Devastated

Juris Graney

Staff writer

Michelle Dredge is finding it harder and harder each week to face her fellow workers at the Black Duck Cove shrimp processing plant.

As union chairperson of Gulf Shrimp Limited and the plant's United Food and Commercial Workers Union executive board fisheries representative, it's her job to act as a conduit between the 130 workers and owner, the Quinlan Brothers.

"Every week I get asked the same question, 'when are we going to see the shrimp' and I keep telling them 'it's coming, it's coming' but I can't anymore, I can't tell them that, I can't give them false hope," she told the Pen.

Now into their 10th week of processing, workers have managed a five-day week just twice since signing a new work contract and are now averaging a meagre 35 hours a week, not a lot considering they are earning just $10.60 an hour.

"I'd say we are the lowest paid union plant in Newfoundland but what we lost in wages we made up for in overtime. Last year we was working seven days a week and I remember years ago when we worked 110 days straight," she says.

Last week some workers, who travel from Eddies Cove and New Ferolle, managed a tantalising 50-hour week, but it was an anomaly rather than the norm.

Things wouldn't be so bad if there was no shrimp on the go but there's the rub, there is an abundance of shrimp and they know it because to add insult to injury, shrimp that they could be processing is rolling down Route 430 in the back of refrigerated trucks, right past their front doors.

Instead of the shrimp landed at St. Anthony and Port au Choix being brought to the plant like it has over the past seven years, Ms. Dredge said it was now being trucked 12 hours to a Quinlan Brothers plant at Old Perlican.

Ms. Dredge estimated that two weeks ago, 120,000 lbs of shrimp that could have been processed at their plant went barreling down the highway.

"This year seemed pretty good, it started slowly so we were all hoping it would pick up but it hasn't," she says.

"We've been asking the owners, we've been asking them every week 'when are we going to see shrimp' and they keeps tellin' us, 'it's comin', soon you'll be plugged with shrimp' but we haven't seen it and instead it's been driven straight past our door.

Ms. Dredge said the thought of staging a strike or taking action similar to what Anchor Point shrimp workers did in June is out of the question.

Back then, frustated that their Barry Group managed plant was was sitting idle as shrimp was trucked off the Northern Peninsula to another plant in Clarenville, Anchor Point workers drove to the 45 mile turn near Port Saunders and blocked Route 430 preventing a truck packed with shrimp heading to the other plant.

"We want to work, that's why we don't want to go out on strike," she says.

"We want to work, we have the workers here begging for more work but we ain't gettin' it. People have their lives here, they have built their houses here, they can't just leave it.

"The work here is seasonal we know that, but you have to be able to make a living in your community somehow.

"When you are used to working seven days a week you set yourself a standard of living but now we're getting 35 hours a week, we still have mortgages and bills to pay.

"When you look and see what we had and what we have gone down to, it just makes you want to cry."

With plans for restructuring and rationalization of the fishing industry underway following the signing last July of a Memorandum of Understanding between the province, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers' union and the Association of Seafood Producers, Ms. Dredge said the workers were worried about the future of the plant.

"There is a lot of people here gettin' real nervous. With this new Memorandum of Understanding, we knows some plants are going to close, and a lot think this is going to be one of them," she says.

"Why would you truck shrimp 12 hours down the road when you have a plant here ready to process it?

"It's not what they are saying it's what they are not saying and what they are doing."

Millie Dredge, who has worked at the plant for 35 years, the past 10 years as a shrimp processing plant, was equally outraged.

"I've been through the bad and the good, oh yes b'y I have, but this is the worst year, the worst year I remember," she said.

"We was told we'd be looked after, we was promised when they (Quinlan Brothers) took over the plant we'd have shrimp but look at where we are. Look at where we are now. All this year they have been saying it'll get better, but it's been 10 weeks and still nothing," she says.

"Morale is at an all time low, and we are all asking the same question, is there any future here?

"This is devastating for the people, this is devastating for everyone.

"You can't pay bills with hope and promises."

Robin Quinlan of Quinlan Brothers did not return the Northern Pen's phone calls.