Shrimp shelved
More than 100 out of work as the ripple effect of shrimp quota cuts hits home
Barry Group closes Clarenville plant
Roz King sounded calm, but the news had not really sunk in.
She had just learned the Barry Group shrimp plant in Clarenville — a place where she had worked for more than 30 years — would not open this year.
“There’s no way to begin to imagine how we’re feeling,” she told The Packet of the emotions being felt by the workers. “How do we eat? That’s what it boils down to.”
King said the news was confirmed for the workers by their union — United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) early Tuesday morning.
The Packet reached out to the Barry Group for comment, but up to deadline had not received a response to the request for an interview.
Linda Chafe, national representative for the UFCW, St. John’s, did confirm that a representative from the company contacted her at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning to inform her of the company’s decision.
King admitted that the more than 100 people who work at the shrimp plant in Clarenville were feeling uneasy about this season, in the wake of the cuts to the northern shrimp quotas.
“In your gut you knew something was happening, but in your mind you’re wishing, hoping that something would happen to get you through another year,” she said.
King said she’d been speaking to many of her fellow plant workers Tuesday morning, and the question now is the same for everyone.
“What do you do now? Where do you go?”
She pointed out that many of the workers at the plant are in their 60s.
“We have husbands and wives working alongside each other there; single parents; seniors who are single.”
Most of those workers will be without income with the current Employment Insurance (EI) benefits run out in another few weeks. The benefits they are collecting now are based on the hours they worked in the plant last season.
Last year — like most shrimp seasons before — they went to work in April or May and finished up in early fall.
This year, they have been in limbo — awaiting first a decision from the federal fisheries minister on northern shrimp quotas, and then a decision by their employer on whether or not to open the plant.
“This time last year we needed just a couple more weeks of work to qualify for EI,” said King. “This year (we have) not one week, not one day, not one hour.”
The Barry Group operates just two shrimp plants in the province. This season all the shrimp will be processed at their plant in Anchor Point, on the Northern Peninsula.
“They are lucky people,” said King, adding she is not envious of her peers in that other plant “because they could be in the same shape we are in at Clarenville. Hopefully, with what they get, at least those 150 workers will have enough to qualify for EI this year.”
For the Clarenville workers, both King and Chafe said there aren’t many options.
A lot of the people there know no other work other than the assembly line at the Clarenville plant.
“Most of us don’t even know how to operate a cash register. Most of the people who went to work in that plant went there as young men and women, raised their families and now have grandchildren … at 60 years old, where do you go?”
Roz King, plant worker
Chafe said many jobs that might have been available a few weeks ago — at local coffee shops and fast-food restaurants — have been filled by summer students.
Besides, said King, most of her peers on the plant floor have no experience in retail or food service.
“Most of us don’t even know how to operate a cash register. Most of the people who went to work in that plant went there as young men and women, raised their families and now have grandchildren … at 60 years old, where do you go?”
Because they were seasonal workers, Chafe added, the Canada Pension Plan won’t cover their living costs.
She said the UFCW will be reaching out to federal and provincial governments in the next few days to ask for help for the group.
Some of the plant workers have already started making phone calls.
King said she and many of her fellow workers have placed calls to their MP — Judy Foote — and local MHA — Colin Holloway.
King said all they can do is hope that either, or both, levels of government can help work up a solution that allows them to continue to pay their household bills.
“And a make-work project in a few months’ time is not a solution,” she added. “We have bills to pay now.”
For Tuesday, the only thing King could do was talk to her fellow plant workers, as they all began to realize the news.
Throughout the interview her phone-line was beeping with incoming calls.
King seemed stoic and matterof-fact throughout the interview, but agreed that reality has not sunk in yet.
“I guess it will sink in when there’s no pay cheque coming in,” she said.