Peter Pocklington’s comments in a telephone interview Thursday with Journal reporter David Holehouse,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986; David Holehouse, “Pocklington Interview Wednesday: The following is a verbatim transcript of Journal reporter David Holehouse’s shorthand notes of his interview Wednesday with Gainers owner Peter Pocklington. Holehouse recorded only Pocklington’s answers, thus his own questions do not appear as part of the record,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986; and “CBC Interview: The following are excerpts of an interview between Gainers owner Peter Pocklington and Sumire Sugimoto, co-host of CBC radio’s Edmonton A.M. show,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986.

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. Now when you stand back from a scene and divorce yourself from the point of contact, you have to empathize with those people. He or she needs that job; from their perspective the situation is desperate. They are driven by a society that creates desperate people and they are driven to cast aside their principles in order to respond to the demands of their bellies, and I sympathize with them for that, but I don’t sympathize with them on the picket lines any more than a person sympathizes with a burglar when he’s breaking into their house.26

Both the strikers and the strikebreakers were trying to assure their own survival.27 Paul

Sussman, a member of the ecumenical group that organized around the strike, theorized fear

was leading to the violence and anger on the picket line:

The police are armed and uniformed. The strikebreakers are in fortified buses. Mr. Pocklington is in Toronto . . . The workers feel alone, abandoned by legislators who won’t terminate their holidays, attacked in the media, stymied by the judicial system, and assaulted by the police. I should stress that it does not matter if these fears are accurate. The presence of fear is unquestionable, as its diving power on the crowd. Frightened crowds respond with anger.28

The workers’ fears that Pocklington meant to destroy their union, that the strikebreakers

crossing the picket line were going to assume their jobs permanently, were increased by

Pocklington’s statements to the media. Pocklington exacerbated the workers’ fear and anger

by referring to the strikers as his former employees. The Edmonton Journal’s front page story

on June 5 quoted Pocklington as saying “I am not going to have another collective

agreement with anyone.”29 Pocklington accused the Journal of misquoting him, yet given that

he claimed his full quote was “I am not going to have another collective agreement with

26 Dave Werlin, quoted in Barry Johnstone, “Interview with Dave Werlin,” Athabasca University Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour segment, 18. 27 Doug Mann, ITV news, Edmonton, June 4, 1986. Firefighters on the picket line the previous day had stated that the struggle was about survival, including the survival of unions in the province. CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986. 28 Ellipses are original. Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 15. 29 John Geiger, “Story Sparked Riot – Pocklington,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986.

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anyone using terrorist tactics,” this hyperbole was hardly that much better in terms of public

relations.30 The comment was described as excessive and “certainly unhelpful,” which may

explain why Pocklington decided to adopt a lower media profile after the first week.31 The

same week, Pocklington stated that his plant would “be non-union,” in an interview with

CBC Edmonton A.M. show, though he later softened his stance, saying: “If the union wishes

to co-operate and come and make a deal, we’ll be happy to have a union. If not, I’ll be happy

to have the situation we’re going toward now,” with that situation being the employment of

non-unionized workers at a lower overall wage.32 Given that industrial relations scholar

James Latornell has concluded that union busting employers are more likely to engage in

actions to provoke violence and misconduct, Pocklington and Gainers’ clearly anti-union

stance had a direct impact on the level of picket line violence, as did their introduction of the

police into the conflict.33 Although Pocklington claimed to be backed by a silent majority of

60% of Albertans based on his own poll, an informal poll by the conservative Edmonton Sun

found that “the majority of readers blamed packing plant owner Peter Pocklington and

provincial labor laws,” for “the violence and arrests resulting from the strike at Gainers

Inc.”34

30 David Holehouse, “Thursday Interview,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986; and ITV news, Edmonton, June 4, 1986. 31 “It Just Can’t Be Justified,” Edmonton Sun, June 26, 1986. 32 “CBC Interview,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986. The strikebreakers were hired at $8.00/hour – a higher starting rate than in the last collective agreement., but no one was making more than this starting wage. 33 James A. Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line: The Law and Police Response (Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre Press (Queen’s University), 1993), 9. 34 Elaine O’Farrell, “Albertans Back Him, Says Owner,” Edmonton Sun, June 9, 1986; and “Readers Blame Puck, Labor Laws,” Edmonton Sun, June 8, 1986.

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Picketers and Police on the Line

Shirley Carr, president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), came to Edmonton

to attend the June 12 labour movement rally at the Legislature (see image 4.1). To the

approximately 8�000 people gathered at the largest demonstration in Edmonton in 25 years

she declared “there is no way that the labour movement will allow Peter Pocklington to

starve his employees into submission.”35 The Dandelions, a militant group of unemployed

building trade workers, were a strong presence on the Gainers picket line. This grassroots

organization of active union members could always be counted on to reinforce a picket line.

The image of the Dandelion was meant to represent resilience: dandelions are tough weeds

that grow everywhere and have deep roots. 36 Labour leaders and members from both the

public sector, such as United Nurses of Alberta president Margret Ethier , and private sector

marched on 66 Street. Hundreds of non-union Edmontonians and non-Edmontonian trade

unionists also came to the picket line. Politicians, specifically members of the provincial

NDP, joined the picket line with the strikers, as did one Liberal MLA. People who walked

the picket line recalled the sense of camaraderie that accompanied shared hardship and

persecution. AFL president Dave Werlin remembers CUPE, UFCW, and CUPW members

sitting in front of the gate after the Riot Act was read, refusing to move to allow the buses of

strikebreakers through and then being arrested for contempt of court.37 Former AFL

Director of Research Jim Selby recounted being arrested on the picket line and put in a

35 Estimates of the crowd size varies from 6 000 to 10 000, but most estimate the size around 8�000. CBC news, Edmonton, June 12, 1986. 36 MacKenzie noted that the mainstream building trades organization shunned the Dandelions and were embarrassed by their far more radical actions. Ken MacKenzie personal interview, August 1, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 37 Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI conference, June 14, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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paddy wagon with a group of other trade unionists, each from a different local, and none

from UFCW.38 Others recalled a woman shouting “what does it take to get arrested around

here?” Not only was there a sense of solidarity and militancy, but there were also at times

aspects of the carnivalesque as the social order was challenged and usurped.39 Striker Vicky

Beauchamp recalled that one morning Teamsters blocked off the Yellowhead Trail with their

trucks: “‘It doesn’t say you can’t park.’ That’s what one of them said when the cop came up.

‘Where is the no parking sign? My truck isn’t running.’”40

On the morning of June 3, with an estimated 1�000 people picketing, eight buses

carrying strikebreakers were turned away from the plant.41 Later that afternoon, after a

reported 115 arrests of random picketers were made in the already diminished crowd,

approximately 250 picketers remained at the site. The 60 man riot squad, in its first

appearance, with additional regular Edmonton city police totaling at least 100 officers (210

according to the Edmonton Sun), managed to escort five buses of strikebreakers through the

picket line.42 In a statement the next day, following his own detention, the AFL president

summed up the crucial role the police were playing in the labour dispute: “‘If the police had

38 Jim Selby, Summer of ’86 Story Circle, ALHI conference, June 14, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 39 People have described the atmosphere as festive when the workers came off shift at midnight on June 1. Alain Noël and Keith Gardner, “The Gainers Strike: Capitalist Offensive, Militancy, and the Politics of Industrial Relations in Canada,” Studies in Political Economy 31 (Spring 1990): 42. 40 Vicky Beauchamp, personal interview, August 20, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 41 Mathew Fisher, “Non-Union Workers Force Way into Edmonton Plant,” The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1986. 42 “Violence Mounts in Meat-Strike,” Calgary Herald, June 4, 1986; “Union President Vows Defiance,” front page, Edmonton Journal, June 4, 1986; Gary Poignant and Therese Kehler, “Hog Wars: Tense Situation Close to Exploding,” Edmonton Sun, June 4, 1986; and CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986.

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never shown their faces at the picket lines,’ concluded Werlin, ‘no one would have tried to

run buses through, there would have been no violence or arrest.’”43

The majority of the violence on the picket line occurred as a confrontation between

the police protecting strikebreakers, and the strikers.44 The historical purpose of the police,

according to Zhiqiu Lin, has been to control dangerous classes, including the poor and

working class.45 Likewise, Greg Marquis contends that the police are part of the capitalist

state and act to discipline and criminalize the working class, including by breaking strikes.46

The RCMP not only played a prominent role in such historic strikes as the 1906 Lethbridge

coal miners’ strike, but were also instrumental in the Suncor, Zeidler, and Fletchers strikes in

1986, while it was the Edmonton City Police who played a crucial role in the Gainers strike.

The idea that the police are non-political is difficult to sustain credibly, according to Phillip

Stenning, because they maintain the internal order of society for the state and ruling class.47

A perfect example of this is the association of police chiefs in 1984, which argued against the

decriminalization of property offenses.48 The police are deployed, argues Ken Mezies, for

emergency social order repair through the use of non-negotiable force, and the image of

43 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Alberta Federation of Labour Condemns Labour Law,” Press Release, June 4, 1986. From the private files of Maureen Werlin. 44 The union saw the strikebreakers and Gainers agents as the parties responsible for inciting violence: “Hopefully [the police] will see fit to continue arresting those on the other side so that the violent confrontations provoked by Pocklington will cease.” “And Away They Go,” Porklington News 2, no. 6 (July 16, 1986). From the private files of Renée Peevey. 45 Zhiqiu Lin, Policing the Wild North-West: A Sociological Study of the Provincial Police in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905-1932 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006), 4. 46 Greg Marquis, “Power from the Street: The Canadian Municipal Police,” in Police Powers in Canada: The Evolution and Practice of Authority, ed. R. C. Macleod and David Schneiderman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 25. 47 Philip C. Stenning, “Police and Politics: There and Back and There Again?” in Macleod and Schneiderman, Police Powers, 211. 48 Don Stuart, “Policing Under the Charter,” in Macleod and Schneiderman, Police Powers, 75.

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crime fighting masks the maintenance of existing structures of power.49 The Gainers strike

certainly constituted a breach of the typical social order, and although the police responded

with force by imprisoning hundreds of workers, the mass mobilization of close to 200 police

officers a day did more to reveal power structures, specifically the links between the courts,

police, and capitalist class, than it did to hide them. Pointed questions in the Legislature from

the NDP and Liberals highlighted how a lack of decisive action by the Premier and Minister

of Labour was prolonging the dispute.50 Edmontonians and Albertans questioned why one-

third of the Edmonton city police force was being used to escort strikebreakers through

picket lines, when such protection accounted for the police’s entire overtime budget for the

year within a month.51 The police were very clearly viewed by some Albertans as tools of the

political and economic elite, and the extremely critical questions posed by CBC anchor Dana

Lewis to police commissioner Julian Kinisky about how the police handled the picket line

and whether or not they were actually improving the situation or merely serving the interests

of Pocklington, demonstrated this censorious viewpoint.52

CLC president Shirley Carr labeled the police “Pocklington’s Pinkertons,” and quotes

from Gainers management certainly contributed to the impression that the police

interference in the dispute directly benefited the employer. After the first injunction was

granted president Bolanes contributed to the impression that the city police were at the

disposal of Gainers, quoted in the Edmonton Sun as saying that operations would resume “just

49 Ken Menzies, “Policing as Force and Policing as Risk Minimization: Two Concepts of Public Policing,” in Contemporary Issues in Canadian Policing, Steven Nancoo, ed. (Mississauga: Canadian Educator’s Press, 2004), 10. 50 CBC news, Edmonton, June 9, 1986; CBC news, Edmonton, June 18, 1986. 51 Kathy Kerr, “Money Only Part of Cost to Police,” Calgary Herald, June 15, 1986. 52 Lewis was extremely critical in the interview. Dana Lewis interviewing Alderman and Police Commissioner Julian Kinisky. CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986.

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as quick as the police can act to reduce the number of pickets.”53 There were mass arrests the

next day. New Democrat MLA Ray Martin was quoted in the Globe and Mail saying “This

man [Peter Pocklington] will use any tactic . . . He’ll use the public purse whenever he can.”54

Prominent Edmontonian Reverend T. L. Leadbeater also condemned Pocklington’s

tendency to take advantage of other people: “I fail to see how any entrepreneur (a modern

euphemism for self-aggrandizement) can be concerned about industrial and community

harmony if motivated by a philosophy summed up in the statement – ‘ You use other

people’s money and other people’s labour to build your dreams,’ (Journal June 10).”55 Not

only was the public uncomfortable with the idea that Pocklington was using the police for his

private aims, there were also concerns about what duties the police were neglecting in order

to provide private security for him.56 Canadian Union of Postal Workers member John Bail

cuttingly commented that “due to the enforcement of Pocklington’s private police state,

there will be slight delays in the normal administration of justice as exhausted police officers

rest up between shifts of escorting scabs across picket lines.”57

As Latornell has noted, the physical presence of police officers is itself a form of

force.58 Willem De Lint and Allan Hall have concluded that police view strikes as a tactical

matter of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, where even a single violation of the law or police directions

53 Gary Poignant and David Hogben, “Strikers Flout Law,” Edmonton Sun, June 3, 1986. 54 Mathew Fisher, “Non Union Workers Force their Way into Edmonton Plant,” Globe and Mail, June 4, 1986. 55 Reverend T. L. Leadbeater, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal June 14, 1986. 56 Liz Reid stated “It appeared the police were acting as a security force for the company.” Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 15. 57 John Bail, “Albertans Working Together?” Edmonton Journal, June 12, 1986. 58 Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line, 32.

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justifies a collective response characterized by “coercive decisiveness.”59 The mass arrests of

the first three days after the injunction was granted made citizens extremely unhappy with

the immense show of police force on the picket line and explains the popularity of the

buttons that read “You Can’t Jail the Strike.”60 As early as the third day of the strike stories

of police intimidation were emerging. Mathew Fisher for the Globe and Mail reported:

Many of the arrests were made after police Super-intendant Robert Claney went through the crowd identifying men individually saying, “take that one and that one . . .” By mid-afternoon it became apparent police were willing to arrest anyone near the site. Some of the arrests were made more than 500 meters from the plant gates. “Those people moved there of their own accord,” Supt Claney said. “We just followed them.”61

The union charged that the mass arrests were meant to act as police intimidation and

harassment. 62 Although the tone of articles in the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun strove

for neutrality, nonetheless, the Journal’s coverage in particular created the impression that

strikers were the victims rather than aggressors through the choice of pictures and headlines

in the initial month of the strike. Jeffrey Ross contends that in relation to police violence

there is intense scrutiny when it is performed publicly since it is normally not visible and he

points to the role that the media play in initiating public reaction to police violence.63

59 Willem De Lint and Allan Hall, “Making the Pickets Responsible: Policing Labour at a Distance in Windsor, Ontario,” in Contemporary Issues, edited by Nancoo, 344-45. 60 229 people were arrested in five days of the strike. CBC news, Edmonton, June 6, 1986. 61 The CBC footage shows him walking down the street pointing out people every 5-10 steps, saying “take that one . . . take that one.” CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986; and quote from Matthew Fisher, “Non Union Workers Force their Way into Edmonton Plant,” Globe and Mail, June 4, 1986. 62 “Many of the arrests were made in a frivolous manner in the first place – with no regard to an actual violation but rather as a form of intimidation and harassment by the Edmonton City Police.” “Crown Must Justify Injunction Violation,” Porklington News 2, no. 1 (July 2, 1986). 63 Jeffrey Ian Ross, Making News of Police Violence: A Comparative Study of Toronto and New York City (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000), 3, 10-12, 17-18. In the case of Gainers the typical self-censorship of the media was mitigated by the multiple agency coverage on-site.

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Pictures in newspapers of the police violence generally showed multiple officers

restraining a single picketer (see image 4.2), typically in a 4:1 ratio, or a melee with baton

armed cops on one side and picketers on the other. These images usually had the police on

the left side of the picture, with the implication that one would ‘read’ the movement of the

image as left to right, and the police moving towards picketers (see image 4.3). In general this

is supported by the posture of the police leaning toward the picketers, and picketers leaning

away. These images frame the police as the aggressors in the confrontations. Likewise, even

in images of the strikers as the aggressors, some of the iconic images of the strike (see image

4.4 reprinted at the first and twenty-fifth anniversary) show the buses of strikebreakers

approaching from the left side and running into the compressed picketers on the right side.64

Although the television news showed images of picketer violence, from throwing

rocks to resisting arrest, the focus of such attacks was typically fortified buses, and did not

show, except twice, strikers aiming their violence directly at another person.65 Strikers ran out

in front of much larger buses to throw rocks and bottles filled with paint and hit the buses

with picket signs (see image 1.1), and police retaliated by tackling strikers, dragging people

out of the road (see image 4.5), hitting them with batons, or placing them in choke holds and

arm bars. As the CBC and other reporters noted, the strikers’ violence was typically triggered

by the arrival of the buses of strikebreakers, whereas police not only reacted to strikers

attempts to turn buses away, but proactively made arrests in order to escort buses through.66

64 Marilyn Moysa, “Union Rights Come Full Circle,” Edmonton Journal, April 26, 1987. 65 The two exceptions I saw were strikers hitting a strikebreaker motorcyclist on the helmet with signs and pushing men hired to post the second injunction around when they came onto the property that the union had leased for its strike headquarters. 66 CBC news, Edmonton, June 6, 1986.

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The idea of the police as aggressors was further strengthened by the headlines and

captions on images in the Edmonton papers. On June 9 a perceptible anti-police message

appeared on the front page of the Edmonton Journal (image 4.6).67 The Headline read: “Police

out in force on quiet picket line: ‘no intent to scare.’” The absolute absurdity of the

statement ‘no intent to scare’ when the picture showed police, fully equipped in riot gear

with their helmets down and batons out, running toward the picket line, was obvious.68

Further, the caption read: “More than 50 officers in riot gear were among the 100 Edmonton

city police dispatched Sunday to the Gainers plant to enforce the injunction. ‘This is Canada,

this is supposed to be a free country, the police are the worst scabs,’ one man yelled. Others

offered Nazi salutes and shouts of ‘Gestapo’.” The idea of the totalitarian police was

reinforced as the comments in the caption were repeated within the article itself. By mocking

police claims of peaceful intent in this particular case, and by showing the police interactions

with strikers as violent and unequal struggles in photographs, Edmonton newspapers subtly

supported the UFCW strikers. Television coverage of the picket line was typically more

sympathetic to the picketers, though the evening news also played sensitive interviews with

strikebreakers. While the labour movement criticized the role of the police if not the police

themselves, the employer was uniformly supportive of the police and their actions, including

Pocklington praising the Police Chief and the police in escorting people across the picket

line. 69 The disapprobation for police actions in the news reflected the broader critical

67 “Police Out in Force on Quiet Picket Line: ‘No Intent to Scare,’” Edmonton Journal, June 9, 1986. 68 “Police Out in Force on Quiet Picket Line: ‘No Intent to Scare,’” Edmonton Journal, June 9, 1986. 69 Alberta Federation of Labour, “AFL Condemns Injunction,” Press Release, June 11, 1986. From the private files of Maureen Werlin; and David Holehouse, “Thursday Interview,” Edmonton Journal, June 6, 1986..

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political climate that only a month earlier had resulted in the election of the first real

opposition in the provincial legislature in years and spurred a rising sense of injustice.

Alberta’s Laws and Courts: Injunctions and Civil Rights

Disapproval among Edmontonians extended to the courts that granted the

employer’s injunctions. The sixth restriction of the second injunction in particular caused

outrage: “There shall be an area where no persons may congregate . . . In the prohibited

zone, no pedestrians being more than three in number may halt at any time. No vehicular

traffic will stop in the prohibited zone.”70 The strike became a democratic issue for many

people when the June 10 injunction made it illegal for three people to gather at any point

near the strike-bound plant, be they striker, sympathizer, or unaligned citizen.71 The second

injunction violated Alberta’s weak labour laws, which still allowed non-union members to

join a picket line.72 One Edmontonian compared the injunction and the resulting police

actions to Third World dictatorships stamping out civil unrest.73 It was not only violent

members of 280-P who faced arrest, but other union activists and ordinary citizens.

The injunction was challenged by labour lawyers Sheila Greckol and June Ross “on

the grounds that it violates the individual’s freedom to assemble, associate and express

opinions – freedoms guaranteed under section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and

70 “Order of Injunction: Gainers Inc. as Plaintiff, UFCW and Ventura for 280-P as Defendants, June 10, Cavanagh,” file 140, EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0399, PAA. 71 Carol Toller, “Injunction to Be Challenged,” Edmonton Journal, June 25, 1986; “Curbs Tightened on Pickets,” Edmonton Journal, June 11, 1986; Else Rempel, “Rules for 42 Pickets Tightened,” Edmonton Journal, June 11, 1986. 72 “Curbs Tightened on Pickets,” Edmonton Journal, June 11, 1986. 73 J Shield, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986.

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Freedoms.”74 Grekol and Ross represented a diverse group, including labour organizations,

the National Farmers’ Union, the Alberta Status of Women Action Committee, members of

the Ecumenical Prayer Coalition (Fr. Emmet Crough and Inez Verones), Liz Reid (Social

Justice Commission of the Catholic Church), Rev. David Crombie (United Church), and

Rev. Roy Darcus (Anglican Church).75 Injunctions have been criticized for sacrificing

procedural fairness in their speed and informality. Court interventions typically ignore issues

of the labour dispute in favour of suppressing illegality. This creates the appearance of anti-

unionist judges as injunctions are a powerful strikebreaking weapon which, although

theoretically used to maintain the status quo, frequently result in a strike’s defeat before the

issue of the injunction comes to a full trial.76

AFL president Dave Werlin was “appalled and angered by the continued actions of

the court and police forces on the side of an employer whose notion of labour relations

comes straight out of Charles Dickens.”77 The Alberta Federation of Labour condemned the

injunction as “a denial of natural justice,” and criticized the role of the justice system in

labour disputes in the province, stating “Since May 1st, we have seen the arrest of close to

700 normally peaceful and law-abiding Albertans whose only crime is attempting to defend

their jobs. In every case, the courts and police have acted as agents of the employers” and

74 Carol Toller, “Injunction to Be Challenged,” Edmonton Journal, June 25, 1986. In 1990 strikes were ruled a collective activity and therefore, since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects individual rights only, the rights of picketers – even in terms of freedom to assemble, associate and express opinions personally – were not legally protected. Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line, 25. 75 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 14. 76 Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line, 21. 77 Alberta Federation of Labour, “AFL Condemns Injunction,” Press Release, June 11, 1986.

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against working-class Albertans.78 The injunction was characterized by Greckol as draconian

and described as totalitarian by reporter Don Wanagas, who commented:

So it has come to this has it? That infamous strip of 66 St. between the LRT tracks and Yellowhead Trail can now lay claim to a spot right there beside the plowed turf at the foot of the Berlin Wall in the No Man’s Land inventory. Edmontonians should therefore beware. Because if more than three of this city’s citizens should get together for a stroll along the fences which surround Peter Pocklington’s slaughterhouse, they’re liable to be thrown in a police paddy wagon with their hands tied behind their backs.79

In a letter to the editor, CUPW member John Bail likewise suggested that Edmonton

resembled a police state and that visitors needed a guide on how to stay out of trouble in

Edmonton: “visitors following the brochure’s advice would find their tour of our city’s jail

would only involve about three hours of their sightseeing time.”80

Even groups who did not support the violence that was occurring on the picket line,

such as the Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and Justice, supported the challenge of

the injunction on democratic grounds, demonstrating how the strikers had successfully

gained public support. Linda Winski from that group said that the Gainers strike was what

“we used to only see on television, not right here in our backyard,” and her comment

demonstrates the dismay of many Albertans at the evidence of their social relations

unraveling before their eyes. 81 According to some commentators, the Gainers strike

represented nothing less than the resurrection of the Alberta labour movement, and that

movement was aimed at a broader working class struggle against unjust labour laws.82 The

78 Alberta Federation of Labour, “AFL Condemns Injunction,” Press Release, June 11, 1986. 79 Don Wanagas, “And No Spitting on the Sidewalk,” Edmonton Sun, June 11, 1986. 80 John Bail, “Albertans Working Together?” Edmonton Journal, June 12, 1986. 81 Bob McKeon and Linda Winski, personal interview, October 23, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 82 Anna Maria Tremonti, CBC news, Edmonton, June 12, 1986.

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sense of shared struggle is apparent in the statement a firefighter made on the picket line:

“we’re next. We’re all next.”83

With the surprisingly pro-union headline “Non-Union Workers Force Way into

Edmonton Plant,” Matthew Fisher for The Globe and Mail interviewed the AFL president

about the police forcing a path for strikebreakers through the picket line and acting as agents

of the employer.84 The second injunction certainly supported the labour movement’s

contention that the state, in the form of the courts, was serving the interests of Pocklington

and Gainers. Liz Reid, who was present when the second injunction was read, commented

that “listening to the judge in the court . . . was a sorrowful experience. He was so flippant in

his remarks and his personal bias against the union was so clear that it made it hard for me to

believe that justice would be handed down in his decision.”85 Werlin pointed to the clear bias

of the justice system as a whole, which was not limited to one judge. Strikers and not strike-

breakers were consistently charged with violence: “bus drivers who run over picketers, or

scabs assaulting unionists with crowbars and crescent wrenches never get charged.”86

Dangerous driving is a criminal offense, and yet no one was arrested when picketers were

struck by vehicles, or by armed drivers, or even when striker Manfred Schmidt was dragged

under a bus.87

Although two strikebreakers were eventually charged in late July with possession of

dangerous weapons, the vast majority of arrests and charges were brought against strikers

83 CBC news, Edmonton, June 3, 1986. 84 Mathew Fisher, “Non-Union Workers Force Way into Edmonton Plant,” The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1986. 85 Liz Reid, quoted in Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 15. 86Alberta Federation of Labour, “AFL Condemns Injunction,” Press Release, June 11, 1986. 87 Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line, 47; and “‘Farmer Go Home,’ Angry Strikers Yell,” front page, Edmonton Journal, June 2, 1986. Police arrested strikebreakers in mid-July: “We Think He Was Charged,” Porklington News 2, no. 4 (July 11, 1986); and “And Away they Go,” Porklington News 2, no. 6 (July 16, 1986).

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and union supporters.88 On July 4 striker Phillip McBurnie was attacked by two strikebreaker

bus drivers in front of three RCMP officers who did not intervene. Afterwards McBurnie

was called in for questioning and charged with breach of injunction.89 Another striker,

Dimetro Kuziw, was charged with dangerous driving after being chased in his car by two

workers for Tierfront Security (the Quebec company that Gainers had engaged to supply

replacement workers).90 The charges against Kuziw were dismissed on August 21, but UFCW

was doubtful that the two men who attacked his car with metal pipes would be charged, as in

the entire first month of the strike only one strikebreaker had been arrested, and that was for

public intoxication.91 The Glasgow University Media Group found that depictions of

violence typically served to discredit unions. Even though the media coverage of the Gainers

strike was predominantly sympathetic, UFCW observed that reports of arrest were not

usually followed by reports of the ensuing court cases or coverage of police conduct after the

first month of the strike. 92

Local 280-P felt that the laws were not meant to protect workers, since when they

tried to exercise their rights during the strike “the full force of the legal system [came] down

against them.” 93 The Edmonton Churches Coalition for Labour and Justice claimed that two

standards appeared to be at work in the legal system, both in terms of timeliness of decisions

88 “Two Committed to Trial,” Edmonton Sun, July 18, 1986. 89 “Phillip McBurnie Injured,” Porklington News 2, no. 2 (July 4, 1986). 90 “And the Paper Didn’t Print Anything,” Porklington News 3, no. 6 (August 28, 1986). 91 “Laws Are Not For Workers,” Porklington News 1, no. 4 (June 27, 1986). 92 “And the Paper Didn’t Print Anything,” Porklington News 3, no. 6 (August 28, 1986); and Christopher R. Martin, Framed! Labor and the Corporate Media (Ithaca, ILR Press (Cornell University Press), 2004), 14. 93 “Laws Are Not For Workers” and “Law Gives Us Right to Strike,” Porklington News 1, no. 4 (June 27, 1986).

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and results: one for workers and another for Pocklington and Gainers.94 Although it is

inarguable that the laws favoured the company, some attempts were made by the courts to

prevent the appearance of complete bias. By June 6, 229 picketers had been arrested and by

June 19 the number had risen to 380. Justice Cavanagh, who was responsible for the

draconian second injunction, ruled on June 30. that the Crown had to prosecute each of the

380 individuals arrested on the picket line separately, which created a higher burden of proof

for the prosecution than if they had been tried collectively.95 As the union was quick to point

out, even if most of these arrests did not result in convictions, or even proceed to trial, they

served as a form of police intimidation and harassment.96 In mid-August, UFCW’s allegation

that most charges leveled against union members were frivolous was vindicated when out of

close to 500 people charged with picket-line related offenses, only 20 cases proceeded to

court.97 The union accused the company of making dupes out of the police and lamented

that tax payers would foot the bill for the disproportionate and inappropriate reaction of the

police to picket-line incidents. As of August 18, no UFCW member had been found guilty of

picket line violations.98 After 18 picketers at a grocery store were arrested, the union

concluded that “the police, the courts, and the Alberta government cannot be counted on to

protect individual freedoms guaranteed by the Charter of Rights – the freedom of speech

and assembly,” at least not if the individuals trying to partake of those rights were part of the

94 Or as Glasbeek has noted, one law for corporations and another for everyone else. Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 15. 95 David Quigley and Tony Saloway, “Peace Hopes Fade,” Edmonton Sun, June 6, 1986; and Therese Kehler, “More Violence and Arrests,” Edmonton Sun, June 19, 1986. 96 “Many of the arrests were made in a frivolous manner in the first place – with no regard to an actual violation but rather as a form of intimidation and harassment by the Edmonton City Police.” “Crown Must Justify Injunction Violation,” Porklington News 2, no. 1 (July 2, 1986) 97 “Company Agrees Charges Against Union Members Frivolous,” Porklington News 3, no. 4 (August 18, 1986). 98 “Company Agrees Charges Against Union Members Frivolous,” Porklington News 3, no. 4 (August 18, 1986).

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labour movement. 99 Konstantinos Koskinas asserts the workers perceived the legal system as

part of a broader social order that was antagonistic to their class interests.100

Rather than viewing the violence and problems of the picket line as a crisis of police

or even court legitimacy, the Edmonton Voter Association (EVA) understood the most

serious problem to be the lack of political oversight and responsibility. According to EVA

the Edmonton City Council should have been responsible for deciding if and how to employ

the police on the picket line, especially in light of the entire police overtime budget and then

some being spent in June on the Gainers conflict. EVA condemned the police commission

for allocating forces to the dispute and for pulling personnel from other duties, all without

consulting City Council, and lobbied for an amendment to the Police Act to increase city

control of the police. The Gainers strike was a political issue and the municipal government,

in the eyes of EVA, had a responsibility to advocate for the rights of workers at the

provincial level. EVA was indignant that city employees should be forced to “intimidate,

harass and inflict violence upon workers striking to defend basic living and working

standards gained over many years,” and passed a resolution condemning the use of the police

in what to their minds amounted to a private dispute for Pocklington’s benefit.101 Finally,

EVA demanded that City Council “pressure the Province to amend labour laws to grant

workers more protection from the arbitrary act of employers.”102

Although Mayor Lawrence Decore, as well as Liberal and NDP MLAs, requested

that the province reimburse the city for the policing costs and for changed labour laws, the

99 “Arrests Uncalled For,” Porklington News 3, no. 2 (August 7, 1986). 100 Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 167-168. 101 “Edmonton Voter Association Endorses Gainers Strike,” Porklington News 3, no. 2 (August 7, 1986). 102 “Edmonton Voter Association Endorses Gainers Strike,” Porklington News 3, no. 2 (August 7, 1986).

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response of City Council and the city bureaucracy was not entirely favourable. The union’s

lease on an empty lot across from Gainers for their strike headquarters was not renewed,

forcing the strike coordinators to relocate further from the plant. The frustration of the

workers was clear in an article in the strike bulletin: “They tell us we can’t picket. They tell us

we can’t demonstrate. They tell us we can’t hand our leaflets, and yet is quite okay for the

Police, the scabs and the Company to do whatever they bloody well please.”103 It was for this

reason that the strikers turned to a boycott to continue to place economic pressure on

Pocklington and to try to induce Gainers to return to the bargaining table:

Many strikes have been won on the picket line particularly if you can close down the struck facility completely. But sometimes, as in this case against Gainers, it isn’t possible, simply because the police, the courts and the politicians ensure that the owner is given every advantage to keep operating. Because that is the situation here at Gainers, we have to resort to other activities like boycotts and information picketing.104

AFL president Dave Werlin admitted that the labour laws in Alberta were not too different

from other places in Canada, but as UFCW pointed out, it was the application of those laws

that created such hardship for the labour movement. The interpretations of the courts and

the labour relations board allowed employers to bargain superficially to an impasse and when

a strike or lockout occurred the employer was free to “set the conditions of work

unilaterally.” 105 If workers were not willing to take concessions, then they could simply be

replaced. It would be better, Werlin argued, to let class conflict unfold unmediated by the

government, than to have workers constrained by a legal system that perpetuated inequalities:

103 “Now They Want to Take Our Strike Headquarters!” Porklington News 3, no. 5 (August 22, 1986). 104 “Strikes Aren’t Always Won on the Picket Line,” Porklington News 4, no. 4 (September 24, 1986). 105 Dave Werlin and Don Aitken interview, Athabasca University Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour settlement, 19.

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“scrap the[labour] laws altogether and we’ll take our chances on the street,” he told reporters

in December.106

On Labour Day 1986 the Porklington News strike bulletin reminded workers of the

sacrifices that previous generations of workers had made, including those jailed in the

Winnipeg General strike, the workers who died in Estevan in 1935, forward to the striker

who was killed after being hit by a strikebreaker’s vehicle in Ontario the year before. In each

and every one of these struggles, including the strikes in present day Alberta, the UFCW

asserted that the police, the courts and the government “stood foursquare against

workers.”107 On future Labour Days, the editor commented, people would remember UFCW

280-P members as “those who refused to be beaten by the Peter Pocklingtons, the Ian Reids

and the Premier Gettys.” Not only the police and the courts were arrayed against the

workers, but so were the government in the form of Minister of Labour Ian Reid and

Premier Don Getty, and even Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. UFCW’s Canadian co-director

Frank Benn sent a telegram Mulroney after he called the Gainers strikers separatists while in

Edmonton, stating: “With your outburst, and with Alberta Premier Getty’s indifference to

the strike, our members are learning that their Conservative governments are not neutral in

the Gainers strike. Rather, the governments’ aim to defeat them, and support Mr.

Pocklington in his anti-union crusade.”108 The Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and

Justice concurred that there was:

106 CBC news, Edmonton, December 12, 1986. 107 “Labour Day – Its Significance,” Porklington News 4, no. 1 (September 3, 1986). 108 Telegram to PM Mulroney after separatist remark, by Frank Benn, co-director of UFCW in Canada, September 26. “Benn Sends Telegram to Mulroney,” Porklington News 5, no. 1 (October 6, 1986).

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some conflict of interest on the part of both provincial and federal governments. Both were Conservative, and Peter Pocklington himself [was] a prominent Conservative, having run as a candidate in their last national leadership convention. While his Alberta workers were subsisting on meagre strike pay, he and Mila Mulroney, wife of the Prime Minister, were co-hosting a gala benefit in eastern Canada.109

According to UFCW national representative Kip Connelly, the only reason that Pocklington

briefly came back to the bargaining table in September was because he still had hopes of

becoming prime minister one day.110

The union accused the provincial government of assisting Pocklington by allowing

him to recruit replacement workers from government run hostels (around 150 people, or half

the population, at one hostel were working as replacement workers at Gainers) and

purchasing products from Gainers, allowing Pocklington to extend the dispute, thereby

undermining the effects of the consumer boycott.111 Furthermore, the union alleged that the

federal Progressive Conservatives had become involved when threats of dismissal were

issued to federal meat inspectors who, citing personal safety concerns, had refused to cross

the Gainers picket line. MP Gordon Towers allegedly called these Public Service Alliance of

Canada members at one and two am to harass them, and some inspectors were suspended at

that time.112 Inspectors were instructed not to join the Gainers picket line, even on their own

time.113 The union likewise alleged that a Gainers lobbyist threatened J. B. Morrissey,

assistant Deputy Minister of Food Production for Agriculture Canada, that the company

would sue the federal government if the plant was shut down. The incident, the union

109 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 16-17. 110 UFCW, Action, September/October 1986, 7. 111 CBC news, Edmonton, June 24, 1986; and Ed Seymour, “The Battle of 66th Street Rages On.” From the private files of Renée Peevey. 112 “Did Gainer’s Threaten to Sue Government?” Porklington News 5, no. 2 (October 9, 1986). 113 CBC news, Edmonton, June 5, 1986.

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charged, “would seem to indicate the pressure that wealth can exert on a government

department charged with the protection of the health and safety of Mr. and Mrs. Consumer,”

especially since an inspection scheduled for December 4 was cancelled, even after two cases

of food poisoning were traced back to tainted Gainers products in Nova Scotia in

October.114

The government would likely not have intervened further in the conflict after

appointing a disputes inquiry board and striking a Labour Legislation Review Committee if

those had proved able to contain public discontent. The government claimed that Gainers

represented a rare crisis, not an endemic problem in labour relations in the context of

depression and the rise of neo-liberal ideas around concessions and cooperation. Labour

Minister Ian Reid claimed that the violence on the picket line was a “rare occurrence that

happens when the [labour relations] system does not work smoothly.”115 This is probably the

reason why he waited until the worst of the violence and arrests had occurred before

stepping forward, apparently unselfconsciously stating “things have settled down somewhat

and it appears to be an opportune time to do something.”116 Premier Getty was likewise

reluctant to assume any role in resolving the dispute, stating only that he would appear on

the picket line if he thought it would do any good.117 What the labour movement was asking

for, of course, was not Getty’s presence on the line, but rather the attention of the

government to labour laws. Alberta Federation of Labour president Dave Werlin disagreed

that Gainers was a rare moment of crisis and that the provincial government had no role to 114 “Did Gainer’s Threaten to Sue Government?” Porklington News 5, no. 2 (October 9, 1986); and Ed Seymour, “The Battle of 66th Street Rages On.” 115 Norm Ovenden, “Violence Blamed on Labor Laws,” Edmonton Journal, June 3, 1986. 116 Ian Reid in press conference CBC news, Edmonton, June 5, 1986. 117 CBC news, Edmonton, June 8, 1986.

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play, stating bluntly that: “the law, and particularly the legislators who make the laws are

simply wrong, and I say that the working people of Alberta will do the only thing people can

do when confronted with inequitable laws – defy them.”118 NDP leader Ray Martin

concurred that “the laws of Alberta always come down on the company side. All the odds

are stacked against the workers.” 119 The property rights of Pocklington were respected over

the rights of the workers. From Justice Ivan Rand’s pronouncement that picket lines act as

“an intrusion into the affairs of another with the purpose of causing as much economic

injury as possible,” to the Supreme Courts’ decisions in the 1990s that Charter rights are only

applicable to individuals and not to collective organizations such as trade unions, laws in

Canada in general have favoured the interests of property owners over workers. The right of

Pocklington to continue operating a plant, and thereby enjoy the use and profits of his

property, was placed higher than workers’ rights to free speech and all Edmontonians’ right

to assemble.

The labour laws in Alberta, despite the reversal of Justice Dea’s decision that bridging

clauses were not binding, consistently favoured employers, especially in how the Labour

Relations Board and the Courts interpreted them: the 24 hour lockouts and rulings allowing

spin-off companies were still common practices in 1988.120 According to Deborah Radcliffe,

the Gainers strike transformed the existing labour laws into a political issue.121 University of

Alberta law professor James Robb claimed at the time that Alberta labour laws were harsher

118 Alberta Federation of Labour, “AFL Condemns Labour Law,” Press Release, June 4, 1986. 119 Matthew Fisher, “Non Union Workers Force their Way into Edmonton Plant,” Globe and Mail, June 4, 1986. 120 E. G. Fisher and James C. Robb, “The Labour Legislation Review Committee’s Final Report 1987,” Alberta Law Review 26, no. 2 (Winter 1988): 294. 121 Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 250.

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than other industrial provinces that had seen more picket line violence in the past.122 The

reason for picket line violence, Robb asserted, was the permissiveness of using scab labour.

According to Robb and business scholar E.G. Fisher, the strength of a union varied with the

availability of replacement workers so that during periods of low unemployment and high

profits, as Alberta had enjoyed throughout the post-war boom, unions were economically

strong. 123 In the 1980s workers could not easily find replacement jobs and there was a ready

pool of surplus labour for companies to draw upon which, combined with companies’

slimmer profit margins, made them less willing to either increase benefits or wages, or engage

in protracted labour negotiations. Rather, it was easier to simply hire replacement workers,

and labour relations deteriorated badly from workers’ perspective in the 1980s. Anna Maria

Tremonti for the CBC explicitly linked the conflict at Gainers not only to the concessions

that UFCW took in the 1984 negotiations, but to the overall context of Alberta labour

relations, from the de-unionization in the construction industry to the attacks on the nurses

in 1983.124 In the spring and summer of 1986, however, there was a push back from working

people across the province directed at the government as well as employers.

Reporter Kevin Peterson commented at the end of June:

When a population in that kind of defensive, reflective mood [due to high unemployment] is confronted by someone with the lack of compassion and tactics of a capitalist like Pocklington, they react. The free enterpriser himself will not be the only one to feel the heat, his fellow travellers in government and industry will catch their share of the fallout too. . . . Pocklington’s actions have undone the accomplishments of hundreds of human resources officers in Calgary. What’s happening at Gainers is a cruel reminder that the bosses

122 James Robb quoted in Bob Gilmour, “Consumers ‘Driving Force’ Behind Strike,” Edmonton Journal, June 16, 1986. 123 Fisher and Robb, “Labour Legislation Review,” 295. 124 CBC news, Edmonton, June 4, 1986.

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cannot always be counted on for compassion. Both the election results and the poll support for Gainers strike indicate that Albertans are beginning to look more and more to their government for that protection.125

NDP leader Ray Martin echoed the observation at the beginning of June that people were

demanding the government take action: “There is a pro-labor feeling developing here. It is

up to the Government to provide laws that are decent and fair to management and labor.”126

In the throne speech on June 12 a review of the labour legislation was mentioned briefly, but

as Martin pointed out, the situation was “beyond studying,” and the government “should do

something concrete.”127 As Calgarian Michael James commented, Albertans were not

convinced by the Alberta government’s attempt to keep the conflict at arms’ length, stating

“[Premier Getty] should stop using the courts and the police to do his dirty work.”128

Reporter Lorne Slotnick articulated the altered atmosphere in Alberta during the first

month of the Gainers strike: “Something does seem to have snapped in Alberta, and not just

in the minds of the Gainers strikers. There is a do-or-die atmosphere in the province’s labor

circles these days, a feeling that the setbacks have gone far enough.”129 Not only trade

unionists at Gainers, or the labour movement in general, but the overall population of

Alberta were unhappy with the direction that Alberta was moving politically, economically,

and socially. Even the right-wing Representative Party leader Raymond Speaker commented

that people had made the connection between their personal, individual struggles and

broader political and economic issues: “People have used up their unemployment insurance

125 Original emphasis. Kevin Peterson, “Pocklington Has Created Climate for Change,” Calgary Herald, June 29, 1986. 126 Matthew Fisher, “Non Union Workers Force their Way into Edmonton Plant,” Globe and Mail, 4 June 1986. 127 Ray Martin press conference, CBC news, Edmonton, June 12, 1986. 128 Michael James, letter to the Editor, Edmonton Journal, June 14, 1986. 129

Lorne Slotnick, “Do or Die: Alberta’s Labor Movement Draws the Line,” The Globe and Mail, June 18, 1986.

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and their savings. There was a time when they tried to fight their problems privately. Now

they’re coming out in public.”130 The frustration and determination of struggling workers

across the province was embodied and articulated at the Gainers picket line, which drew

people from across the province. Slotnick reported “’Usually, people run from a picket line

where there are arrests, now we have people saying they want to get arrested.’ ‘We’re not out

for blood,’ one said, ‘but we’ve got to stop those buses.’”131 In a1987 interview when asked

about taking concessions to keep jobs Dave Werlin replied:

When faced with that sort of Hobson’s choice and there is no money to put food on the table for your children, then people have to make some very, very hard decisions and yes, it’s better to work for $8.00 an hour doing a $16.00 an hour job than it is not to work at all. But that surely shouldn’t be the way in which we construct our society, that you have to be faced with those kinds of choices.132

The Gainers strike was not merely about the meatpackers, but about Alberta workers and

their unhappiness with Minister Young’s new reality. Although few articulated the issue as

clearly as Dave Werlin, that their society should not be such that they were forced to make

choices between accepting a lower wage than a job was worth or not working, people were

unhappy with the lack of economic options they had, and Gainers was a microcosm of this.

This explains why the Gainers strike garnered so much public support, and why tactics that

were unchallenged in previous labour disputes created opposition amongst Albertans. The

frustration of workers and citizens was exacerbated by the state’s clearly partisan attempts to

control the picket line through court injunctions and police arrests of strikers and escorts of

130 Tony Saloway, “Labor Getting a Boost,” Edmonton Sun, June 15, 1986. 131 Lorne Slotnick, “Do or Die: Alberta’s Labor Movement Draws the Line,” The Globe and Mail, June 18, 1986. 132 Dave Werlin and Don Aitken interview, Athabasca University (AU) Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour segment, 18.

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strikebreakers, in addition to the government’s belated and reluctant appointment of a

disputes inquiry, continued purchase of Gainers products, and lack of inspections. “The

strike turned into a classical case of class war,” according to Koskinas, “with labour and

community to oppose, antagonize and battle the company, state, and the government.”133

The violence of the picket line was not only a symptom of the vehemence of the strikers in

protecting their jobs, but also a consequence of the generalized unhappiness of the working

class. While violence captured people’s attention across Alberta, it was the injustice faced by

the workers and the promise of concrete ways to address not only inadequate labour laws,

but the social-economic problems of the 1980s more generally, which created outstanding

solidarity that epitomized the Gainers strike.

133 Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 188.

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Image 4.1: Rally at the Legislature on its opening day, June 12. Estimates put the crowd

around 8 000. Photo: Edmonton Journal archives.

Image 4.2: Police outnumber picketers while arresting them. Edmonton Sun, June 13, 1986. Photo: Robert Taylor, Sun Media Group.

The caption read: Under Arrest. Above, police scuffle with striker Karen Sturnpf as they attempt to arrest her. At left CBC cameraman Herb Tyler is led away, arrested on a traffic ticket charge as he tried to film the Stumpf arrest.

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Image 4.3: Police and picketers, reading left to right for motion. A portion of this image is the cover of the new Alberta labour history book: Working People in Alberta edited by Alvin Finkel. “Violence mounts in meat strike,” Calgary Herald June 4, 1986. Photo: Jim Cochrane, Edmonton Journal archives.

Image 4.4: Strikebreaker and picketers, “Gainers Injunction Met with Violence,” front page Edmonton Journal, June 3, 1986; and reprinted with Marilyn Moysa, “Union Rights come full circle,” Edmonton Journal, April 26, 1987. Photo: Chris Schwartz, Edmonton Journal archives.

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Image 4.5 Accompanying the article “Hog Wars: Buses Run Gauntlet,” police officers run interference and remove a picketer from the path of buses full of strikebreakers, Edmonton Sun June 4, 1986. Photo by Gary Bartlett, Sun Media.

Image 4.6: Ironic image of police: front page, “Police out in force on quiet picket line: ‘no intent to scare,’” Edmonton Journal June 9, 1986. Photo: Bruce Edwards, Edmonton Journal archives.

The caption read: More than 50 officers in riot gear were among the 100 Edmonton city police dispatched Sunday to the Gainers plant to enforce the injunction. “This is Canada, this is supposed to be a free country, the police are the worst scabs,” one man yelled. Others offered Nazi salutes and shouts of “Gestapo.”

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Chapter 5 In Solidarity: Edmonton’s Ecumenical Coalition, A National Boycott, and the

Change the Law Campaign

In the previous chapter picket line violence and picket line solidarity were

highlighted. Not only were individuals within UFCW 280-P willing to be arrested, or run at

by buses, or even attacked by the riot police, but so were many of their supporters within the

labour movement and beyond. Solidarity efforts, however, were not limited to the picket-

line, and after the union decided to obey the injunction in late June solidarity efforts

continued despite the most obvious outlet for support no longer being available. The two

main ways that Canadians showed their support was through a boycott of Gainers products

and by contributing money to the strike fund. The Gainers boycott began unofficially in

Edmonton and Alberta within the first month, but the official AFL-led provincial boycott

campaign did not start until the beginning of July and the UFCW national boycott began at

the end of August. The boycott provided crucial support to pressure Gainers back to the

bargaining table as the picket line was no longer preventing production at the plant. A cross-

country tour of rank-and-file strikers generated awareness of the issues of the conflict, raised

funds to top up strike pay, collected Christmas presents for the strikers’ children, and

secured boycott promises from unions and grocers. Within Alberta the two other main

avenues that people could take to support the Gainers strikers were the Edmonton Churches

Coalition for Labour and Justice and the AFL’s Change the Law Campaign.1

1 The AFL played a central role in the strike, as well as in their own Change the Law Campaign. Konstantinos Koskinas, “Prolegomena to a Theory of Working Class Culture: Organizational, Ideological, and Ideological Praxis of the Alberta Federation of Labour, 1979-1986,” PhD diss, University of Alberta, 1987, 157, 162; and Deborah Radcliffe, “Understanding Labour Law Reform in Alberta: 1986-1988,” PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1997, 90.

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Both the Change the Law campaign and the Coalition reached beyond the organized

labour community. The Coalition for Labour and Justice was an ecumenical group that

formed during the Gainers strike and continued to serve as a link between social activists in

various Edmonton churches and the labour movement after the strike ended. Mainly

concerned by the violence that erupted early on, the Coalition was subject to the

contradictory impulses of any group that is broadly based and striving to be non-partisan. It

was clear early on that the Coalition’s main sympathies were with the workers, but despite

radical and visionary messages from some members, others were more concerned with the

peaceful resolution of the conflict than a broader critique of social and economic relations.

The coalition tried to mediate the conflict and called for greater government involvement to

help settle the negotiations at Gainers. The AFL’s campaign, on the other hand, took aim at

the government’s Labour Legislation Review Committee and focused on mobilizing the

public to pressure the government to improve labour laws. The labour movement sought

further protection for workers and unions in the face of eroding standards and, most

importantly, changing laws that were clearly unfavourable to the working class. The AFL

used the Gainers strike as a spring-board in criticizing the whole labour relations system in

Alberta in the mid-1980s, and while the AFL viewed the recommendations of the Final Report

of the Labour Legislation Review Committee as a step back in terms of worker and union rights,

the Coalition saw it as an improvement that would help prevent another Gainers strike. The

impressiveness of the solidarity around the Gainers strike is that, despite the wide range

between the more radical goal of changing labour relations in Alberta that the AFL had and

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the moderate aim of an almost corporatist peace advocated by some members of the

Coalition, solidarity blossomed in Edmonton, in Alberta, and across the country.

Ecumenical Solidarity

The Coalition’s purpose was to discover the facts of the Gainers strike, to respond to

parishioners’ questions, and to address the violence on the picket line: the need to respond to

the conflict, according to one member of the Social Justice Coalition, was “almost in the

air.”2 The social justice movement had been strong in the 1970s, and churches including the

United Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Christian Reformed

Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Mennonites and the Lutheran Church, were variously

involved in connected social justice efforts and had a history of working together on specific

issues, including Solidarity Alberta and the Friends of Medicare.3 Part of the social teaching

was a respect for the dignity of human labour, respect of workers’ right to organize, and a

concern to live out social teachings, and these ideas that connected religious and economic

issues played an important role in the decisions of the Coalition.

Progressive elements within the Canadian Catholic Church stated their support of

labour unions earlier in 1986 and accurately assessed the reasons for labour’s vulnerability. A

pamphlet distributed by the Catholic Social Justice Committee of Edmonton at the June 12

rally at the Legislature to the predominantly labour crowd stated in part that unions and the

labour movement were at a critical juncture due to high unemployment, contracting out,

2 Gail Allan, personal interview, November 19, 2012, Toronto, Ontario. 3 The formation of the Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice was made easier by the fact that different social justice organizations from various churches were already sharing office space in the Collective building. Allan, interview, November 19, 2012.

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union-busting, court challenges, anti-union legislation, and efforts to reduce collective

bargaining rights.4 Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter “On Human Work,” in 1981

wrote that to achieve social justice across the globe there was a need “for ever new

movements of solidarity of the workers and with the workers.”5 He called for Catholics to

engage in solidarity efforts when faced with the “social degrading of the subject of work, by

exploitation of the workers, and by the growing areas of poverty and even hunger.” At

Gainers, there was a strong sense that workers were being exploited given the 1984

concessions and the very apparent power differential between Pocklington and the workers.

Linda Winski, a Catholic Social Justice advocate, commented that “Peter Pocklington was

seen as kind of a guy who was just abusing power in ways that we just didn’t want to

stomach anymore. And here was an opportunity [to do something about that].”6 Yet the

Gainers strike was about more than Pocklington, and reflected the broader economic and

social changes that were creating unemployment and hardship for Albertans.7 Winski recalled

the importance of both the Encyclical and the statement of the Canadian Conference of

Catholic Bishops, which acted as guides to explore and affirm the meaning of justice and as a

call for individuals of faith to live in accordance with the principle of justice. Winski

described the Gainers strike as “an explosion in our community that just reeked of injustice.

It was an invitation, a time, a moment, where I think a number of people who struggled with

4 Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches: 1986 (Edmonton: Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice, 1987), 6. 5 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 3. 6 Linda Winski, personal interview, October 22, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 7 Although Winski concedes that it is possible that “maybe [Pocklington] got targeted,” she continues to say that the protest “was broader than just him, too.” Winski, interview, October 22, 2012.

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questions of how to live out their faith, and say ‘how does my faith connect to some of these

issues in society and what am I called to do?’” could form concrete answers.8

In 1986 the United Church of Canada had also issued a quite radical statement

regarding labour, calling for support of policies that “place the needs for employment and

well-being of people and the sustainability of communities ahead of the free movement of

capital,” as well as policies that “affirm that the needs of the poor have priority over the

wants of the rich, the freedom of the dominated must have priority over the liberty of the

powerful and that the participation of the marginalized must take priority over the

preservation of an order that excludes them.”9 Gail Allan, a United Church activist, spoke at

the Coalition’s Labour Day service and conveyed the common sense of frustration with the

economic hardships, the abandonment of previous social contracts between employers and

workers, and the government’s lack of increased social support while unemployment

skyrocketed:

What I think has happened is that the issues in a crisis which has been gradually building over the past few years in this province have become very clear in the labour struggles of this long long summer, and many people including those gathered here, have said enough, this situation affects all of us and we will become involved, in whatever way we can find, in trying to change it and in support of those most closely involved in these struggles.10

Issues of economic justice continued to be important ones for Allan, as “a big part of how I

understand the injustice of the world is the economic inequalities of the world we live in.”

These economic inequalities did not stem simply from inadequate wages, but extended to

8 Winski, interview, October 22, 2012. 9 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 7. 10 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 37.

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working conditions, issues of power and silencing the marginalized, and an unjust system of

sharing resources.11

The Gainers strike was an opportunity to critique societal inequalities from the

Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and Justice’s perspective. Linda Winski reflected

that the strike:

certainly was the opportunity to awaken a lot people to some of the issues in ways they might not have been as involved if the churches hadn’t been working with union folks as well, because that’s a whole different population and making that connection between scripture values and justice issues, [and] you know labour issues. It certainly encouraged and provided an opportunity for reflection.12

Allan also posited the Gainers strike caused not only an awakening in terms of raised

awareness of issues, but it also created a sense of moral compulsion to act and “for some

people it was the first time they had experienced that needing to be out there and active.”13

The Gainers strike provided a forum for action, so that when people felt “called to give voice

to injustices, and to call for a different reality, and . . . called to stand by those who are

marginalized who do not have the powerful [on side] or the power” they could join the

prayer service.14 The Coalition, for Winski, created an opening for religious people to act that

was not on the violent picket line: “here was something they could put their feet on the

ground and put their bodies right in the space where stuff was happening and bring prayer to

that and bring a sense of reflection” to the situation.15

11 Allan, interview, November 19, 2012. 12 Winski, interview, October 22, 2012. 13 Allan, interview, November 19, 2012. 14 Winski, interview, October 22, 2012. 15 Winski, interview, October 22, 2012.

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On Saturday June 7, in conjunction with community and church people, the Alberta

Federation of Labour organized a rally of 3�000 that marched to the Gainers plant from the

nearby St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church.16 On Monday June 9 the Franciscan Friars held

an ecumenical meeting; many of their congregation were workers at the meatpacking plant

and the Church felt that it needed to be with its people and to promote reconciliation.17

Clergy and lay members were present for the first Coalition meeting, and UFCW’s Ed

Seymour and John Ewasiw presented their side of the conflict. The Coalition worked to

prepare a statement for the opening of the legislature at the rally planned by the Alberta

Federation of Labour, and on ways to communicate and educate members of their various

constituent faith communities. The first morning prayer service took place on June 11 after

the second injunction was issued.18 At 6:30 am a procession left St Francis Church with a

wooden cross. Many of the church leaders were concerned about their act of civil

disobedience, and unlike the exuberance with which some picketers greeted the prospect of

being arrested, the idea of violating the injunction was not a comfortable one for those

gathered to pray. Lutheran minister Roy Pudrycki described how the decision of who would

carry the cross was made:

We went around the circle. Finally Linda Winski volunteered. Not a man around that table, and there must have been 15, many of us priests and pastors, would do it. I suddenly understood why all the disciples chickened out at Jesus’ crucifixion. The disciples ran away from the possibility of literally being strung up. We were only being asked to make a symbolic statement, and we lost our courage.19

16 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 9-10. 17 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 11. 18 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 12. 19 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 12.

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At the limits of the prohibited zone of the injunction, three people carried the cross on to

the site and returned with some strikers and media. Scripture was followed by intercessory

prayers for all involved in the strike and for global justice. The group continued their prayers

daily, having overcome their initial trepidation more convinced of the necessity of prayer. On

the second morning the group officially formed the Ecumenical Prayer Coalition. Daily

prayers continued through to August, held as close to the plant as possible with the intention

to minister to people where they were most needed. In the fall the morning prayer services

were decreased to Mondays and Thursdays, but the ritual still began at St Francis at 6:45 am

with the carrying of the cross to an old water tower inside the picket line, and then a song,

scripture reading, reflection, and intercessory prayers led by a volunteer. The evening the

local voted on the settlement in December a prayer service was held at the Garneau United

Church, and the next morning the final prayer service occurred as the strikers returned to

work.20

Besides organizing prayer services, the Edmonton Church Coalition on Labour and

Justice also participated in the Charter challenge to the second injunction. The challenge was

dismissed by Justice Cavanagh, who accused the churches of chasing media attention, rather

than reaching to God.21 As June wore on church publications reported on the strike,

emphasizing the justice issues in the conflict and the actions and purpose of the Ecumenical

Prayer Coalition. Members of the Coalition on Labour and Justice contacted MLAs and

encouraged public awareness of the issues. The AFL Change the Law campaign and boycott

were supported by many members, who distributed literature, discussed the issues with their

20 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 21. 21 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 15.

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communities, and organized workshops and forums. It is important to note that there was

no unanimity: the Presbytery of the United Church narrowly rejected a resolution to support

the boycott, and the topics of labour reform and Gainers were debated passionately.22 The

United Church did endorse a letter to Labour Minister Reid that declared that hiring

strikebreakers was an unfair labour practice and that refusing to reinstate employees after a

legal strike or lockout was also unfair, even if no new collective agreement had been

reached.23 The Catholic Church unofficially supported a national boycott and a call for

solidarity was sent out through the Catholic New Times in September.24 Compared explicitly to

the California grape boycott and the Nestle boycott, the article stated:

It is time to show solidarity closer to home. The Gainers strike has national implications. If Pocklington is successful in destroying the union at his Edmonton plant, the rights of workers across Alberta and Canada will be seriously eroded. At this stage a negotiated settlement will depend on the actions of ordinary people across Canada. A just settlement at Gainers will send a signal all across Canada that Canadians care about the basic human rights of workers.25

The boycott, as this article shows, presented a tantalizing prospect to people, not only in

Alberta but across Canada, to try to change the depressing trajectory of eroding workers’

rights.

Supporting the boycott was a partisan action, but the company had rebuffed the

Coalition’s attempts to act as mediator several times, including rejecting an invitation to

speak to the group the week they formed and to participate in a public forum in the fall,

both of which UFCW accepted. The purpose of the Coalition was to encourage a peaceful

22 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 17. 23 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches,, 17. 24 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 18. 25 “Gainers and Losers,” Catholic New Times, September 28, 1986, quoted in Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 18.

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resolution to the conflict and to promote open communication between all the concerned

parties, most especially the farmers, the company and the union, but also to advocate justice.

This last purpose served to incline the Coalition’s sympathies more towards the strikers than

the company. Besides the fact that Gainers refused to deal fairly with its workers through the

more neutral Labour Relations Board negotiations and Dubensky Inquiry mediation

attempts, the Coalition’s efforts to be a mediator probably met with limited success in part

because, although the Coalition did desire an end to the conflict, it was clear that it had

stronger ties to the workers. Workers consistently attended the daily prayer sessions and

union leaders communicated openly with the Coalition, keeping it appraised of negotiation

developments as well as discussing their views of the underlying issues and expressing

appreciation for the Coalition’s efforts, from the prayer service to their support of the

injunction challenge in June.

Company representatives finally met with the Coalition on November 13, after

months of being unwilling to do anything but talk by phone, and company spokesman Doug

Ford attended the second public forum hosted by the Church in Society Committee of the

Garneau United Church three days later. A comment from the floor during the first public

forum suggesting that Pocklington be burned in effigy was the sensational moment on which

the media focused, and led to Ford accusing the Churches of being a partisan voice for the

workers.26 At the November 16 forum Ford represented the company, John Ewasiw and Ed

Seymour were present for the union, and Glen Greenhough appeared for the pork

26 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 19.

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producers.27 Ford recommended that the union accept their June 13 proposal (the union had

already rejected the improved offer of the mediator that emerged from it) and the union felt

that they were the only party willing to compromise and were being asked to give up too

much. The two sides “seemed as polarized as ever” at the conclusion of the forum, but at

least he Coalition was attempting to address the issues the emerged in the strike.28

The ecumenical solidarity of the Coalition was not simply an expression of justice

arising from sacral trends unrelated to contemporary events. The actions of the Coalition

drew on global strands of social justice teachings and attempts to address the growing

injustices, including in the economic sphere. The reaction and actions of these church groups

and religious individuals was a response to the same influences that had precipitated the

Gainers strike and the generalized labour revolt in Alberta. There was commonality between

the issues the Catholic and United Churches sought to address. For the former there was the

lack of respect for the dignity of human work and the withdrawal of social services to aid the

downtrodden, sick, and poor, and for the later the growing economic inequalities, including

rising rates of unemployment and job insecurity, the privileging of capital, and the attacks on

union and workers’ rights. From a different perspective than the labour movement people,

Gail Allan, a member of the United Church, also saw that society was in a moment of moral

crisis, and this crisis offered people both an opportunity for awareness of the connections

between everyday conditions of life and the power relations that caused them, and,

significantly, a chance to take action to change social, political, and economic reality.

27 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 21. 28 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 21.

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Much as labour leaders saw the strike as a chance to raise class consciousness and

question the existing labour relations system, the ecumenical community regarded the

conflict as an event highlighting awareness of social justice issues, and a call to promote

personal reflection and action to encourage a more just society. The Gainers strike provided

an opportunity for the tangible expression of faith through prayers on the picket line and

activism to pressure both sides to resolve their issues peacefully. Pocklington’s abuse of

power necessitated opposition and, more broadly, a stand against the victimization of the

marginalized. Nonetheless, there were fundamental limitations to what the Coalition on

Labour and Justice could accomplish. Father Edward Kennedy noted that church leaders

were reluctant to make a forceful public or political critique of the strike, and that the

coalition was “an ad hoc committee with no real authority from [their] churches.”29

Boycott Gainers!

Printed material in support of the strikers, and later for the boycott, abounded, much

of printed by organizations other than UFCW. Picketers interrupted a meeting of Prime

Minister Mulroney with Edmonton Progressive Conservatives and held up a continuous

printout that said “Pocklington Sucks” over more than seven pages, featuring drawings of a

couple of pigs at either end. Stickers, posters, yard signs, and bumper stickers advertised the

boycott. The common slogan was “Justice Means Parity” and a red circle with a diagonal line

(like traffic prohibition signs) imposed over the stylized ‘G’ of the Gainers logo. Double-

sided lawn signs read “Boycott Gainers on one side and “Change the Law” on the other.

29 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 28.

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Posters declared “In South Africa it’s injustice, in Alberta it’s . . . injunction!” the message

enhanced by a picture of the riot squad. Other stickers read “Go Flames Go, Boycott

Gainers and Swifts.”30 Fact sheets listed all the various brands that Gainers products were

sold under, and emphasized that the product code that would appear on all of them was 18B.

The boycott started unofficially long before the nation-wide tour in September, with

numerous people refusing to buy Gainers products, especially during June when the meat

inspectors were not willing or able to cross the picket line, and then in July when concerns

over food safety emerged based on the inexperience of the strikebreaker workforce.31 One of

the first information pickets was held at the Save-On Foods store on 34 Avenue, on the

south side of Edmonton in June. Strikers and their supporters not only tried to discourage

customers from buying Gainers products, but also stores from carrying them. Long-time

Gainers worker Gerry Beauchamp explained the appeal that strikers made to grocery stores:

most customers were workers, including unionized workers who had income to buy meat

regularly because of the wages they negotiated through collective bargaining, and though

Pocklington might offer good prices to the stores, he was not the customer.32 Many of the

grocery stores saw the striker’s logic or felt sufficient public pressure not to carry Gainers

products. For those grocers and butchers who did not agree to stop carrying Gainers

products in Edmonton, the union set up information pickets outside to actively discourage

customers from entering the store at all, let alone buying Gainers products. The power of the

30 File I38 UFCW strike publications, leaflets, posters, etc., EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton (hereafter PAA). 31 Federal Inspector representative Fred Coates commented on the lack of margin for error for the replacement workers given food safety issues, stating “That is not a furniture factory . . . they are making food products for you and I to put on our dinner table.” CBC news, Edmonton, June 6, 1986. 32 Vicky and Gerry Beauchamp, personal interview, August 20, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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boycott, however, was not simply derived from strikers intimidating shoppers, but by the

moral appeal made to Canadians’ sense of justice.

The strikers gave out records of their song “Battle of 66th Street” and pins with “You

Can’t Jail the Strike” on them.33 In Edmonton militant supporters of the strikers would fill

up grocery carts of Gainers products and then leave them to go bad in the aisles. Other

members broke the keys off tinned meats. One boycott participant, Debbie Morris, stated

“It’s our way of showing support to people on strike. The idea is intended to put pressure on

people to get back to the bargaining table.”34 With the fizzling of the picket line by July to the

levels approved by the injunction, Gainers was able to bring in both hogs and replacement

workers and continue production. The continued production by replacement workers, who

cost less in terms of both benefits and wages, meant there was no significant economic

pressure on Gainers to negotiate a new collective agreement. Another source of economic

pressure was needed, and a boycott was the logical choice, especially in the face of the

actions of the courts and police. A Porklington News article further noted that a truly

successful boycott required a great deal of work: “Boycotts are won by meeting face to face

with people and telling them your story. That’s why we have the boycott tour. And it is

working.”35

On August 26, at the commencement of the boycott tour, striker Rick Chaba

travelled to Grand Prairie, Alberta for a day. He spoke on a call-in radio show, talked to two

radio stations while on an Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) picket line, 33 Chorus: We’re Gainers workers taking a stand/In a fight for decent wages/Parity is our demand/We’ve got nothin’ left to lose/And everything to gain/We’ll be on this picket line/Till the labour laws are changed. “Battle of 66th Street Song,” Porklington News 2, no. 10 (July 30, 1986). From the private files of Renée Peevey. 34 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 18. 35 “Strikes Aren’t Always Won on the Picket Line,” Porklington News 4, no. 4 (September 24, 1986).

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visited several grocery stores to see if Gainers products were being stocked, and rounded off

the day by attending an AUPE membership meeting and an assembly of the International

Brotherhood of Construction Workers. The union strike newsletter reported that Chaba

generally felt that “the response was quite good especially when he was able to explain the

situation as it [was] in Edmonton,” and that his reception was “warm and cordial.”36 As Sara

Wimberley and Jessica McClean point out, information received from people rather than

simply texts, can carry more weight, and placing a human face on the boycott and strike

encouraged citizens to participate.37

In one humourous case, Vicky Beauchamp described how the assistant manager of a

Mr Grocer in Ontario ended up taking turkeys off the shelf because they had the Swift label,

even though they were produced by another company. She and several other strikers had

visited the store earlier in the week to request that the owner not buy Gainers products and

had been met with belligerence. The strikers warned they would return on Saturday for an

information picket, and when a couple of buses filled with ironworkers, communication

workers, and autoworkers arrived to reinforce the line the manager on duty hurriedly cleared

the meat counters of all Gainers and Swifts products and insisted that Vicky come into the

store to confirm that no boycotted goods remained. That was when Vicky discovered that

not only had the manager removed the Gainers label, but had gone so far as to remove the

Swift turkeys.38

36 “Chaba Goes to Grand Prairie,” Porklington News 4, no. 1 (September 3, 1986). 37 Sara Wimberley and Jessica McClean, “Supermarket Savvy: the Everyday Information-Seeking Behavior or Grocery Shoppers,” Information and Culture: A Journal of History 47, no. 2 (2012): 176-205. 38 Although some Gainers products were sold under the Swifts’ label, the turkey operation was a separate company. Vicky Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012.

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Although the motivations of individual boycott participants can vary, they typically

occur as a response to an egregious act and are the attempt to change or eliminate unethical

or socially irresponsible behaviour.39 Kim Nelson argues that a person’s principles are one of

the ways that people make decisions, and that consumer choices therefore may be based on

moral considerations, rather than economic ones. 40 While Karin Braunsberger and Brian

Buckle view boycotts through the neo-liberal frame of individual action and consumer

sovereignty, the power of any boycott lies in collective action, and as Phaedra Pezullo argues,

can be regarded as political action.41 Boycotting increased four-fold between 1974 and 1999,

a period coinciding with the withdrawal of state intervention in corporate affairs on behalf of

citizens amidst the rise of neo-liberalism.42 Jeremy Gilbert made the critique of neo-liberalism

that it offers more choices, but less democracy, as the available choices are limited so as to

offer no serious threats to established power relations, or to broaden the scope of

decisions.43 Political consumption has the appearance of the ability to enact meaningful

39 Karin Braunsberger and Brian Buckler, “What Motivates Consumers to Participate in Boycotts: Lessons from the Ongoing Canadian Seafood Diet,” Journal of Business Research 64, no. 1 (2011): 96-102. 40 Eleni Papaoikonomou, Gerard Ryan, and Mireia Valverde, “Mapping Ethical Consumer Behaviour: Integrating the Empirical Research and Identifying Future Directions,” Ethics and Behavior 21, no. 3 (2011): 197-221; and Kim A. Nelson, “Decision Making and Image Theory: Understanding Value-Laden Consumer Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 14, no. 1/2 (2004): 28-40. 41 Klein and John approach boycotting from an individual, independent rational market actor perspective, and therefore are highly puzzled by what motivates ordinary citizens to participate when there is little direct individual reward. Andrew John and Jill Klein, “The Boycott Puzzle: Consumer Motivations for Purchase Sacrifice,” Management Science 49, no. 9 (September 2003): 1197. The efficacy of boycotting can be hard to judge without inside knowledge of a company’s losses. Braunsberger and Buckle, “What Motivates Consumers,” 97; Phaedra Pezzulo,“Contextualizing Boycotts and Buycotts: The Impure Politics of Consumer-Based Advocacy in an Age of Global Ecological Crisis,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 8, no. 2 (June 2011): 128-29, 139; and Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe, and Michele Micheletti, “Politics in the Supermarket: Political Consumerism as a Form of Political Participation,” International Political Science Review 26, no.3 (July 2005): 246. 42 The idea that neo-liberalism marks a turn to deregulation has been challenged by Konings who argues that it is a change in regulations and types of government intervention in the economy. Martijn Konings, “American Finance and Empire in Historical Perspective,” in American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance, ed. Leo Panitch and Martijn Konings (Basingtoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 48-68. 43 Jeremy Gilbert, quoted in Pezzulo, “Impure Politics,” 127.

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change in today’s global economic context, giving political consumers a sense of

empowerment.44

Despite the debateable utility of boycotting multi-national corporations today,

consumer boycotts have been extremely successful in the past. The most famous North

American food example is the California table grape boycott in the late 1960s and early

1970s. With the support of Church groups (especially the Catholic Church) and boycotting

as the primary weapon in a recognition strike, the union acted as community organization,

used civil rights tactics, and dispersed strikers throughout the country to win consumer and

distributer support.45 There were striking similarities between the Gainers strike and the

United Farm Workers grape boycott, including ecumenical support, recourse to a boycott, as

well as the creation of social supports for the workers such as communal daycare and an

internal food bank. The governments’ partisan actions to help the employers were another

commonality. In the case of the California table grape boycott, not only did local courts pass

injunctions, but the US government directly countered the effects of the boycott by

increasing its purchase of grapes to send to Vietnam by a factor of five when the boycott

began.46

Following the model of the successful California grape strike and boycott, UFCW

sent over twenty rank and file strikers on a national boycott and solidarity tour.47 The strikers

were billeted with other UFCW packinghouse workers across the country or with family if

they had them there. Vicky Beauchamp was one of the strikers on tour the longest: she 44 Stolle, Hooghe and Micheletti, “Politics in the Supermarket,” 248, 250, 260-61. 45 Richard Hurd, “Organizing the Working Poor: The California Grape Strike Experience,” Review of Radical Political Economics 6, no. 1 (April 1974): 50-75. 46 Hurd, “Organizing the Working Poor,” 58, 62, 66, 67. 47 Gerry Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012; Hurd, “Organizing the Working Poor,” 58.

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traveled to Ontario in September and stayed through to November. Vicky and other strikers

talked to unions, showing a video that she had made in June in Toronto (You Can’t Jail the

Strike) and asked for strike support, including financial donations. The donations were

critical, Gerry Beauchamp pointed out, so strike pay could continue and picket line solidarity

could be maintained.48 The boycott tour was met with great popular support due in large part

to the groundwork that was laid before the strikers ever arrived at meetings and

conventions.49 Ron Roblin and Marg Dudka travelled to New Brunswick and collected $60

000 in donations from the Canadian Paperworkers Union Convention, equivalent to just

under one month’s worth of strike pay.50 The September 3 Porklington News reported a long

list of unions and individuals from across the country who had donated money to the strike

and the total of the donations listed was $ 22 678.10.51

Gerry Beauchamp was chosen to travel to Quebec because he had some spoken

French, though he needed help to create a written script. In a story that hints at the

complexity of the internal dynamics of the Canadian labour movement, Gerry ran into

resistance over playing the English-only You Can’t Jail the Strike. He recalled that at one

meeting someone asked “‘is the video in French?’ And I said ‘no, it’s in English.’ ‘Well we

don’t want to hear about it.’ So I kept talking in French to convince them you got see the

48 Gerry Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 49 Gerry Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 50 Vicky Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. Strike pay was $140 per week, per member, or a grand total of $15 120 per week for the local. “UFCW Strikers Well Received Throughout Canada,” Porklington News 4, no. 2 September 10, 1986); and Mike Mullen, “CPU Offers Cash, Hope to Striking Meat Packers,” Saint John Telegraph-Journal, September 9, 1986. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 51 Even before the boycott, the Newfoundland Fishermen Food and Allied workers union donated $10 000, and UFCW local 1000A donated $5 000, with the promise of $500 a week until the strike ended. “We Keep Getting Letters,” Porklington News 3, no. 4 (August 18, 1986); “Donations Still Flow In” and “Having Trouble Financially?” Porklington News 4, no. 1 (September 3, 1986).

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video because it’s all about the strike.”52 When the union finally agreed to play the video they

were convinced of the merit of the strike and did contribute their support.

Renée Peevey likewise described the support she encountered in the Maritimes as

“phenomenal.” Her various boycott tour activities included blind calls to local unions to talk

to workers, visiting grocery stores to check if Gainers products were on the shelves and

informing grocers about the fall meat recall, and speaking to radio, newspaper, and television

reporters.53 She spoke to the workers at a Newfoundland distribution house who believed

that they would lose their jobs if they refused to handle Gainers products, when the amount

of Gainers products they handled was miniscule and they were not truly in danger of losing

their jobs. These fellow UFCW workers offered financial support to 280-P, and when they

stopped distributing Gainers products no one lost their jobs. Peevey described how many

people were removed from what was happening in Edmonton, but “once you spoke with

them the support was phenomenal. But they needed to really know.” A large part of her task

was to dispel false information and give people the facts, a task made easier by people’s

genuine curiosity. “People were really hungry for information: I think because it seemed such

an oddity that something like this could be happening in small town Edmonton. You know,

Edmonton didn’t figure on the map as a place that a strike of this magnitude should be

happening.”54

52 Gerry Beauchamp interview, August 20, 2012. 53 One of these was the Peter Gzowski morning show in Toronto, Renée Peevey, personal interview, January 9, 2013, Edmonton, Alberta. 54 Peevey, interview, January 9, 2013.

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While Peevey was on tour in September tainted meat from Gainers caused two cases

of food poisoning in Nova Scotia.55 By October 9 the documented instances of unsafe

products included a case of food poisoning in New Brunswick, tainted meat in a Red Deer

hospital, green wieners in the small town of Vegreville outside Edmonton, and rancid ham in

Edmonton from a Food for Less store.56 Gainers voluntarily recalled a batch of 4 224

packages of Eversweet sliced ham with the best before date of September 29, and five

packages from Moncton, New Brunswick had 100 times the safe amount of staphylococcus

bacteria when tested by Agriculture Canada.57 Pocklington blamed the Edmonton Sun for the

$250 000 recall, stating that it was the story and public perception, not facts, that prompted

the recall. Spokesman Doug Ford maintained that the problem had not originated with the

plant saying “we’re pretty confident when it left here it was in pretty good shape,” and had

occurred in transportation or in the wholesale or retail refrigeration (a position that

Agriculture Canada supported).58 With deeper discounts being offered on bulk bacon from

Gainers in September (and the waning of strike intensity), it was once more rational for some

companies to carry Gainers products. Yet the boycott was so successful that Food for Less

tried to sell Gainers bacon in unlabelled packages, undeterred by the possibility of food

poisoning, and claiming that they had not been participating the in the boycott but had

merely ceased carrying Gainers when the supply became unreliable.59

The boycott efforts included not just talking to unionists and checking to see if

grocery stores were carrying Gainers products, but also urging facilities (such as the North 55 “Who’s Covering Up?” Porklington News 4, no. 3 (September 19, 1986). 56 “Did Gainers Threaten to Sue Government?” Porklington News 5, no. 2 (October 9, 1986). 57 Therese Kehler, “Gainers Recalls Ham: Feds Issue Eversweet Alert,” Edmonton Sun, September 18, 1986. 58 Brian Laghi, “Gainers Recalls Meat After Poisoning Reports,” Edmonton Journal, September 18, 1986. 59 “Bacon Back on Shelves,” Edmonton Sun, September 18, 1986.

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End Daycare Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia), restaurants and hotels (such as the Hotel

Convention Inn in Edmonton), and institutions and administrative bodies (such as the

Winnipeg Municipal Hospitals) not to buy and serve Gainers products, a task made easier

after the food poisoning cases.60 Some unions, like local 598 from the Sudbury Mine, Mill

and Smelter workers took out ads for the boycott in their local paper.61 According to UFCW,

Gainers distributors in Nova Scotia were receiving products back from stores because they

had not sold by the best-before date in September.62 The boycott tour was successful in

generating a widespread boycott and sustaining antipathy towards Gainers labour practices

that carried past the settlement in December. “We had the most successful boycott in

Canadian history, of anything,” Vicky Beauchamp stated. “The boycott was so successful

that even after the Gainers workers went back to work, many people continued to refuse to

buy Gainers products,” following the prediction that AFL president Werlin made in June

when he urged UFCW to begin a boycott.63 This celebration of the power of the boycott

implicitly acknowledges its double-edged nature as a strike tool for unions: while a boycott

may end a strike, a strike does not always end a boycott.64 The reason for the strength of the

boycott was the work done by strikers and their supporters across the country, as well as the

fact that meatpacking is a high volume, low profit margin business, which meant that

60 “Boycott Support Grows,” Porklington News 7, no. 1 (November 5, 1986); and “Boycott Tour Effective in Manitoba,” Porklington News 5, no. 2 (October 9, 1986). 61 “Sudbury Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Take Out Ad,” Porklington News 5, no. 2 (October 9, 1986). 62 “UFCW Strikers Well Received Throughout Canada,” Porklington News 4, no. 2 September 10, 1986). 63 Vicky Beauchamp interview, August 20, 2012. 64 Pezullo posits that a boycott’s efficacy is determined by the immediate, but finite financial damage that they can inflict, rather than acknowledging the continual financial damage that can result. Pezzulo, “Impure Politics,” 128.

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decreases in the volume of sales had a large impact on profits.65 Furthermore, less trained

and skilled replacement workers caused the production to fall from 1400 cases to 250 cases

per day, according to Koskinas.66

Boycotts have the potential to raise class awareness by asking people to think of

themselves as socially responsible citizens or fellow workers, rather than simply as

consumers.67 Boycotts were seen in the early twentieth century in the United States as tools

of coercion or intimidation, and, according to Wendy Wiedenhoft, as part of a broader

power struggle to control production.68 Although not over working conditions per se, the

Gainers boycott was directly related to the working relationship between the employer and

workers, and more generally addressed if capital was going to be allowed to blatantly crush

labour. Dana Frank noted that “independent of the impact on target, however, labor’s

consumer campaigns in the late nineteenth century without question contributed to a

grassroots class consciousness as working people, both male and female, brought labor

politics and solidarity to the most minute transactions of daily life.”69 Frank raises the

important issue of the gendered dynamics of boycotts. The ideal goal of a boycott, according

to Frank, is to marshal consumer power on behalf of working people to raise wages, living

standards, and improve working conditions, ideally in order to empower workers and create

65 There are over 80 boxes of unprocessed Gainers company files held by the Provincial Archives of Alberta from when the province seized the company in 1989. When they are processed and released they may provide a better idea of the effects the boycott had on the company. If one could trust the figures that Pocklington gave to the provincial government in 1985, only 1% of net sales were realized as profit, making it almost inconceivable that Gainers could have survived the boycott as long as it did. File 11 A Submission to the Government of Alberta from Gainers, May 27 1985, page 29, Premiers’ Files: Getty, PR1995.0445, PAA. 66 Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 158. 67 Wendy Wiedenhoft, “Consumer Tactics as Weapons: Black Lists, Union Labels, and the American Federation of Labor,” Journal of Consumer Culture 6, no. 2 (July 2006): 261-85. 68 Wiedenhoft, “Consumer Tactics as Weapons,” 268, 273. 69 Dana Frank, “Where Are the Workers in Consumer-Worker Alliances? Class Dynamics and the History of Consumer-Labor Campaigns,” Politics and Society 31, no. 3 (September 2003): 366.

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a just society based on equality and democracy.70 Although men have increasingly

participated in grocery shopping since the 1980s, even now in Canada foodwork remains

largely the responsibility of women. At the time of the Gainers strike women were to an even

greater degree the predominant shoppers.71 For this reason it was crucial that the boycott

tour members meet not just with local unions, but also with community groups and to picket

grocery stores in order to reach women consumers. Recent studies of ethical consumers have

found that women are more likely than men to participate in boycotts in general, making

female shoppers critical to a boycott’s success.72 Women, according to business scholars

Jörge Lindenmeier, Christoph Sleerer, and Denise Priscl, are more likely to participate in

boycotts for the simple reason that they are socially conditioned to care more about others’

welfare, and therefore to place a higher importance on the moral conduct of a business than

men.73 Women workers played a crucial and visible role in the boycott tour as spokespeople

for their union: vocal and militant rank-and-filer Vicky Beauchamp was chosen as the face of

the Gainers strikers in the You Can’t Jail the Strike video produced by the national office.

Nonetheless, the majority of the local executive, as well as the national representatives were

men.

70 Frank, “Where Are the Workers?” 365. 71 Gary Mortimer and Peter Clarke, “Supermarket Consumers and Gender Differences Relating to Their Perceived Importance Level of Store Characteristics,” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 18 (2011): 575; Brenda Beagan, Gwen Chapman, Andrea D’Sylva, and B Bassett. “‘It’s Just Easier for Me to Do It’: Rationalizing the Family Division of Foodwork,” Sociology 42, no. 4 (August 2008): 654. 72 Jörge Lindenmeier, Christoph Sleerer, and Denise Pricl, “Consumer Outrage: Emotional Reactions to Unethical Corporate Behaviour,” Journal of Business Research 65 (2012): 1369. 73 Problematically, this study did not address the gender division of labour in shopping. For instance, are men who do the majority of shopping for themselves as likely as men who have female family members to do it for them to participate in a consumer boycott? Lindenmeier, Sleerer, and Priscl, “Consumer Outrage,” 1366-70.

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One criticism made of the United Farm Workers grape boycott was that it took the

union’s emphasis away from organizing workers and directed energy towards convincing

consumers not to buy the product.74 A similar criticism can be made of the Gainers boycott:

for those workers not on the boycott tour, with only minimal picket duty, the boycott was

not as empowering as the initial month where workers themselves had a direct role in

fighting the company. Instead of being able to pressure Gainers back to the negotiating table

by preventing production, most strikers had to rely on the strangers’ abstention from

purchasing 18B products. Besides the problem of rank and file involvement and control of

the strike, another issue with boycotts is that they can result in the appearance of change

rather than actual change. Lindenmeier, Sleerer, and Priscl recommended that businesses

engage in a media campaign in the face of a boycott, rather than accede to demands:

“substantial changes in corporate conduct in response to activist’ actions (e.g. calls for

boycott) are disadvantageous to business objectives and thus do not represent a feasible

decision alternative for managers.”75 This advice exemplifies Harry Glasbeek’s thesis of

criminogenic corporations. Changing corporate policy due to a boycott could negatively

impact profits and therefore the ethical concerns of society should be discounted, according

to these academics.76

The human hardship of the strike was difficult to ignore as the strike wore on, and

was brought to the fore when in late fall the boycott tour began a Christmas drive to gather

74 Frank, “Where Are the Workers?” 367, 372. 75 Lindenmeier, Sleerer, and Priscl, “Consumer Outrage,” 1374. 76 See for example, Harry Glasbeek, Wealth by Stealth: Corporate Crime, Corporate Law, and the Perversion of Democracy (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002).

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presents for over 575 children of strikers at Gainers and Zeidler.77 People or unions across

Canada could adopt a striker and their family for Christmas and be given the letters that the

children wrote to Santa. Some of the first letters gathered were published in the union

newsletter, along with replies from Santa. One reply, to five year old Kenny Batchelor, hints

a little at the emotional and financial toll the strike was taking on strikers, who could not

afford to buy even inexpensive Christmas presents for their children:

Dear Kenny:

I just got your letter. When you say you have been pretty good, does it mean that you have been bad sometimes? If so, I haven’t heard about it so it must be that you have been better than pretty good. I will try my very best to make sure that you get at least one of the gifts you asked for.

Love, Santa78

Although the average spent on a child at Christmas was $150, most children had modest gift

requests, like a ball from a San Francisco store.79 A couple of members drove two semis

across Canada and back to Edmonton, picking up toys along the way.80 According to Peevey

there was an “outpouring of emotion and assistance all the way through,” that both surprised

and touched the strikers. She described being presented with her son’s gifts on stage at the

Ontario Federation of Labour convention, and how that brought home that what she was

doing was not just for other strikers, but for her own family as well, and it induced tears.

Besides the gifts her son had asked for, there “was an extra: an elderly man had made my son

77 “Christmas Fund Support Great,” Porklington News 7, no. 4 (November 27, 1986). 78 “Letters to Santa,” Porklington News 7, no. 1 (November 5, 1986). 79 One poster advertising for this asked people to “Buy 4 or 5 presents costing no more than $150. You’ll have their Santa letter, it’ll state their preferences. Please wrap and tag the gifts with the kid’s name. Only on one gift please put your name and leave the others blank for mom and dad.” From the personal files of Renée Peevey. 80 Vicky Beauchamp interview, August 20, 2012.

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a blanket, a quilt. And my son still has that blanket to this very day. And that was over and

above what he asked for.”81

The Change the Law Campaign

The Alberta Federation of Labour also saw an outpouring of support over and above

their expectations with the Change the Law Campaign. Local 280-P formed a sign committee

during the second week of July to place signs on front lawns, reading “Boycott Gainers” on

one side and “Change the Law” on the other. Within two days 500 signs had been planted

and a backlog of requests had formed.82 Many commentators pointed out that it was

Alberta’s labour laws that created the dangerous situation on the picket line by allowing

strikebreaking, which encouraged direct confrontations between picketers and the

strikebreakers. Strikebreaking workers, either part of the union on strike, or hired after the

conflict began, were legally entitled to cross the picket line in Alberta to perform the work of

the strikers. This guarantee was typically assured by a court injunction that limited the

number of picketers to a force too small to bodily prevent workers (or customers, suppliers,

or shippers) from crossing their line. As the legal right of strikers extended only to

information pickets, large numbers were presumed to be unnecessary, and could only serve

to interfere with the owners’ right to enjoy his or her property, particularly the right to

operate a facility with replacement workers during a labour dispute. The Alberta NDP

decried this practice, though it was commonplace in Canada except in Quebec, and for a

81 Peevey, interview, January 10, 2013. 82 “Boycott Gainers Signs Pick Up,” Porklington News 2, no. 5 (July 14, 1986); “Sign Campaign Started,” Porklington News 2, no. 4 (July 11, 1986); and “We Need,” Porklington News 2, no. 3 (July 9, 1986).

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brief period, in Ontario.83 It was the NDP who put forward an act to modify the Labour

Relations Act to give workers the right to return to work after a strike or lockout, prohibited

employers hiring, subcontracting, or employing other workers to perform the duties of

strikers except those necessary for safety and to prevent the deterioration of property, as well

as articles to prevent changes to working conditions without negotiation.84

The Change the Law signs served to make the Gainers strike and the existing labour

legislation implicitly political since they were seldom seen except during elections. The June

Change the Law campaign had its roots in earlier 1980s efforts to prevent further restrictive

labour legislation, such as Bill 44 and Bill 110.85 In Dave Werlin’s presidential address to the

1984 AFL convention he discussed the shortcomings of the 1983 War on 44 campaign,

diagnosing it as too slow to take off and too narrowly defined. Solidarity Alberta, conceived

in November of 1983 based on the B.C. model, was meant to respond quickly and decisively

to further legislative attacks not only on the labour movement, but also on working people in

general, including further cuts to social services, user fees in the healthcare system, and

monetary policies implemented by the provincial government. The key, Werlin emphasized,

was the AFL needed unity with non-affiliated unions and broader community organizations,

solidarity (and not half-hearted support that had characterized some locals’ response to War

on 44), and finally audacity in action. Although the newspapers were rife with military

comparisons in June of 1986, the AFL was already at war, having termed the deterioration of

83 James A. Latornell, Violence on the Picket Line: The Law and Police Response (Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre Press (Queen’s University), 1993). 84 Brian Strong’s amendments as published in the AFL newsletter. “New Democrats present stribreaking act,” The Activist 2, no.1 (June 1987). 85 Koskinas describes the election of Dave Werlin and the rebirth for a militant and politicized labour movement as a response to the economic and political climate. Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 87,96.

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labour relations in the province since 1981 as “the most serious and relentless attack on

working people’s income, their standard of living and social standards since the 1930s.”86 The

AFL learned from its experience with War on 44, and the Change the Law campaign was

launched immediately.87 The consistent message from early June was that it was the labour

laws that were creating the violence on the Gainers picket line, and the whole labour code

needed to be reviewed, including the restrictions on public sector bargaining rights, and the

ability of employers to create spin-offs or use the 24 hour lockout to unilaterally terminate

collective agreements.88

In response, on June 12 the Alberta government “a full review of labour legislation to

assure that for the present and the future the laws will be responsive to the needs of all

Albertans,” the same day as the mass rally at the opening of the Legislature following the

spring election.89 The government implied that the labour law review had been determined

before the strike and dated back to Ian Reid’s appointment to Labour Minister in May, yet

the committee was not approved until July 23.90 Reid chaired the Labour Legislation Review

Committee and approached three labour leaders to participate as commissioners. Under the

advice and pressure of the AFL who condemned the Committee for not requesting their

input in choosing labour representatives, two of these people resigned and the government

86 Dave Werlin, “President’s Address,” AFL 28th Convention (1984). From the private files of Maureen Werlin. 87 Dave Werlin labelled the strike a watershed on May 31: “‘This is not just a strike between Gainers’ employees and (plant owner) Peter Pocklington and company,’ said Werlin. The AFL considers the strike a ‘watershed case for labor in the province’ because it believes Gainers wants to break the union.” Marilyn Moysa and David Holehouse, “Unions Threaten War with Gainers,” Edmonton Journal, June 1, 1986. 88 Dave Werlin: “It isn’t so much the people who enforce the law we’re so concerned with, it’s the people who write the law in this province who are guilty of all the confrontation that’s taking place.” Interviewed on CBC Edmonton news from the Gainers picket line, June 3, 1986. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 89 Labour Legislation Review Committee (LLRC), Final Report, February 1987, page i (Letter from the Chairman), 61. GR1993.37, PAA. 90 LLRC, Final Report, 65, GR1993.37, PAA.

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had to approach others.91 Joe Berlando from the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Budd Coutts

from the International Union of Operating Engineers, and Larry Kelly from the

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers agreed to act as the labour representatives

though none of them had been delegated to do so by either of the labour centrals of the

province.92 The fact that these labour representatives did not issue a minority report was seen

as a betrayal by many in the labour movement and the Gainers strike bulletin condemned

them, stating “it is a monumental disgrace that anyone who regards him or herself as a

Labour Leader charged with the responsibility of protecting the interests of working people

would place their signature to such a document.”93

The committee was also composed of three representatives from management and

three from the general public. The three from management included a construction company

owner, a representative of a chemical company, and possibly a city official, though this third

position might have been considered filled by either the rancher or the farmer on the

committee. The final member of the committee was a retired MLA. The irony of including a

farmer and a rancher in the commission is readily apparent when one considers that

agricultural workers are not covered under the regular employment regulations (including

minimum wage and minimum age standards). The Final Report that the committee created

was unanimous, and it not only avoided all mention of the Gainers strike, but the

recommended changes demonstrated a lack of interest in resolving the underlying issues that

91

Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 117. 92 The building trades broke away from the AFL in 1982. ALHI timeline, at www.labourhistory.ca/defaultTimeline2010.asp; AFL, “Reid Committee Delivers Final Report: Recommendations Fall Short of Expectations,” Labour Law Bulletin (Spring 1987): 1. 93 Maureen Werlin, personal interview, February 27, 2013, via phone from Edmonton, Alberta; and “Labour Legislation Review Committee Issues Interim Report,” Porklington News 7, no. 3 (November 20, 1986).

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had led to such violent conflicts in the summer of 1986. Only after spending a great deal of

time and money (over $500 000 by November and double the original estimated cost)

traveling overseas to explore other labour relations systems did the committee finally return

to Alberta to hear submissions from employers, unions, and concerned citizens.94 This delay

worked in favour of those who sought to make only token changes to the law, though it is

likely that the government did not predict that the Gainers strike would last over six months.

Only tremendous and unprecedented public support for the strikers in terms of strike pay

and boycott participation allowed local 280-P to maintain its strike until December.

Diminished though media coverage and public attention was by December compared to

June, the Gainers strike was still the major force pushing the commission to respond to the

concerns of labour. Former Research Director with the AFL Jim Selby described the

importance of the Gainers strike to the Legislation Review process:

They were forced to listen to the labour movement and working people and hundreds of concerned people coming in to them. I still remember we [the AFL] were making just about a full day presentation to them: we had people in from Quebec and we had all these expert witnesses from everywhere. And right in the middle of it the Gainers settlement came in and all the media got up out of the back of the room and walked out. There went our last chance to get any good labour law out of the Reid commission because as soon as the strike was gone, as soon as that prod was gone, we knew what we were going to get.95

Without the Gainers strike, the public pressure to change the laws was significantly reduced

and the resulting Final Report reveals that no major changes to the labour laws were

94 “Labour Legislation Review Committee Issues Interim Report,” Porklington News 7, no. 3 (November 20, 1986). Most Albertans disapproved of the expensive fact finding trip even before it ran over budget. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 119. 95 Dave Werlin and Jim Selby interview, August 21, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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considered.96 The University of Alberta’s E. G. Fisher and James C. Robb observed that the

report concluded that the existing labour legislation, in the main, achieved the objective of

maintaining “harmonious labour relations,” and that one of the underlying premises of the

Final Report was that another upswing in the economy would occur, and therefore the more

intractable labour relations conflicts and issues of 1982 through 1986 need not be seriously

addressed.

The underlying premise or gamble appears to be that, should economic recovery be achieved Alberta and better communications between labour and management be fostered, perceived union-management problems will largely resolve themselves. . . The overall frailty of the proposals is that, should one of the major assumptions prove to be unfounded, the extended bargaining process will solve little and may prove to be a further source of frustration.97

The commissioners qualitatively divided all respondents and presenters into three categories:

labour, management, and third party professional organizations and private citizens. The

Final Report dutifully records whether the majority of each group held one opinion or

another, but this does nothing to illuminate a rawer, quantitative question of the majority of

citizens supporting or opposing certain types of changes (though the business community

complained that labour was over represented).98 The Final Report noted that most labour

organizations and third party representatives supported a ban on hiring replacement workers

during a strike or lockout, but that employers and their associations, unsurprisingly, “insisted

on their right to hire replacement workers to maintain their operations and use lockouts and

spin-offs as a means to obtain terms and conditions of employment more favourable to the

96 “Without a resolution to the strike the government’s ability to control the direction and focus of the review was in jeopardy.” Radcliffe, “Labour Law Review,” 129. 97 Fisher and Robb, “The Labour Legislation Review,” 287, quote 298. 98 Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, quoted in AFL, “Reid Committee Delivers Final Report: Recommendations Fall Short of Expectations,” Labour Law Bulletin (Spring 1987): 2; and Radcliffe charges that the Final Report was a summary and not an analysis. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Review,” 148.

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enterprise.”99 The report continued in its general observations to note that employers were

satisfied with present legislation, but the majority of workers and non-aligned citizens felt

that the legislation required improvement, demonstrating the AFL’s ability to mobilize

people around the issue.100 Dave Werlin noted in a 1987 interview:

You could get on a bus tomorrow, and sit down beside a total stranger and strike up a conversation about labour legislation in this province, and that stranger would very likely have something to say about it – intelligent or otherwise – but certainly they would not say “Hey, I don’t know what you are talking about.”101

The Gainers strike marked, according to sociologist Konstantinos Koskinas, a qualitative

change in the consciousness and praxis of the Alberta labour movement, the AFL, and more

broadly the Canadian labour movement.102 Although the Final Report concluded that most

presenters supported “housekeeping changes designed to create more harmonious labour

relations within existing institutional arrangements,” labour sought protection of existing and

previous guarantees of collective bargaining rights while employers wished to maintain

recently gained freedoms, either of which could conceivably be accomplished through

housekeeping changes to current legislation. 103 The Final Report came down on the side of

employers, as demonstrated by its commitment to the free market, in statements such as:

“ongoing or direct government involvement in the employee-employer relationship must be

99 LLRC, Final Report, 84, GR1993.37, PAA. 100 The AFL organized their own fact finding tour in Canada, and held regional workshops in nine centres across Alberta in November and December to help local groups prepare their submissions, a second set of regional workshops in January, as well as petition and lobbying coordination in February and March. According to the AFL in January of 1987, 70% of submissions to the Labour Legislation Review Committee supported positive (read: pro-worker and union) changes to the law. “Change the Law” pamphlet. From the private files of Maureen Werlin. 101 Dave Werlin, quoted in Barry Johnstone, “Interview with Dave Werlin,” Athabasca University Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour segment, 21. 102 Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 152. 103 LLRC, Final Report, 84, GR1993.37, PAA.

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minimized,” as workers and employers are “best able to determine the nature of their

relationship in the context of the market environment of the particular enterprise. The

flexibility and adaptability needed to cope with changing market conditions can only be

sustained at the level of the firm.”

Here again the new reality of Alberta, which included not only economic recession

but the rise of neo-liberal ideas, can be seen in the changing labour relations practices and

laws. Despite lauding the free market and the idea of autonomous unions and corporations

settling economic differences, the government in fact proposed a return to greater

government intervention in the form of an extensive mediation framework in order to

contain and control any future strikes that might expand, like Gainers, from a localized

economic issue into a broader political crisis with the ability to mobilize the working class.

As Panitch and Gindin have noted, neo-liberalism is falsely associated with a period of de-

regulation, when in fact it is typified by changing relationships and sometimes even closer

ties between business and the state.104

Fisher and Robb criticized the Final Report for neglecting to examine the efficacy of

the existing Preventative Mediation service offered by the Department of Labour before

recommending more extensive mediation and arbitration. Given that in 1980 the

government had decreased its mediation and arbitration services due to cost, and that the

government wished to be less involved in labour disputes, these recommendations for

dispute settlement were strange. Part of the issue was, as Fisher and Robb have noted, that 104 In particular, they note the link between finance capital and the state, especially how the US Federal Reserve intervened directly with Wall Street companies to preserve others (e.g. through the use of the Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, or the resuscitation of the LTCM). Eric Newstadt, “Neoliberalism and the Federal Reserve,” in Panitch and Konings, American Empire, 108, 112; and Panitch and Gindin, “Finance and American Empire,” 35.

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the aim of the negotiation and strike vote restrictions was to delay or prevent conflicts from

creating work stoppages. The reasons for this were two-fold: the first stemmed from a belief

lawful strikes and lockouts represented a failure of the labour relations system rather than an

expression of the basic contours of the employer-worker relationship. While Fisher and

Robb argue that the second reason was a belief that if sufficient bureaucratic delays were in

place, then by the time either party was in the position to strike or lockout the underlying

issues would be resolved, it seems far more likely that the delays were rather meant to keep

labour from maintaining the mobilization needed for a successful strike.105

At the same time tripartism as a form of corporatism, rather than with the

government as mediator between two combatants, was a popular idea. As Young had

championed in the early 1980s, the idea was that all sectors of society should be working

together for the common good, a call for cooperation that ignored power dynamics. Even

members of the Catholic Social Justice Commission who acknowledged that “our history

shows that the interests of politics and capital work hand in hand,” and that government

“should rather represent the constituency that elected them, mainly the working class,”

believed that “labour and capital (must) work hand in hand for the common good, and that

the government’s role is to ensure that this takes place.”106 Sam Filice suggested that the

“encouragement of workers co-operatives, real profit-sharing, worker/management

involvement, etc. would be examples of some needed first steps,” but made no suggestions

as to how the power imbalances endemic in society could be credibly altered to ensure that

105 Fisher and Robb, “Labour Legislation Review,” 316. 106 Sam Filice of the Social Justice Commission, quoted in Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 27-28.

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governments governed in the interests of those who voted for them, as opposed to those

that financed their campaigns.107 The Coalition on Labour and Justice viewed the Report as a

validation of their concerns, noting that “by recommending changes to current legislation,

the committee had confirmed that such concerns were valid,” even as they pointed out the

critical shortfalls of the Final Report.108 The Coalition noted that the government needed to

act to lower unemployment, strengthen the social safety net, and address the rise of part time

and precarious work without realizing that the Final Report was not the first step in

progressive labour legislation and an active interest in promoting economic equality on the

government’s part, but rather a placating and token gesture aimed at dispersing public

concern and mobilization.

The Labour Legislation Review Committee itself may have validated labour’s

concerns, but it also served to focus and contain discontent along certain pre-arranged lines,

as the leading questions, such as “Other industrial relations systems permit bargaining to be

done collectively and individually. In Alberta, are the individual’s rights to bargain adequately

protected? If not, what should be done?” for submissions demonstrate.109 As labour historian

Alvin Finkel noted at the time of the recommendations: “I don’t think that they amount to

too much . . . they don’t really get to the nub of the current problem which is that the

employer simply lets the contract run out and then declares that there is no contract and

creates a non-union shop. That isn’t going to change in the proposals that have been

107 Sam Filice of the Social Justice Commission, quoted in Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 27-28. 108 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 30. 109 LLRC, Final Report, 70, GR1993.37, PAA.

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made.”110 There was still the potential for any dispute to change from a conflict over wages

and benefits, as the Gainers strike did, into one for the very survival of the union.111 The

proposals certainly did not address the concerns the AFL (and their affiliates) had put forth

in their submissions.112

While it is possible that, as the Coalition concluded, had the recommendations of the

Final Report been in place during the Gainer strike that “its course could have been very

different,” it is less certain that further delays would have made the situation “far less

volatile” given the level of frustration of the workers and the vested interest that Pocklington

had in breaking the union. The AFL flat out denied that the Final Report’s recommendations

“would have done much to prevent the confrontation on the Gainers picket line.”113

Ultimately, even if the laws that came out of the Final Report had been far more labour

friendly, that would have been no guarantee that labour relations in Alberta would have

improved, especially given the Labour Relations Board and the Courts’ interpretations of

existing worker and union protections. It is only too clear that in Alberta a lack of

enforcement of labour laws was tantamount to permitting employers to violate the law as

common practice.114 In a letter from the Director of the Employment Standards branch to

the Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour, M. Kolmatycki noted that “there is a definite

110 Alvin Finkel quoted in Richard de Candole, “Interview with Alvin Finkel,” AU Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour segment, 39. 111 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Campaign to Change Labour Law Continues,” Press Release, December 22, 1986. From the private files of Maureen Werlin. 112 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Reid Committee Delivers Final Report: Recommendations Fall Short of Expectations,” Labour Law Bulletin (Spring 1987): 2. From the private files of Maureen Werlin. 113 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Reid Committee Delivers Final Report: Recommendations Fall Short of Expectations,” Labour Law Bulletin (Spring 1987): 1. 114

The Committee avoided addressing the issue of the 24 hour lockout because it existed only in common practice, and not in legislation. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Reform,” 148.

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reluctance to file a claim given today’s economy. Indications are that certain employers are

taking advantage of the situation and the minimum standards are being violated,” but that as

“inspections are viewed from the perspective of being educational and public relations

oriented” not punitive, there was little motivation for these criminal employers to abide by

the law.115

Even so, one objection to Bill 60, the June 1987 draft labour legislation based on the

Labour Legislation Review Committee’s Final Report, was that it gave too much authority to

Employment Standards officers.116 The bill generated a great deal of debate, and the

government received over 300 public submissions on it.117 The lengthy process of mediation,

arbitration, and the mandatory cooling off periods before strike or lockout votes were

objected to by both employers and unions. Several groups found the sections dealing with

the 24 hour lockout and bridging clauses to be unclear and unfair, though for different

reasons. Clifford Otto and the Village of Hythe objected to section 191 for not clearly

prohibiting the 24 hour lockout, while groups such as the Alberta Urban Municipalities

Association objected to the concept of a bridging clause as promoting conflict and disruption

and the Town of Table concluded that bridging clauses served to de-incentivise negotiations.

Picketing was likewise not dealt with in a clear enough manner, as some commentators

objected to language that could be interpreted to permit secondary picketing. The bold article

prohibiting the use of strikebreakers was objected to by the Edmonton Chamber of

115 Letter from M Kolmatycki (director) to A E Kennedy (ADM Labour), regarding Compliance and Dispute Resolution Enforcement Policy, December 5, 1984, Correspondence, Employment Standards, GR1992.92, PAA. 116 Objection raised in Section II Employment Standard by an employer, List of Issues Bill 60 Based on Submissions to the Government, November 13, 1987, box 7, GR1997.0287, PAA. 117 For more information on Bill 60 see Radcliffe, “Labour Law Review,” 154-201.

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Commerce which, in a dazzling display of willful forgetting, wrote: “There is no need to

legislate against a non-existent concern. There have been no examples in recent Alberta

labour relations history of companies employing strikebreakers in an attempt to interfere

with the lawful activities of a union.”118 This was less than a year after the Gainers strike had

been settled.

Two bills eventually emerged from the ashes of Bill 60: Bill 21 Employment

Standards Act, and Bill 22 Labour Relations Act, passed on April 15, 1988 after an

unprecedented use of closure six times.119 These bills closely followed the Final Report’s

strong emphasis on the essential role of honest communication between employers and

unions. Fisher and Robb criticized the Final Report’s improved communications proposal as

“both somewhat ill-defined and ill-conceived.”120 The fundamental problem with the bills,

like the Report, was that they did not address the underlying conflict. While Pocklington

stated several times in December after a settlement had been reached that the root of the

conflict was a lack of communication or miscommunication (“I blame the goings on of the

last few months on miscommunication,” and if he could do something differently it would

be to “do my damnedest to communicate with the union people before the strike”), the

conflict was over parity, replacement workers, and the pension plan – all issues that both

sides had stated their position on early and clearly.121

118 Objection raised in Section III Labour Relations (262.3.h), List of Issues Bill 60 Based on Submissions to the Government, November 13, 1987, box 7, GR1997.0287, PAA. 119 Bill 60 was abandoned due to the efforts of the business lobby, as the AFL was unable to muster the level of public interest it had during 1986. Radcliffe, “Labour Law Review,” 200. 120 Fisher and Robb, “Labour Legislation Review,” 315. 121 CBC news, Edmonton, December 12, 13, 1986.

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Communication and education were the key ways to improve labour relations

according to the government, building on the themes of cooperation, mutualism, and

consensus that dominated labour relations discourse at the time. In the end the government

did not focus on the issues that labour and workers had campaigned around: improved

employment standards, a ban on strikebreakers, the end of spin-offs and 24-hour lockouts,

and easier certification and provisions against employer interference. Although the

government had been reluctant to become more involved in mediating the conflicting

interests in industrial relations, the provincial government had to be available at least in an

advisory capacity to prevent workers from exercising collective economic power. The

purpose of the new legislation was quite clearly not to protect workers, but rather to control

them. Restrictions on picketing to information only affairs limited only to members of the

union on strike, with no secondary pickets, removed the ability of labour to either “shut-

down an employer through a withdrawal of labour power,” or to mobilize the labour

movement.122 Rather, the courts and police remained available to discipline unions through

onerous liability for their members’ picket line activities, while the deadlines imposed by the

government either delayed conflicts to demobilize members, or interfered with the process

of collective bargaining by rushing certain phases and drawing out others.123 For all the

emphasis on honest and open communication as a way out of byzantine labour conflicts of

the current system, it was obvious that the government could not depend on the parties to

peacefully coexist on their own, though there were hints in the Final Report that the provincial 122 Alberta Federation of Labour, Labour Law Bulletin, 6. 123 The Labour Relations Board discusses specifically the use of delaying mechanisms such as conciliation to prevent economic battles (strikes and lockouts). Alberta Labour Relations Board, “The Labour Relations Act, 1980, as amended and UFCW local 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” File L.R. 302-G-1, October 28, 1986, 21, 22. From the private files of Renée Peevey.

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government believed that the violence of strikes was caused in part by external agitators.124 In

the Gainers strike there were imprecations that it was the national representatives brought in

from Eastern Canada who were responsible for the violence.125 Or perhaps it was the Alberta

Federation of Labour and its communist leader and not anyone related to UFCW at all that

was the real problem. The implication with such accusations, with the second injunction

against non-UFCW members walking the picket line and the recommendations in the Final

Report that picketers only be members of the striking union, was that the strikers left to

themselves would have been far less violent and far more “reasonable” from a management

perspective.

The Change the Law campaign, then, was not entirely successful.126 Initially it raised

awareness and generated public pressure on the Getty government to examine the labour

relations system in Alberta, but with the end of the Gainers strike the public pressure was

dispelled, and the laws became even less favourable to labour. As AFL researcher Selby

pointed out: “We said Gainers was a watershed, and it was. Unfortunately for us, it shed the

wrong way.”127 Despite the spectacular solidarity from workers, consumers, grocery store

operators, union members, Edmonton’s ecumenical community, and concerned social

activists in Edmonton, the Gainers strike ended badly. Despite a strong boycott, despite a

province wide mobilization around legal reform, despite public discussions of fairness and

124 Radcliffe, “Labour Law Review,” 151; Alberta Labour News (Alberta Labour Department), April 1988, in List of Issues Bill 60 Based on Submissions to the Government, November 13, 1987, box 7, GR1997.0287, PAA; AFL, Labour Law Bulletin, 6; and Dave Werlin, interview, August 21, 2012. 125 “Benn Sends Telegram to Mulroney,” Porklington News 5, no.1 (October 6, 1986). 126 “If we won, we would be in a lot better shape today, wouldn’t we? . . . Certain right-wing groups want to reopen the labour code in Alberta, but it’s so god damn archaic as it is now that there is not much left to take out of it.” Ken MacKenzie, personal interview, August 1, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 127 Jim Selby, interview, August 21, 2012.

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justice, the members of 280-P accepted a contract offer that was worse than the one they had

turned down in June, and it was only offered after the government of Alberta bribed Peter

Pocklington with a multi-million dollar loan.

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Chapter 6 Victory and Defeat: The Settlement and Aftermath

On December 12 representatives from Gainers and the union signed a memorandum

of understanding – a tentative agreement on the contents of the new collective agreement to

be ratified by both the union and company.1 The conflict was finally ended after Premier

Don Getty sat down with Pocklington and with union representatives separately, and then

together, telling the parties that “he and most Albertans felt the strike had gone on long

enough.”2 The ratification vote occurred on December 14; in Los Angeles with the Oilers,

Pocklington was “worried sick” about the outcome.3 The agreement was accepted with a low

majority and strikers returned to work the next morning.4 Only five days earlier, Labour

Minister Ian Reid had told the media that he was not “particularly optimistic” about the

chances of mediation settling the dispute, and commentator Linda Goyette had declared on

December 12 that “the chance of a truce is about as wide as a pine needle.”5 Nonetheless,

the majority of strikers had returned to work, their replacements dismissed, by December 16

1 Memorandum of Agreement Between Local 280-P United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Negotiating Committee And Gainers Inc. Management Negotiating Committee, 12 December 1986. From the private files of Renée Peavey. 2 “Premier’s Influence was a Factor,” Edmonton Journal, December 13, 1986. Newspaper clippings from the private files of Maureen Werlin. 3 Marilyn Moysa, “Pocklington Glad Strike’s Over,” Edmonton Journal, December 15, 1986. 4 Although the vote was 60.8% in favour, fewer people (846) voted than in the original strike vote (1017), so while the original strike vote was supported by 979 members, the return to work was supported by 515. Eyewitness news, CFRN Edmonton, December 15, 1986; and Alberta Labour Relations Board, “The Labour Relations Act, 1980, as amended and UFCW local 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” File L.R. 302-G-1, October 28, 1986, 5. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 5 Tony Saloway and Therese Kehler, “Minister Not Optimistic About Gainers Talks,” Edmonton Journal, December 10, 1986; and Linda Goyette, “Talks Deflect Union Anger,” Edmonton Journal, December 12, 1986.

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when the trucks arrived with the presents for their children collected from across the country

by their supporters.6

Details of the Settlement

A proposed settlement from a Disputes Inquiry Board report in the second month of

the strike was castigated by the union leadership and the strikers voted overwhelmingly

(94.6%) against it. The report was the result of Labour Minister Ian Reid bestirring himself

after ten days of violent conflict to appoint as sole board member Alex Dubensky, the

former LRB chair from 1984 to 1985 when spin-offs and the 24 hour lockout became

common and accepted practices.7 The purpose of the Disputes Inquiry Board was to draft

recommendations to act as the basis of a settlement, with the recommendations to be voted

on by both sides, though even at the time it was unclear who would vote for the employer.

Dubensky reported back to Reid on July 9, and Reid released the report in a press

conference on July 10 with the stated hope that the 17 pages of recommendations would

pave the way for a resolution of the conflict.8 In the report Dubensky declared “there is no

doubt that the concessions given by the Union were a major factor in the Company’s

fortunes being turned around,” and he recognized that a great deal of the ill will on the

union’s side was caused by management’s actions from 1984 to 1986, as well as their refusal

to acknowledge the gains the company had made from the workers’ sacrifices.9 Despite

6 “Union Santa Brings Joy,” Edmonton Sun, December 16, 1986. 7 Alberta Labour Relations Board, “History of the Labour Relations Board,” online from ALRB, modified May 2010. 8 Alex Dubensky, “Findings and Recommendations of the Disputes Inquiry Board Report” attached to Government of Alberta, News Release, July 10, 2:30 pm. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 9 Dubensky, “Report,” 4.

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criticizing an attitude of production at all costs, Dubensky was not receptive to the idea that

after sacrificing benefits and wages to secure higher profits for Pocklington, the workers had

a right to expect Pocklington to sacrifice some profits for their wages and benefits now that

Gainers economic position had improved. Instead, he repeated Gainers refrain: the Board

had to take into account the settlements in Alberta, the fact that Alberta’s economy was not

as buoyant as Ontario’s (where Canada Packers was centered), and so his recommendations

were based on “the economic conditions in this Province at this time.”10 Despite the fact that

Fletchers had accepted parity – though with some caveats that workforce reduction, product

price increases, or hog price decreases might result, Dubensky never considered parity as an

option at Gainers, even when Fletchers argued that a lower wage at Gainers would mean

plant closure at Fletchers and the privileging of low wage jobs in Edmonton over high wage

jobs in Red Deer.11 A wage increase of 19-20% when the average increase in Alberta in 1986

was 2-5% was simply inconceivable to Dubensky, especially when Canada Packers increase in

wages was $0.38, whereas Gainers would have to increase wages by $2.38 to reach the same

start rate.12 The fact that the distance was so great only because Gainers had demanded a

42% ($4.99) wage decrease two years prior appeared to be of no significance to Dubensky’s

thoughts on the matter.

10 Dubensky, “Report,” 3, 5, 15, 17. 11 Dubensky was singularly unimpressed with Fletchers’ manager Gerry McMillian. He stated that McMillan knew when he settled that the only three options for Gainers were: no settlement but the company continues with replacement workers, lower than parity settlement, or closure. Dubensky was originally meant to deliberate for only 20 days on both the Gainers and Fletchers disputes, though when Fletchers settled in two weeks with a contract better than Canada Packers it was through no efforts by the Board, which had made little progress in its original allotment of time. Dubensky, “Report,” 10; and CBC News, Edmonton, June 22, 1986. 12 Dubensky, “Report,” 5, 8.

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Dubensky’s recommendations included a starting wage of $8.19 with an increase to

$8.71 in the second year.13 He also proposed that the company pay 100% of Alberta

healthcare premiums, that there be a return to the pre-1984 fund of $75 every two years for

vision care, and endorsed the union’s pension benefit increase requests. Yet he did not

advocate the terms of the new agreement to be retroactive to the date of the last collective

agreement and made no concrete suggestion to address the issue of mandatory overtime.14

Nor were there provisions for picket line incidents, long-term disability, seniority and lay-

offs.15 The strongest objections from UFCW to Dubensky’s initial report were firstly, the

absence of clear provisions for the reinstatement of the striking workers and secondly, the

complete neglect of the pension controversy. 16 Dubensky’s recommendations were for the

recall of all workers, but only as work became available – that is, the replacement workers

had the right to keep the strikers’ jobs.17 Even when Dubensky clarified his report to

recommend that all the strikebreakers should be dismissed and the strikers had the right to

return to work, the union “recommended a NO vote on the Dubensky Recommendation,”

when the Board used its authority to require a membership vote on the agreement, despite

the executive’s rejection of the settlement. The leadership believed that a resounding

rejection would force Gainers to “come to the table and seriously bargain for parity.”18 The

13 UFCW 280-P, “Fact Sheet,” file 138 UFCW strike publications, leaflets, posters, etc., EDLC: Gainers Files, PR2011.0339, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton (hereafter PAA); and Ed Seymour, “They Can’t Jail the Strike,” Canadian Labour, October 1986,. 14 Recommendations 8 and 23, Dubensky, “Report,” 12, 16. 15 “What the Report Does Not Include,” Porklington News 2, no. 5 (July 14, 1986). From the private files of Renée Peevey. 16 “Dubensky Report Inadequate,” Porklington News 2, no. 4 (July 11, 1986). 17 Recommendation 2, Dubensky, “Report,” 12. 18 “Dubensky Clarifies Report,” Porklington News 2, no. 8 (July 21, 1986); “Vote on Friday!” Porklington News 2, no. 9 (July 24, 1986); and “Great Vote,” Porklington News 2, no. 10 (July 30, 1986).

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Porklington News declared on July 11 that “the settlement, when it comes, will be with the

Company, not with Dubensky, nor with the Government.”19

The company finally tabled another offer on December 1, 1986, and it was deemed

an insult by the union.20 CBC reporter Paul Adams judged that the proposal did nothing to

bring the strike any closer to a resolution, especially as it contained a new classification

system that would result in pay cuts for most workers. 21 Nonetheless UFCW was pleased to

receive it, believing that the unfair terms would increase public support for the strikers.22 In

the December 1 proposal strikers could bump replacement workers out of jobs if they had

sufficient seniority, but replacement workers would be retained and the original employees

would otherwise be rehired to fill vacancies and new positions.23 Gainers offered to institute

a new pension plan, but intended to acquire the surplus from the previous plan, and as

incentive the company offered a lump sum of $1 000 to each striker who was recalled by

December 15. Despite containing concession demands in almost every area of the contract,

Gainers representatives repeatedly stated that the proposal contained “creative” alternatives

and solutions, and was a realistic offer that put the onus on the union to make a counter-

offer.24

19 “Dubensky Report Inadequate,” Porklington News 2, no. 4 (July 11, 1986). 20 Company representative Phil Ponting denied that the offer was tabled in compliance with an LRB ruling since Gainers was in the process of challenging the decision in court. CBC news, Edmonton, December 2, 1986. 21 CBC news, Edmonton, December 2, 1986. 22 ITV news, Edmonton, December 1, 1986. 23 Philip Ponting to Kip Connolly, International Representative, December 1, 1986. From the private files of Renée Peevey. 24 Eyewitness news, Edmonton, December 1, 1986.

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On December 9 Reid appointed Wes Pangrass as mediator, but he appeared to play

little role in achieving the settlement.25 The December 12 Memorandum of Agreement was

signed after Premier Getty intervened personally, proving that though walking the picket line

in June might not have done any good, that there was a great deal more that Progressive

Conservatives could have done to end the dispute before six and a half months had elapsed.

Getty met separately with Pocklington and UFCW’s national representative, Kip Connelly,

and the company and union sat down again at 9:30 am, December 12, for the first time since

November 3.26

The December 12 Memorandum contained 18 items to be ratified by the

membership, the first of which was that the collective agreement that expired on June 1

would act as the basis of the next agreement, rather than Canada Packers’. The new

agreement was to last until September 30 of 1990 – making it an over four year contract. All

strikers who had not resigned would be recalled and there would be “no recrimination or

discrimination or discipline whatsoever resulting from the strike or activities related thereto

by the Company to any employee.” 27 This included workers incarcerated for strike related

activities, who would be granted a leave of absence for their jail term. All the replacement

workers were laid off, and were not to be recalled ahead of any workers that had been

employed as of May 31, even though some of the replacement workers might have greater

seniority after six and a half months. Both sides agreed to drop all complaints before the

25 Ed Seymour, “The Battle of 66th Street Rages On.” From the private files of Renée Peevey. 26 “Gainers Talks Resume Friday,” Edmonton Journal, December 11, 1986. 27 Memorandum of Agreement, clause 4. This clause was especially important given that a LRB hearing was taking place at the same time over the dismissal of 23 strikers from Zeidler, who had been dismissed for the picket line violence after the strike was settled. Don Retson, “LRB Asked to Take Stand on Picket-line Violence,” Edmonton Journal, December 11, 1986.

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Labour Relations Board and the courts, and not to initiate any new grievances or charges.

The wage structure would remain the same with 3% increases on January 1, 1989 and

January 1, 1990 and no increases during the first two years. Probation was extended from 90

working days to six months with a rate of pay of $7.50 per hour. The base rate remained at

$8.00 and the highest non-mechanical base wage was $12.50.

The sides agreed that there would be monthly meetings between three

representatives of the company and three representatives of the union, including Peter

Pocklington and Kip Connolly, to promptly resolve any problems that might arise. The

union was to ensure that the boycott was lifted as of the ratification date, and the company

agreed not to contract out clean-up work. The Gainers Inc. Hourly Pension Plan was ended

with a transfer of the responsibility to provide the rights and benefits, based on the

provisions of the 1984 to 1986 collective agreement, to the Canadian Commercial Workers

Industry Pension Plan. The transfer was to be funded through the pension plan itself and by

the company, with the remaining surplus of the plan going to the company once the pension

plan was terminated. The pension benefit remained at the 1984 rate of $16.60 per month per

year of service until January 1, 1990, when it would increase to $17.50. The union had

originally asked for an increase to a rate of $17.68 in the first year and up to $18.48 in the

second. The union did succeed however, in partially addressing the issue of early retirement.

Employees aged 55 or more who decided to retire within one year of the ratification would

have their years of credited service increased to at least 20 years (though not by crediting

more than five years), and their age considered 60 for the purposes of the pension. In

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addition, early retirees would receive $5 000, another provision likely aimed at removing the

experienced and militant workers from the plant.

Meaning and Origins of the Settlement

The pension plan became a crucial element of settlement negotiations starting in June

when the company’s arrangements to terminate the pension plan and absorb the surplus

came to light in the Dubensky Inquiry.28 The Alberta Labour Relations Board ruled that

Gainers did not negotiate in good faith, and this decision mainly revolved around their

cancellation of the pension plan.29 The company’s duty to bargain in good faith was not

simply a matter of offering a written proposal, but also a duty not to misrepresent matters, a

duty to disclose decisions that would significantly affect employees, and to provide

information about the pension plan upon request, per the agreement made when the pension

plans of the Gainers and former Swift plants were combined.30

The union requested information on the pension plan in February 1986 and was

rebuffed several times by vice-president of corporate affairs Dan Harrington. The LRB ruled

“we reject as silly his evidence that the employer had no opportunity to tell the Union of its

intention to terminate the plan,” and further that “there was a deliberate effort to keep the

decision secret. This is the inescapable conclusion from the evidence.”31 The LRB was clearly

annoyed with the transparency of the company’s lies and truly angry with Gainers contempt

28 “Mr Dubensky decided that the issue before him was the level of benefits to paid in the future, and held that he was without jurisdiction to order the production of any pension documents themselves.” ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” 7-8. 29 “We have found breaches of s. 139 and s. 137 (3) (c).” ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 96. 30 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 14-17, 37. 31 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 35.

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for its authority. On June 20 the LRB issued an order that no further steps were to be taken

by Gainers to change the status of the pension plan or withdraw funds until the Board

reconvened on June 27. The directive was formally signed on June 23, and on June 26

Harrington drew up a corporate resolution to terminate the pension plan effective May 31,

1986 and then had it couriered to the Superintendent of Pensions for his approval on June

27. The LRB was outraged by this “flagrant disregard” for its orders.32 The Alberta Labour

Relations Board stated in its decision on October 24 that given an offer was only put forward

by the company “on the intense urgings of the Deputy Minister of Labour, as well as on the

eve of a disputes inquiry board, is in our view a breach of the duty to bargain in good

faith.”33 Although the LRB found the union’s obstinacy with regards to parity distasteful, that

did not, to its mind, excuse Gainers’ failure to make every reasonable effort to enter into a

collective agreement, as proscribed by section 139 of the 1980 Labour Relations Code.

Although happy to declare, multiple times, that Gainers had not made the effort to negotiate,

and therefore failed its positive duty to bargain in good faith, the LRB proceeded under the

assumption that Gainers’ failure to make any proposals stemmed from an effort to conceal

their plans to absorb the pension surplus, rather than because the company intended to break

the union.

Gainers appealed the LRB ruling in the courts on November 26. Gainers spokesman

Doug Ford stated the company’s actions were “not only legally correct, but morally

32 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 47, 48. 33 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers Inc.,” 34.

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correct.”34 This attitude of entitlement to the surplus of plans that the current owner had

only contributed to for six years, but which had been built up since 1957, was hardly

surprising.35 What is more surprising is that the Getty government acted promptly to tighten

the rules around pension plans in September of 1986, in a rare show of responsiveness to

worker concerns. In November the union requested that the LRB issue a remedy to include

the company paying the full cost of the strike in lost wages and benefits as well as strike

related expenses incurred by the union, for the company to cease dismantling the pension

plan and to submit a valid and honest written proposal. The Labour Relations Board ordered

the company to meet with the union before December 1 and to submit a proposal to the

union in writing by that date, as well as to pay up to $10 000 to the union for legal costs.

Instead of complying, the company sought a stay from the Court of Queen’s Bench.

Although the stay was denied, Gainers’ appeal to have the Labour Relations Board’s decision

overturned was granted on Friday, December 5 by Justice Virgil Moshansky with regards to

the pension and the $10 000 award to the union, although Moshansky did uphold that the

company had bargained in bad faith. On Monday, December 8 UFCW sought and was

granted a stay on the dismantling of the pension plan by Justice William Stevenson until

January, when Judge Moshansky would hear the union’s appeal.

Eyewitness news attributed Getty’s motivation for intervening to a frustration with

seeing the company and union negotiating through the courts, a method bound to draw the

dispute out. This combined with the Canadian Labour Council announcing that it would

34 Eyewitness news, Edmonton; and “Gainers Appealing Labour Board Decision,” Porklington News 7, no. 4 (November 27, 1986). 35 ALRB, “UFCW 280-P and Gainers, Inc.,” 12.

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guarantee the strike fund meant there was no end in sight to the conflict. The appeals and

stays kept the issue in the media, while Pocklington’s adamant position of retaining his

replacement workers while picketers trudged the cold snowy streets and relied on the

generosity of strangers to provide a Christmas for their children made a resolution politically

expedient for the Getty government. The Gainers strike continued to be an embarrassment

to the provincial government – especially given Pocklington’s ties to the Progressive

Conservative party. CBC’s Paul Adams had covered the strike from the beginning and he

hypothesized a deal had finally been made because Getty put pressure on Pocklington to

settle. His host Dana Lewis then inquired why the political pressure that the provincial

government had been supposedly bringing to bear on both parties for months finally had an

effect in December.36

Alain Noël and Keith Gardner argue that Getty finally became involved due to

mounting pressure from the capitalist class to not only end the Gainers strike, but to

diminish the public attention on the Reid Commission and lessen the pressure to change the

labour laws in ways more favourable to the working class.37 Reporter Linda Goyette

attributed the premier’s intervention to the arrival of the Reid Committee in Edmonton for a

“fire-and-brimstone session.” Certainly the hearings looked likely to embarrass the

government with furious Gainers strikers in the audience and a six hour AFL presentation

with specific proposals for changes to the current laws and background information that the

labour central charged the Committee should have gathered itself instead of wasting time and

36 CBC news, Edmonton, December 12, 1986. 37 Alain Noël and Keith Gardner, “The Gainers Strike: Capitalist Offensive, Militancy, and the Politics of Industrial Relations in Canada,” Studies in Political Economy 31 (Spring 1990): 52-53.

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money on an international trip.38 Goyette denied the premier’s assertion that the timing of

his intercession, including arranging for the two sides to meet the same day as the AFL

presentation, was a coincidence:

The Gainers dispute haunts the Reid committee. As long it festers, the strike provides naked evidence that the current labor distress in Alberta can’t be blamed entirely on the recession or that obstinate man with whiskers [Pocklington]. It has something to do with shoddy legislation . . .The Getty government can’t afford to debate this controversial legislation with furious Gainers workers yelling on the front veranda – again.39

According to ITV news Getty had grown impatient with Pocklington’s adamant position that

he would give the strikebreakers preference over the strikers.40 Although Reid had cautioned

Pocklington in June that his stance might be at odds with the labour laws, Pocklington’s

acceptance that he must take his strikers back was initially less than graceful.41 Ignoring that

guarantees for the striking workers’ reinstatement was what Albertans were demanding

through the Reid Committee, Pocklington described the impetus for his reversal as

bureaucratic, rather than due to popular pressure: “this has been the government policy and

is stated to me basically that citizens of Alberta go along with what our government felt was

the way the law should be interpreted.”42 Although Pocklington’s tone was generally more

conciliatory in the wake of the memorandum, he insisted on diminishing the causes of the

38 Goyette, “Talks Deflect Union Anger,” Edmonton Journal, December 13, 1986; and “Reid Committee to Hear AFL,” Edmonton Journal, December 11, 1986. 39 Goyette, “Talks Deflect Union Anger,” Edmonton Journal, December 13, 1986. 40 ITV news, December 12, 1986. 41 CBC news, Edmonton, June 22, 1986. 42 Peter Pocklington, on Eyewitness news, December 13, 1986.

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strike to miscommunication rather than a quest for parity on the one hand, and a

corresponding determination to destroy the union on the other.43

However grudgingly Pocklington guaranteed the strikers jobs, most strikers were glad

to return to work, although few were enthusiastic about the settlement. Gerry Beauchamp

believed that the Gainers workers could have negotiated a better contract if they had rejected

the last offer: “if we would have stayed out a couple more weeks, I believe we would have

got more or less what we wanted. And that is what I told the people at the last meeting, but

some of them they were suffering.”44 The reaction of the workers who remained waiting for

the vote results on December 14 were almost all negative.45 “I hate it,” one striker

commented bitterly. The whole strike effort, including the numerous hardships and the

tremendous amount of energy that the strikers put into the strike were not worth it, an angry

striker declared, if that settlement was all they had in the end.46 Over 25 years later Dave

Werlin declared “The settlement wasn’t worthy of the strength and courage of those

workers.”47

Striker Renée Peevey called the settlement a sell-out and declared the union’s

management of the vote was undemocratic. In the meeting where the strikers were told the

details of the settlement they were allowed to ask questions, but not to speak out in favour or

in opposition of it. Peevey’s description of the settlement conveys a sense of injustice that

others shared: “the CLC guaranteed our strike fund, it came out the same night we ratified it.

43 CBC news, Edmonton, December 12, 1986. One exception was his statement “If they hadn’t approved it, I would have kept the replacement workers ‘till hell frozen over.” Marilyn Moysa, “Pocklington Glad Strike Over,” Edmonton Journal, December 15, 1986. 44 Gerry Beauchamp, personal interview, August 20, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta. 45 Kim McLeod, “Settling of Strike Leaves Bitterness for Some Strikers,” Edmonton Journal, December 15, 1986. 46 CBC news, Edmonton, December 14, 1986; and Eyewitness News, Edmonton, December 14, 1986. 47 Dave Werlin, personal interview August 21, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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And it was too late. But because we weren’t allowed to speak at that meeting, we were only

allowed to ask questions, for many of us it was kind of like a gag order. It was very tough.”

The pressure on the strikers to accept the settlement was applied by the national leaders,

though many of the national staff had been pulled out before the strike vote. Kip Connelly,

the national representative, was the only one present for the union when the memorandum

was created, and Peevey described Connelly as saying of the settlement: “it’s a good one. It’s

a good one.” According to her, though, “it wasn’t. It was the original contract that we had

been offered at the very beginning which they had been so adamant was no good for us and

all of a sudden it was like it was written on gold leaf.” 48 Peevey posited that the reason for

pulling out the regional reps was because “a backroom deal had already been made” and

because “national became dirty.” 49

Whether the national union did engage in corrupt backroom dealings or not, and

evidence of UFCW national representatives attempting to sneak into Edmonton without

informing the local or the AFL lends credence to the idea, as does the fact that the local

executive was not present for the creation of the memorandum of agreement, the strikers did

48 CBC news, Edmonton, December 12, 1986. 49 Renée Peavey, personal interview, January 9, 2013, Edmonton, Alberta. There is little discussion in the media coverage of the possibility of the international being corrupt, but interviews with workers the night of the ratification included one person stating that they felt the union had not sold them out, and several others implying the union leadership had intimidated the membership, members furious with their executive negotiating the settlement, and charges that the settlement had destroyed the union. The local executive of 280-P would have been well aware of the international’s response at Hormel to a local rejecting an offer they negotiated: receivership. McLeod, “Settling of Strike Leaves Bitterness for Some Strikers,” Edmonton Journal, December 15, 1986; Kim McLeod, “No Cheers from Pickets at Gainers,” Edmonton Journal, December 13, 1986; and Mindelle Jacobs, “Union Says Yes to Pact: Puck Wins Battle,” Calgary Sun, December 15, 1986. Kostinas discusses the divisions between the local executive and the national rep and the unconfirmed suspicions of some in the labour movement about the role of the government in reaching the settlement, but has no further proof. Konstantinos Koskinas, “Prolegomena to a Theory of Working Class Culture: Organizational, Ideological, and Ideological Praxis of the Alberta Federation of Labour, 1979-1986,” PhD diss, University of Alberta, 1987, 159.

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have reasons for accepting the agreement. 50 These ranged from fears that the plant would in

fact close, financial pressure from being out of work for over six months, and the

psychological pressure from the approach of Christmas and the new year, and the fact that

the leadership recommended the deal. As Maureen Werlin noted, strikers generally rely on

the expertise of their leadership and believe them if they say that the contract is the best that

can be had.51 Although he voted against the agreement, Gerry Beauchamp noted: “At least

we fought to preserve our jobs, and that is exactly what we did. That’s all.”52

Gainers, Pocklington, and a Post-Strike Alberta

In 1987 the government of Alberta lost $3.5 billion in oil and gas revenues,

approximately 60% of its total revenue.53 At the beginning of that year the government

guaranteed a $55 million loan, as well as a loan of at least $12 million to modernize Gainers,

justified as a measure to help free the Alberta economy from its energy dependence.54

According to an article in the conservative Alberta Report, the loan was likely “a reward to

50 Dave Werlin, interview, August 20, 2012. “We put them in a spot that they didn’t want to be in. How many times did they fly some bugger in here from Toronto to try to end it? And we were able to find out because we had been walking the picket line with the flight attendants [CALIA when they went on strike] and we had this friend there that would tell us who was on the manifest, when someone was coming in . . . We knew when they were arriving and were there ahead of them.” 51 Maureen Werlin, personal interview, February 27, 2013, via telephone from Edmonton, Alberta. 52 Gerry Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 53 Christopher Serres, “Dumping the Latest of Getty’s Disasters,” Alberta Report 20, no. 50 (November 29, 1993). 54 “Mr. Pocklington settled an ugly six-month strike with workers only after securing $67 million in provincial loans and guarantees.” Dave Philip, “Playing Chicken with Arthur Child,” Alberta Report 23, no. 11 (February 26, 1996). There are numerous accounts of the total figure that Pocklington secured ranging from $67 million (Lisac, Emery, and various newspaper articles) to a high of $88 million in an Alberta Report article. Gereluk puts the total at $75 million. Winston Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” in Working People in Alberta: A History, ed. Alvin Finkel (Edmonton: AU Press, 2012),185; Mark Lisac, “Don Getty,” in Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, ed. Bradford James Rennie (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina, 2004), 241; Herr Emery, “1986: The Bloom Comes off the Wild Rose Province,” in Alberta Formed, Alberta Transformed, ed. Michael Payne, Donald G. Wetherell, and Catherine Anne Cavanaugh (Edmonton: Centennial History Society, University of Alberta Press, and University of Calgary Press, 2006), 71.

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owner Peter Pocklington for settling the bitter 1986 strike at the company's Edmonton meat

packing plant. Liberal agriculture critic Nick Taylor thinks so, and current agriculture

minister Ernie Isley doesn't deny it.”55 A guaranteed loan would certainly explain why,

despite having weathered over a six month strike and three month national boycott,

Pocklington promised to expand the plant in February of 1987.56

In October of 1989 Pocklington defaulted on the loan and the government seized

the plant. The plant became a continuous drain on the provincial treasury, costing the

province $20 million by 1990. A task force in 1990 found Alberta hogs were produced at an

average of $15 less per animal than in the US Midwest, but that the total number of hogs was

only large enough to support one integrated packer/processor. In order to compete with the

US it would be necessary to spend approximately $55 million in order to achieve the

economies of scale in the meat processing industry to allow Alberta to be competitive with

US superpackers.57 Although it seemed logical to many people (and highly attractive to

agriculture minister Isley) that Fletchers buy Gainers and integrate the operations, Fletchers

management showed no interest in acquiring the antiquated plant.58

In October of 1991 corporate “trouble-shooter” Ian Strang was named Chair and

CEO of Gainers by the government.59 His goal was to keep the plant operational and make

the necessary changes for it to be saleable. Although he recommended cutting the beef-line

almost immediately, the government did not approve this decision until after the June 1993

elections. In September 1993, Gainers under Strang closed offices in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, 55 Larry Webber, “More Red Ink at the People’s Packer,” Alberta Report 20, no. 17 (April 12, 1993). 56 Eyewittness news, Edmonton, December 12, 1986. 57 Webber, “More Red Ink,” Alberta Report, April 12, 1993. 58 Webber, “More Red Ink,” Alberta Report, April 12, 1993. 59 Terry Johnson, “Trimming Away the Rotten Bits,” Alberta Report 20, no. 41 (September 27, 1993).

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and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. There were 178 lay-offs, the majority of which took place in

Edmonton with the closure of the beef line.60 Still, the provincial government had a great

deal of difficulty finding a buyer for the plant. When rumours of a deal with US meatpacker

Cargill emerged, Burns CEO Arthur Child commented that the US company was more likely

to build a new, modern facility in a rural area as it had with its beef plant in High River than

to purchase an antiquated plant such as Gainers. He further informed the Alberta Report that

he doubted anyone would make an offer for Gainers if the province did not provide

financing or additional incentives and recommended that the province shut the plant down,

despite the number of jobs at stake.61 Child also commented in September that under no

circumstance would Burns buy Gainers.62

Yet by December of 1993 the government announced that Burns had agreed to buy

Gainers for $25 million, if the province agreed to spend $22 million to upgrade and

modernize the plant and to pay off any remaining debts. Treasurer Jim Dinning implied that

the province would gain $3 million from the sale (although this would follow an estimated

$170 million in losses in four years, including the original defaulted loan).63 The welcome

announcement quickly became a source of embarrassment for the government when it came

to light that Burns had agreed to invest $25 million in the plant, not to pay the government

that amount: “Mr. Dinning admitted last week that Burns Foods will not pay a cent for

Gainers . . . Instead of making $3 million on the deal, the Klein government in effect paid

60 Johnson, “Trimming Away the Rotten Bits,” Alberta Report, September 27, 1993. 61 “He says the province should have shut the company and walked away months ago instead. ‘There are a lot of jobs at stake. But Gainers is losing so much money it doesn't make sense to keep it open,’ he says. ‘The government should bite the bullet and close it down.’” Johnson, “Trimming Away the Rotten Bits,” Alberta Report, September 27, 1993. 62 Serres, “Dumping the Latest of Getty’s Disasters,” Alberta Report, November 29, 1993. 63 Christopher Serres, “When is a Deal Not a Deal?” Alberta Report 20, no. 52 (December 13, 1993).

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Burns $22 million to take the plant.”64 According to reporter Christopher Serres, the

government gave Burns $70 million worth of assets, including $30 million worth of

equipment, $25 million worth of inventory, and $22 million worth of accounts receivable,

and a two year no-cost lease on the land and building of the plant. Further, Gainers was

showing $81 million in losses, but the government had already covered that debt, allowing

Burns to count the losses as a tax write-off that would enable the company to earn $400

million in net profit before paying any more income tax, according to the Liberal Treasury

critic Sine Chadi. The sale to Burns was heralded as more Alberta subsidies of the

meatpacking industry and Fred Mitchell of the Saskatoon-based Intercontinental packers

sarcastically commented that he might have bid on the plant had he known “that the Alberta

government was giving it away” for free.65

The deal for Burns to take over the plant, however, was contingent on UFCW

accepting a three year wage freeze. In response the union discussed the possibility of

rejecting that contract and bidding on the plant itself. Despite UFCW 280-P stating that it

had found three interested investors and would apply to their international for funds to buy

the plant, the Alberta Treasury department was not receptive and openly sceptical that the

union would be able to raise the funds for investment. The union was concerned that Burns

had no intention of maintaining operations in the Edmonton plant given that Burns and

Fletchers had agreed in October to build a new hog facility with the capacity to process the

province’s entire production of hogs. Burns president Ron Jackson stated the company

64 Ralph Klein replaced Don Getty as premier in 1992. Serres , “When is a Deal Not a Deal?” Alberta Report, December 13, 1993. 65 Fred Mitchell, quoted in Serres, “When is a Deal Not a Deal?” Alberta Report, December 13, 1993.

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might shut down the kill floor and lay-off 220 workers at Gainers, even if the plant remained

open. Union vice-president Peter Bolheim’s reply was “the fact that [Burns] never paid a cent

proves that they have no financial stake in keeping [Gainers] open.”66

In the week after Christmas of 1993, however, 56% of the voting UFCW members

chose to accept the three year wage freeze in order to keep the plant open in the new year.

The union leaders opposed the agreement, but the workers were intimidated that Premier

Ralph Klein would follow through with his threat to permanently close the plant on

December 31.67 Despite delaying the final closure of the plant, the working conditions at

Gainers under Burns deteriorated. In September of 1994 a new policy was implemented to

dock workers’ pay by $1 a trip for bathroom breaks they took outside of their formally

scheduled (and employment standards mandated) breaks.68 Although this move was

lambasted in the media and by the union, especially in light of the lack of washroom facilities

for women in the plant, the policy remained in effect even after Maple Leaf Foods acquired

the plant from Burns with Arthur Child’s death and the company’s sale of the meatpacking

portion of the company.

In 1995 Burns refused to invest its promised $25 million unless UFCW 280-P agreed

to a new five year contract with marginal wage increases. Burns threatened to close the plant

and move its operations if “labour stability” was not obtained. The company went so far as

to apply to the Labour Relations Board to send their contract offer directly to workers after

the union blocked a vote on the grounds that the contract had not been mutually negotiated.

66 Peter Bolheim, quoted in Serres, “When is a Deal Not a Deal?” Alberta Report, December 13, 1993. 67 “Postscript,” Alberta Report 21, no. 43 (January 3, 1994); and “Gainers Workers Accept Freeze,” Maclean’s 107, no. 1 (January 3, 1994): 47. 68 Bruce Headlam, “Pay as You Go,” Canadian Business 67, no. 11 (November 1994):13.

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Burns withdrew the application when the broader labour movement objected to such a clear

example of employer interference. Doug Ford, former Gainers spokesperson under

Pocklington, accused the union of trying to relive the glory days of the 1986 strike and of

bringing the plant one step closer to closure, but UFCW claimed that the contract had been

rejected in more than one informal vote. There was a great deal of irony in Ford’s

accusations, which included the charge that “the union executive is putting its personal

agenda before the interests of its members,” the same accusation that Bolanes used in 1986

before the strike began.69 Ford also commented that the executive did not “realize the

precariousness of their situation” due to the age of the plant, which needed capital

investment in order to remain competitive. Like Pocklington, Burns wanted guarantees

before investing, despite claiming at one point that it was prepared to spend up to $50

million to construct a state of the art plant in Edmonton. UFCW 280-P believed that the

possibility of expansion was being used to manipulate workers in Edmonton into signing an

agreement a year before their contract expired in the hopes that it would put more pressure

on Burns workers in Winnipeg who were in negotiations.

An article in the Alberta Report implicitly and explicitly compared the situation of

Gainers workers in 1995 to their position in 1986. Reporter Terry Johnson framed the

union’s initial refusal of the proposed contract as an atypical rejection of concessions, much

as the 1986 strike was constructed: “the union – local 280 of the United Food and

Commercial Workers (UFCW) – did something unusual. It said no.”70 Johnson further

described the state of labour relations in the mid-1990s: unionization had dropped to 15% of

69 Philip, “Playing Chicken with Arthur Child,” Alberta Report, February 26, 1996. 70 Terry Johnson, “Solidarity . . . Next Year, Maybe,” Alberta Report 22, no. 50 (November 27, 1995).

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workers (half the national average), only Saskatchewan had fewer labour stoppages in 1994

than Alberta, and concession bargaining was the norm (including wage cuts or increases

below inflation) even for profitable companies. Quoting labour historian Alvin Finkel, the

article noted that extended periods of high unemployment had created a weak labour

movement as frightened workers became trapped in defeatist thinking. Burns began actively

searching for locations outside Edmonton to build a new plant, and this was enough to

prompt some members to petition the union executive for the right to vote on Burns’ offer.

Also in 1995 the province of Alberta launched a $7.5 million lawsuit (the first of

nine) against Peter Pocklington for his central role in the financial collapse of Gainers,

accusing Pocklington of using tax dollars to “buttress his own personal wealth.”71 In opening

statements the government charged that Pocklington transferred funds to his own personal

account and personal companies shortly after signing an agreement in 1987 with the Alberta

Treasury to guarantee all losses on a $55 million loan to Gainers, which the company

defaulted on two short years later. The money was used to pay for Pocklington’s “classical

car collection, cars for his daughter and father, a wine collection, annual fishing trips,

holidays in the Far East, and an Edmonton Oilers golf tournament in Palm Springs,” and his

nanny’s membership to the Royal Glenora Club.72 Two days before the government seized

Gainers, Pocklington arranged for 362 acres of prime real estate north of Calgary to be

transferred from Gainers to his personal corporation. Norm Pollock, a lawyer for Gainers,

71 Christopher Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat” Alberta Report 22, no. 43 (October 9, 1995). 72 Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat,” Alberta Report, October 9, 1995.

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argued that “Pocklington had placed himself in a position where his personal interests and

those of Gainers were clearly in conflict.”73

Pocklington’s defence was that such expenses were legally acceptable under the

master agreement drawn up by the province in 1987. One clause of that agreement allowed

Gainers management to collect fees of $165 �000 per month from the government that

could be used for anything that involved company personnel or clients, so long as the

managers could make a case that it related to their duties. While the master agreement

prohibited the transfer of Gainers assets, there was a loophole for transfers to a subsidiary

company, allowing Pocklington to stay within the letter of the agreement by creating a new

subsidiary company to assume control of the Calgary land, and then simply taking over that

company with Pocklington Financial Corporation. According to Pocklington’s lawyer Bill

Kenny, “what happened was not a breach of the master agreement.”74 This is a classic

example of the disparity between legal sense and common sense that legal scholar Harry

Glasbeek has discussed.

Rather than condemning the law for allowing such blatant and brazen disregard for

the spirit of the contract, or Pocklington for his greed, the common criticism that emerged

among conservative Albertans was aimed at the government. James Forrest of the Alberta

Taxpayers Association argued that “the onus of guilt should fall on the government for

making the deal in the first place. Any time you create these partnerships between the private

and public sector, you have to assume that the private sector is out to further its own

73 Norm Pollock quoted in Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat,” Alberta Report, October 9, 1995. 74 Bill Kenny, quoted in Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat,” Alberta Report, October 9, 1995.

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interest.”75 This particular criticism might seem unfair: after all ,why would the government

suspect that Pocklington was going to run Gainers into the ground? Yet one had only to look

at the fact that Gainers was an outdated plant when Pocklington bought it and that his

means of securing profits from it were by squeezing workers for greater efficiency rather

than making capital expenditures of his own to increase the productivity of the line, to see

the potential motive. According to Gerry Beauchamp, Pocklington’s aim was to simply get as

much money out of the plant in the short term as possible.76

The cost of litigation for the government was estimated at one-half million dollars

and Liberal treasury critic Mike Percy argued that it was “time for the Tories to admit they

got burned and provide some assurance that it won’t happen again,” by creating strict

legislation to restrict government loans to businesses.77 Some critics commented that the

Gainers financial debacle was proof that government should not involve itself in business

matters. This criticism was aimed not at the original agreement that provincial government

entered with Gainers, but rather with the fact that the government presumed that it could

successfully run a business. Nick Taylor, another Liberal MLA, commented that “members

of both parties were convinced they could run businesses just as effectively, even better, than

businessmen . . . They all had friends who were successful in business, and they saw no

reason why they couldn’t do the same. Unfortunately, we’re still paying the price.”78 Yet not

only did the government not invest the money needed for deferred upgrades, but it was also

cautious about taking a politically unpopular move by implementing the layoffs and cutbacks

75 James Forest, quoted in Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat,” Alberta Report, October 9, 1995. 76 Gerry Beauchamp, interview, August 20, 2012. 77 Mike Percy quoted in Serres, “Klein’s $200-Million Scapegoat,” Alberta Report, October 9, 1995. 78 Nick Taylor quoted Serres, “Dumping the Latest of Getty’s Disasters,” Alberta Report, November 29, 1993.

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its business expert recommended were needed to bring Gainers closer to saleability, if not

profitability.

The problem for the Progressive Conservative government was that the Gainers

plant was a key industry in the provincial capital. Although the number of people employed

in the plant decreased steadily, in 1996 there were still 900 workers employed at a plant

infusing $30 million in wages into the local economy. The plant paid over $625 000 in

municipal taxes and $2 million in utilities. Gainers also purchased and contracted more than

$15 million from the local economy. 79 The meatpacker was not only economically important

to Edmonton, but keeping the plant open was also politically important. Edmonton mayor

Jan Reimer applauded the provincial decision to keep the plant open, noting in 1993 besides

the 1 200 employed at the plant, another 4 000 Albertans’ jobs depended on the continued

operations of Gainers.80

By late September of 1996 the plant was sold to Maple Leaf Meats following the early

August death of Burns owner Arthur Childs.81 The same year Fletchers completed a $4

million expansion that increased its capacity to 8 000 hogs per day. A further $20 million

expansion of the facility to double its improved capacity was planned, which would have

been enough to accommodate all the hogs produced in Alberta.82 In August of 1997, when

the union rejected a proposal from Maple Leaf that included a 28 cent an hour raise each

year for three years, abandonment of the bathroom policy instituted under Burns, and early

retirement packages, Fletchers was prepared to run a night shift to pick up any excess if the 79 Philip, “Playing Chicken with Arthur Child,” Alberta Report, February 26, 1996. 80 Webber, “More Red Ink,” Alberta Report, April 12, 1993. 81 George Koch, “Burns Bails Out of the Meat Business,” Alberta Report 23, no. 43 (October 7, 1996). 82 Joshua Avram “Hog Wild Competition,” Alberta Report 24, no. 9 (February 10, 1997) and Davis Sheremata, “A Pig-Ugly Labour Dispute,” Alberta Report 24, no. 37 (August 25, 1997).

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plant closed. In addition, the city of Lethbridge had recently approved a new hog processing

facility that could accommodate up to 38 000 animals a week.83 The union prepared for a

strike vote, and Maple Leaf president Michael McCain threatened the permanent closure of

the plant if the workers walked out: “if the mediator’s report is rejected and a strike occurs,

Maple Leaf will close the plant in Edmonton. It will never re-open and you will lose the

benefit of the current collective agreement . . . When the decision is made there will be no

turning back. The choice is yours.”84 The union believed that McCain was bluffing, and faced

for the third time in four years with the threat of plant closures, the union (now UFCW

312A) decided to ask for parity.

The starting rate at Gainers in 1997 was $8.40 an hour (a mere 40 cents more than a

decade before) with 40% pay increases every six months until workers reached a maximum

base rate of $14.13 in seven and a half years. Not only was Gainers base rate worse than both

Fletchers and Maple Leaf in Winnipeg, but it took almost twice as long for workers to reach

that maximum.85 Wages, however, were not the most important factor for Gainers workers

according to union president Jack Westgeest: “We’re looking for parity, but we don’t have to

achieve it today. Show us continuation of jobs and we’ll work with you to control costs.

We’ll help you dig the hole for the new plant.”86 A new plant, however, was not in the works.

The seven story Gainers meatpacking plant was torn down, although the loading docks still

remain and are visible from the Yellowhead Trail today.

83 Sheremata, “Pig Ugly Dispute,” Alberta Report, August 25, 1997. 84 Michael McCain quoted in Sheremata, “Pig Ugly Dispute,” Alberta Report, August 25, 1997. 85 In comparison, the starting rate at Fletcher’s was $8, but workers reached a base rate of $15.10 in four years and the Maple Leaf workers in Winnipeg started at $10.15 and reached a rate of $16.42 in three years. 86 Jack Westgeest quoted in Sheremata, “Pig Ugly Dispute,” Alberta Report, August 25, 1997.

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A Class Struggle Perspective on the Gainers Strike: Success and Failure in Canadian Labour

History

Over 25 years later the Gainers strike retains a prominent place in Albertans’

memories: even people uninvolved in the labour movement recall the strike when they have

forgotten countless other strikes that were longer or more violent.87 Supporters remember it

as a watershed for the labour movement in Alberta, a moment when Alberta workers

surprised everyone, even themselves, with their militancy and solidarity. Noël and Gardner

argue that the Gainers strike “rejuvenated the provincial labour movement, increased public

support for trade unions and brought the provincial labour laws to the forefront of the

political agenda.”88 Maureen Werlin stated that the Gainers strike was critical to the

continued mobilization of the labour movement around the Change the Law campaign and

was a source of pride during the 75th anniversary of the AFL in 1987.89 From the Change the

Law campaign the AFL created an electronic database of activists across the province that

allowed them to coordinate action.90 According to Bob McKeon, the Gainers strike

strengthened coalition ties, and groups that had come together around the strike continued

to act in concert into the 1990s.91

Some in the labour movement argued that the Gainers strike marked a change in

atmosphere in Alberta. Within the Alberta Federation of Labour the left was in the

87 Maureen Werlin, interview, February 27, 2013. 88 Noël and Gardner, “The Gainers Strike,” 33. 89 Maureen Werlin, interview, February 27, 2013. 90 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 192. 91 Bob McKeon, personal interview, October 22, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta.

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ascendancy.92 The AFL and its affiliates acted with more confidence after the strike, and

employers were less likely to engage in hardline confrontations. Even if Gainers was not an

“unambiguous victory,” it did demonstrate to employers the potential for militancy and

solidarity that existed in Alberta.93 When Fletchers locked its workers out for eight months in

1988, it did not achieve its aim of busting the union – though Lakeside Packers had

accomplished just that in 1984.94 During and after the Gainers strike there was a sense of a

labour movement in motion, not just static and reactive, according to Maureen Werlin. “It

was almost like the labour movement felt invincible. Before the Gainers strike, every strike

they went out alone,” but after the strike you could always count on seeing a member of 280-

P on any picket line in the Edmonton area.95

There were still concessions in contracts, cutbacks, privatization, and layoffs in the

late 1980s. The labour laws worsened, and by the 1990s Alberta was as hostile as ever to

workers. The decay of the post-war accord was accelerating.96 The UFCW 280-P itself was

not better positioned after the strike, and one would be hard pressed to describe the

outcome if any of 280-P’s following struggles as even ambiguous victories.97 That being so,

the union did survive in a period when unionization rates in the private sector in Alberta

92 Dave Werlin was re-elected after Gainers with an overwhelming majority. 93 This is much as the 1943 steel strike did for the union, as described by Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “The 1943 Steel Strike Against Wartime Wage Controls,” in Canadian Labour History: Selected Readings, ed. David Bercuson (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1987), 195. 94 Gereluk, “Alberta Labour in the 1980s,” 192; and Anne Forrest, “The Rise and Fall of National Bargaining in the Canadian Meat-Packing Industry,” Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations 44, no. 2 (1989): 396. 95 Maureen Werlin, interview, February 27, 2013. 96 Jason Foster, “Revolution, Retrenchment, and the New Normal:�the�1990s�and�Beyond,” in Finkel, Working People in Alberta, 206. 97 The 1988 nurses’ settlement in Alberta after their illegal strike was later labelled a treadwater agreement, but it helped to ensure the gains they made in their next settlement. Rebecca Priegert Coulter, “Alberta Nurses and the ‘Illegal’ Strike of 1988,” in Canadian Working-Class History: Selected Readings, 3rd edition, ed. Laurel Sefton MacDowell and Ian Radforth (Toronto: Scholars’ Press, Inc., 2006), 414.

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dropped from 16% to 12% in three short years.98 As Laurel Sefton MacDowell has pointed

out, the prevention of events can be equally as important as the positive accomplishment of

others.99 Part of the disappointment of the settlement can be linked to shift of the central

issues of the strike from the one the workers put forward in the beginning, of parity, to those

that the company created, including the termination of the pension plan, the retention of the

strikebreakers, and the very existence of the union.100

The final results of a conflict can contain both elements of victory and defeat,

accomplishments and failures.101 As Gregory Kealey has noted “defeats should not be

confused with failure.”102 For the Albertans that joined the conflict, the strike was never

simply about the Gainers workers, and so the evaluation of the strike can not be simply

confined to the agreement reached between Gainers Inc. and UFCW local 280-P. In 1987

Dave Werlin told the Athabasca University Magazine:

It cannot be analyzed or judged on the basis of the final settlement. Seldom are these kinds of historical struggles judged by the final wording of the collective agreement. Their main victory was that they were able to mobilize the support, first, of the labour movement of the entire province of Alberta and then, finally of the entire country.103

The strike exposed the ravages that a depressed economy had wreaked on Alberta society

and the connections between an economically vulnerable working class and capitalists willing

98 Yonatan Reshef and Alan I. Murray, “Union Decline: Lessons from Alberta,” Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations 46, no. 1 (1991): 185-203. 99 MacDowell, “1943 Steel Strike,” 190. 100 For another example of an ambiguous settlement due to the employer changing the central issues (in this case to fears about communism) see Robert S. Robson, “Strike in the Single Enterprise Community: Flin Flon, Manitoba – 1934,” in Bercuson, Canadian Labour History, 159-178 . 101 Bryan Palmer, “The Rise and Fall of British Columbia’s Solidarity,” in The Character of Class Struggle: Essays in Canadian Working-Class History, ed. Bryan D. Palmer (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1986), 199. 102 Gregory Kealey, “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (Spring 1984):43. 103 Dave Werlin and Don Aitken interview, Athabasca University Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 1987), special labour segment, 20-21.

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to exploit them. The Gainers strike pointed to the growing social and economic inequalities

in Alberta, and the lack of adequate governmental redress. Gail Allan commented that the

strike “laid bare some of the issues that people were struggling with in ways that hadn’t been

as clear.”104 Gainers was emblematic because it connected individuals outside the conflict to

an idea of shared struggle.

In her Labour Day commentary, Allan made explicit the link between the individuals

present and the broader context: “And I know each of us comes tonight with our own story

that brings us here and makes us feel connected to this struggle. The stories connect us to

each other too, and we could probably gain a lot by sharing them . . . maybe on the way to

the legislature.”105 The appeal of Gainers was not simply realizing that there was a connection

between workers, but realizing that there was something that workers and citizens as a

community could do to affect the Gainers conflict. Gainers was a metonym: a single battle

for better working and living conditions, but it was one that could potentially turn the tide

against further attacks on workers. Gainers was an opportunity to confront the changes that

were taking place in the political economy, a chance to question and discuss what society

should be, rather than what it was and what it was turning into.

Bob McKeon noted the spontaneous nature of the solidarity movements that

emerged around the strike, such as the Ecumenical Prayer Coalition that “sustained itself,”

remarking that you could never organize that level of involvement and commitment.106 Like

104

Gail Allan, personal interview, November 19, 2012, Toronto, Ontario. 105 Ellipses original. Gail Allan, Native Pastoral Centre, September 1, 1986, Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches: 1986 (Edmonton: Edmonton Churches Coalition on Labour and Justice, 1987), 37. 106 McKeon, interview, October 22, 1012.

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other impressive displays of solidarity and militancy, such as Solidarity BC or the various

strikes during the workers’ revolt at the end of WWI, the Gainers strike gave voice to the

frustrations and disappointments that so many Albertans were struggling with since the

economy turned down.107 According to Calgary Herald reporter Kevin Peterson “Pocklington

has succeeded where generations of Alberta socialists have failed. He has managed to create

a bitter and violent dispute where the public blames management, and not the workers.”108

The strike did more than simply create public support for the workers, though that can be

understood as an accomplishment in its own right.109 The Coalition put the matter well in the

book they published in 1987: “Beneath the worker-management conflict in a strike such as

the Gainers dispute lies a deeper level which questions the degree to which industry can be

driven by the profit motive.”110 Here, even in the sometimes schizophrenic Coalition’s

thinking, is the heart of the strike: the raising of working-class consciousness through a

struggle against clear injustice, and there is no question that those involved saw injustice.

According to Maureen Werlin, the importance of the strike was both the working

class consciousness and concomitant politicization that emerged. The act of struggle, not the

outcome, was the most significant aspect. Echoing the sentiment of many people she noted

that “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that level of working class solidarity since the Gainers strike

107 Palmer uses the phrase “seething opposition.” Palmer, “Rise and Fall of British Columbia’s Solidarity,” 185; and Kealey quoting David Montgomery, "Strikes can only be understood in the context of the changing totality of class conflicts, of which they are a part." Kealey, “1919,” 15. 108 Kevin Peterson, “Pocklington Has Created Climate for Change,” Calgary Herald, June 29, 1986. 109 For the importance of public support of workers see for example Irving Abella, “Oshawa 1937,” in Canadian Working Class History: Selected Readings, ed. Laurel Sefton MacDowell and Ian Radforth (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 1992), 459-80; Joan Sangster, “The 1907 Bell Telephone Strike,” in Through Feminist Eyes: Essays on Canadian Women’s History (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2011), 53-98; and William Baker, “The Miners and the Mediator: The 1906 Lethbridge Strike and Mackenzie King,” in McDowell and Radforth, Canadian Working-Class History, 383-408. 110 Coalition on Labour and Justice, Gainers and the Churches, 30.

168

here in Alberta.”111 Albertans not only spoke out for greater workers’ rights, but they

attended protests, prepared submissions for the Reid Committee, donated money, woke early

to attend prayer meetings, and stopped buying Gainers products. The Gainers strike

presented a distinct and real threat to the established order of the province.112 There were

certainly limits to what could be achieved, as Alvin Finkel has noted, but that does not

diminish the fact that there was the potential to create meaningful change, as the strike

served to “rally Alberta working people as no cause had since the Depression.”113 Like other

moments of class consciousness, though even the more radical unionists agree that this

consciousness was more felt than articulated, the conflict at Gainers revealed the possibilities

of protest as it generated militancy and solidarity.114 Gainers still serves as an inspiration to

the Alberta labour movement.

Yet the strike also revealed some of the limitations of the existing union system, the

result not only of the gradual, evolutionary bureaucratization and legalization of what had

once been a movement, but also of the purposeful purges of the communists and socialists.

The high point of the strike was the class solidarity, noted one trade unionist, and the low

was the business as usual actions of the international, more concerned with settling the strike

immediately than with the broader class conflict that was central to workers’ growing

111 Maureen Werlin, interview, February 27, 2013. 112

“The ongoing ‘Battle of 66th Street’ was shaping up as one of the most protracted and militant class struggles of the 1980s.” Bryan Palmer, Working Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1992), 395. 113 Alvin Finkel, “The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (Spring 1988): 151. 114 Dave Werlin and Jim Selby, personal interview, August 21, 2012, Edmonton, Alberta; Sangster, “1907 Bell Telephone Strike,” 54; and Abella, “Oshawa 1937.”

169

awareness of all the issues exposed in the Gainers strike.115 Yonatan Reshef and Alan Murray

discuss how the philosophy of Alberta unions of mature adversarial industrial relations was

leading to a crisis of identity, as the whole promise of unions to deliver tangible economic

benefits to their members was threatened by the economic recession of the 1980s.116

Business unionism could only offer amelioration of capitalism during boom years, and the

lack of socialist or alternative socio-economic visions within the union culture meant there

was only so much that even a galvanizing conflict like Gainers could accomplish. The dearth

of discussion on society-wide solutions to economic and political inequalities hampered the

possibilities for social transformation as the post-war labour accord ended, but that is not to

say that there was no appetite for it.

The Gainers strike, then, was not simply an economic struggle between a company

and union, or a legal struggle to change the labour laws, or even a political struggle to have

workers’ rights recognized. The Gainers strike was a struggle over the shape of society. It is

therefore not surprising that with such high stakes so many people were bitterly disappointed

by its outcome, or that they choose to celebrate and commemorate the conflict as a shining

moment of solidarity when systemic change to benefit the working class was within reach.

115 Koskinas notes that the strike made the damage caused by International unionism apparent. Koskinas, “Theory of Working Class Culture,” 189; and Jim Selby, personal correspondence. 116 Reshef and Murray, “Union Decline: Lessons from Alberta,” 186.

170

Bibliography

A Note About Sources:

I am greatly indebted to Maureen Werlin and Renée Peevey for all the material they shared

with me, as well as to all the people who gave interviews.

From Maureen I received a clippings file of all newspaper articles about the Gainers strike (as

well as labour more generally in the province), from the Edmonton Journal and the Edmonton

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