A Little Bit Ritchie Episode 5 Transcript: More Guts Than Gainers
Hello, and welcome to A Little Bit Ritchie, the local history podcast curious about all things Edmonton. I’m your host, Lydia Neufeld. To celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the Ritchie Community League, in every episode, we’ll dive into a new sector of local history to discover what makes Ritchie—Ritchie!
The Ritchie Community League respectfully acknowledges that the land where we gather is Treaty 6 territory and Metis Nation of Alberta Region 4. This land has been a traditional meeting ground for many Indigenous peoples. The territory on which Ritchie stands has provided a travelling route and home to the Cree, Blackfoot, Saulteaux, Métis and other Indigenous peoples. This podcast analyzes the history of the land, and we begin with the understanding that the community, currently known as Ritchie, exists on stolen land. Throughout this year of centennial celebrations, the Ritchie Community League is working to explore what the land means to the community and how we can create a future on this land that assists in undoing the processes of colonization.
A Little Bit Ritchie is more than entertainment and celebration. It is also a mutual learning method. The league has developed a Reconciliation Committee, which aims to understand the history of the lands we call home. The Committee reflects on the Community Leagues’ existence in Ritchie and its relationship to the land. We hope to learn more about the area’s rich Indigenous history and build stronger relationships with today's communities and residents.
In an effort to re-structure how we perceive and interact with the community we serve, the League would love to hear lesser-known stories about the lands currently known as Ritchie. These stories can help shape how we acknowledge these lands and support our goals of building an equitable, welcoming community for all through reconciliation and local action. Let us know how you show gratitude for the lands you call home or what brings you joy in your community. If you want to share a story, please contact Seghan at civics@ritchie-league.com.
Today on A Little Bit Ritchie we’ll take a deep dive into Edmonton's Packingtown Era and focus on the meatpacking plant that stood the test of time—Gainers. The vast prairies presented a home for the livestock industry, which required a local meatpacking industry to develop in a Western hub. Home to over six plants at its peak, Edmonton was the meatpacking capital of Western Canada for nearly a century.1 This story features the tale of one of the most bitter labour disputes Alberta has ever witnessed.
Haskap-y Birthday, Ritchie! In celebration of the Ritchie Community League’s Centennial, Kind Ice Cream is welcoming back their Haskap flavour exclusively to their Ritchie shop. A Haskap is a colourful berry that grows throughout the northern hemisphere and tastes like a combination of blueberry, raspberry, and black currant with a bit of added zing. This exquisite flavour is as local—and delicious—as they come.
Kind Ice Cream opened in 2019, right here in Ritchie, and quickly became the go-to meeting spot for families and friends looking for a quality sweet treat. Kind’s delectable ice creams are hand-crafted in small batches with exceptional ingredients and creativity and served with a commitment to reducing waste. Kind opened a second location in Highlands last summer, and in just three years, the ice creamery has achieved its aim to create two community-based shops where all are welcome.
Alongside the Haskap flavour, Kind is scooping a Mango Serrano flavour and their classic Gay OK flavour! Kind is donating $1 from every pint of Gay OK to local S2LGBTQ+ organizations, the CHEW Project, and the Edmonton 2 Spirit Society. To try all of these delectable treats, pop over to Kind Ice Cream today!
Before we begin into our discussion of Edmonton’s Packingtown, it’s essential to understand the eurocentric influences of the meatpacking movement to realize the local and cultural implications of the industry. In Europe, the meatpacking industry emerged in the early 1800s, during the peak of the industrial revolution. Commercial slaughterhouses represented a shift away from “an agrarian to an industrial system, accompanied by increased urbanization, technological developments, and concern about public hygiene.” Before the industrial revolution, animals were slaughtered mainly privately, for and by a family, usually in their backyards.2 However, cultural reformists argued in the late eighteenth century that public and commercial slaughterhouses were preferable to the private slaughter of livestock, citing increased cleanliness and the unsightliness of killing animals. Here, we see the emergence of the idea that animal slaughter was ‘morally dangerous’ work that needed to be concealed from the public eye and regulated by the state. The first official mass slaughterhouse in Europe opened in France, where the term abattoir was coined to describe commercial butcheries. 3
Conversely, mass livestock slaughter was prevalent in the United States since the early seventeenth century, but not in an industrial sense. 4 Settler communities would collectively slaughter pigs, cattle, and sheep before the cold grasp of winter. The butchered meat was then salted or cured. Though livestock processing began with communal roots, this changed in 1747. The United States Government passed an ordinance preventing individuals from slaughtering animals in their homes, and commercial abattoirs soared in popularity. 5 As citizens grew further from the source of their food, meatpacking plants became liminal spaces, pushed to the outskirts of a city and designed to look as nondescript as possible to reduce cultural guilt and questioning of the horrors that occurred inside. “This separation of the public from the slaughter of animals they consume developed into a hyper-separated state with the industrialization of animal slaughter.”6
In the Gilded Age, Chicago “became the preeminent meatpacking city due to changes in trade routes during the Civil War, the development of the railroad system and mechanical refrigeration.” 7 In 1865, the packing giant, the Union Stock Yard, opened, boasting an immense slaughterhouse. Inside, lines of dangling hogs wept crimson on the porcelain floor. A sort of slum developed behind the complex, where numerous employees lived. Here, exploited workers were sardined in grey, claustrophobic quarters. The slum facilitated poverty and violence. The air was dense with the sickly fumes from the packing plant. Those who lived there were traumatized by the violence they endured. To read more about the horrors surrounding employees at the Union Stock Yard, the impact of meatpacking on the human psyche, and the treatment of packinghouse workers, pick up Upton Sinclair’s harrowing novel, The Jungle.8
Edmonton attempted to model itself as an Americanized city to draw travellers and businesses to the west. As settlers came from the east, ideas and normative business processes influenced the practices of the new frontier. Edmonton's meatpacking districts were heavily inspired by the early nineteenth-century Chicagoan meatpacking industry.9 In Alberta’s capital, meatpacking was one of the earliest prosperous industries. The presence of railways coupled with the invention of refrigeration technologies created an environment where meat processing flourished.10 Regardless of socio-economic class, settlers no longer relied on their local butchers, as massive plants trucked packaged meats and livestock across the country, from isolated rural prairies to densely populated cities.
Packing giants opened new doors for farmers, as they were able to sell livestock in bulk which significantly boomed the “economic relationship between agricultural production and sales.”11 Ranchers spread out across the expansive and ‘unpopulated’ west. Edmonton’s meatpacking industry expressed the commercialization of the colonized Canadian and American landscapes where raw materials were processed, served to the masses, and spun into considerable profits. 12 By the early twentieth century, meatpacking plants functioned as a symbol of early modernity and industrialization.13
With the railway, many eastern settlers were drawn west by the potential of the unsettled frontier. The Gainer family established themselves as one of the most prominent and prosperous in early Strathcona. John Gainer, his wife, Amy, and their four young children boarded a train in 1891 from St. Mary’s, Ontario. They arrived in Edmonton with a mere $250 and a suitcase full of ambition.14 The family settled into a modest home at 8222 103 Street, where the Crawford Block stands today. Out of this home, John established a stable and dairy; however, he quickly learned that Strathcona yearned for a butchery. Though John knew little of the trade, he carved out a section of his home to accommodate an abattoir. Over the next century, John's modest enterprise would become one of Western Canada's most successful meatpacking operations.15
Quickly, the Gainers' abattoir made a killing. Hogs and cattle grazed in their backyard in lush paddocks as they awaited their death. John drove a one-horse cart to distribute an array of meats and baked goods—courtesy of Amy—to the people of Strathcona. After a prosperous few years, the Gainers outgrew their home butcher shop and opened Pioneer Meat Market in 1892. This wobbly wooden shop, punctuated with a small feedlot, stood at 10341 82 Avenue. Here, Gainer constructed a slaughterhouse with facilities to cure and smoke meat.16 After a decade of success, John demolished the rickety structure and built a marvellous and permanent brick storefront—Gainers Block.17
Nearly another decade of furious success passed, and John pivoted his focus from his humble delicatessen to a wholesale operation, with meat distribution to every corner of Alberta. He closed Pioneer Meat Market and rebranded under another name—Gainers Incorporated. Under his new business model, the butcher rapidly outgrew Gainers Block. Conveniently, Strathcona residents chatted about a new industrial district not far from home—Mill Creek Ravine.18
John Gainer was lured by the Ravine's appeal, space, and the potential of the EY&P railway that stretched through the valley. After snatching a plot of land, Gainer constructed a slaughterhouse, barns, livestock pens, and a packing plant. As we discussed in our last episode, Portrait of Mill Creek Ravine, the presence of industry decimated Ritchie’s natural resources. Industry flocked to Mill Creek, drawn in by its abundance, convenience, and proximity to the city's core, and the ravine housed the industry’s guts.
Three other meatpacking plants had operations in the Ravine. Cornelius Gallagher-Hull constructed its two-story packing plant near the intersection of Mill Creek and the North Saskatchewan River in 1900. Shortly after, Edmonton Meat Market set up shop near the EY&P bridge. Next, Vogel’s Meat Packing Plant moved into the Ravine. 19 For decades, rivers of sheep, cattle, pigs, and goats streamed into the ravine, where they existed in a state of terminal lucidity. Daily, hundreds of animals were slaughtered between the four abattoirs. For a brief period, Mill Creek became the centre of meat production in Alberta.20 “They used everything about the hog except the squeal.”21 Simultaneously, Edmonton’s northside packing town was beginning. Swift Canada opened in 1908. P. Burns Slaughterhouse opened in 1911.
As the years passed, Gainers abattoir expanded via a network of lean-tos and additional structures as needed. Eventually, a massive modern structure replaced the patchwork of buildings that Gainers acquired, and the monolith shadowed Ritchie. After just a few months, John employed over 20 people and was regarded as one of “the best known and most progressive meat merchants in Strathcona.”22
There were fires nearly every year at the various Gainers locations. The first was a fire at the Whyte Avenue location in 1905.23 The fires were so consistent that neighbourhood residents often teased that ‘it’s time for a fire at Gainers.’24 By 1910, it seemed that Gainers was an unalterable powerhouse. However, this notion was challenged in September of 1910 when another roaring fire overtook Gainers abattoir.25 This fire was one of the worst in Strathcona’s history.
The blaze stretched to the night sky and nearly matched the height of the plant. The flames were liquid, and they flowed over the abattoir. After about an hour, firefighters controlled the blaze, though over half of the building was destroyed, leaving roughly $15,000 in damages. Though the fire was devastating, work continued at the plant the following Monday.26
In a 1969 fire, the scent of the smoke and the heat from the flames would travel for kilometres. In this fire, witnesses described loose animals fleeing for their lives to the safety of the ravine.27 Cows darted between parked cars before charging down the streets, singed by the flames, and trailing smoke from their tails. Despite their fear, the fire saved the doomed animals from certain death.28
During the Depression Era, Edmontonians relied on industrial plants like Gainers to survive. In 1927, a 16-year-old high school student, Maurice Mergaert, opted to leave school in favour of a job at Gainers to help support his mother. He acquired a position running the freight elevator for a wage of 25 cents an hour. Mergaert stated that he “didn't intend to stay but in those Depression days you just stayed put. There were always people standing at the fence, looking for work. I came up through the ranks and could do any job that could be done, mostly in the hog-kill and hog-cutting departments.” Mergaert worked at Gainers for 53 years.29
In 1933, Gainers welcomed a new concrete, tile, and brick slaughterhouse just as a fire roared through a neighbouring wooden structure.30 Luckily, this fire did little damage to the newly constructed factory. Neighbourhood residents could not ignore the presence of the new building, as it “stretched over two city blocks and its shadow blocked three stories of sunlight.”31 At this time, the plant employed 230 people and produced roughly 18 million pounds of product per year.32
John Gainer was president of his operation until his death in 1938, after which the enterprise thrived under the management of his sons Arthur and Clifford, who expanded the business to Calgary, Vancouver, and Victoria.33 Immediately the new owners faced hardships; the abattoir went up in flames and left all of the wooden structures in ashes, damaging about $300,000 of property. The company rebuilt the lost structures and carried on.34
The industry transformed Ritchie into a neighbourhood that was “part country, part city, part forest, part concrete.”35 During the day, the pigs harmonized with the squealing wheels of the halting train, but when the sun dipped below the horizon and the train chugged away, the pigs and cattle droned on. Children report that they could “see the holding pens that contained the animals until the building was ready to consume them. There would be silence. [They] noticed the silence more than the noise of the animals waiting to be slaughtered. It was as if the sound of imminent death was more natural than life.” 36
Though the neighbourhood was arguably plagued by a grisly overload to the senses, “working-class…residents seldom complained about offensive sights, sounds, and smells from an industry to which their livelihood was tightly bound.”37 However, Edmontonians from other areas of the city turned up their noses at the packing districts, in part due to the physical sights and scents of the neighbourhood, but also at the social stigma attached to the working-class residents.38
Ritchie children were quite outspoken about their thoughts of Mill Creek’s Packingtown. One child reports discovering “oil, gas, and parts of cows that Gainers threw [into the creek].” The child continues to recall that “At one o’clock every day a smell goes out those long white pipes and everyone plugs their nose.” 39 Catherine Kuehne, who grew up in Ritchie, describes her childhood, stating,
“The whistle from the train and smells and sounds of Gainers were as much a part of us as the ravine and our friends. This was our neighbourhood…We heard the indignant grunts of the pigs, and their squeals at the injustice of forced walks up the ramp. We could smell their manure on hot summer days…We were almost country kids…”40
In the 1960s, Kuehne’s parents purchased and rented out the original Ritchie farmhouse at 9320 75th avenue.41 The Kuehne’s lived next door, and Catherine often witnessed escaped cows galloping down her back alley. She described feeling that Ritchie was a transitory neighbourhood partially because of the nature of the industry in the ravine and the presence of the train. It wasn’t a neighbourhood where families stayed and grew old, people left as soon as they were able.42
Catherine and her friends would sit on the bank of the ravine and wait for the train to rumble down the tracks. When the ground shook and the engine car lunged around the bend, the children would wave excitedly until the caboose disappeared in the forest. The children squealed with glee when the caboose man waved back because he was from another place.
People from all around the city came to Ritchie by bus to work at Gainers. The meatpacking industry supported Edmonton’s economy, and though many working-class citizens relied on it, jobs at the packing plants were oppressive and gruelling work. Packinghouse work was one of the most heavily stigmatized jobs. Those on the outside of the industry assumed that slaughterhouse and packing work was dehumanizing, and referred to those who worked in the plants as a “special breed,” as they were able to endure the horrors of the industry.43 David Mercer comments on his experience as a meatpacking employee: “I'd read the book, The Jungle, which is about the packing industry in Chicago. What amazed me is what I observed in a packing house…In my view, not much had changed since The Jungle was written.”44
The employees often endured harassment, riots, and fights, though this predisposed the workers to be quick to initiate aggressive conduct. 45 Men engaged in aggressive behaviour to “masculinize the shop floor.”46 Packing plant women would not always idly accept this behaviour, however. “In the 1950s a male worker [at] Swifts yelled at [and] struck a woman co-worker who talked back to him. [This triggered] a brawl. [The man] was ‘beaten’ in a ‘pile-up’ by other women nearby who leapt to the woman's aid.”47
During the early twentieth century, Alberta meatpacking employees fought for unionization. The 1920s saw the failed strike for union recognition at Burns Meats in Calgary.48 In 1937, employees at three Edmonton plants—Swifts, Burns, and Gainers—picketed for Union recognition.49 However, the plant owners responded by spouting anti-union sentiments to the media, outsourcing production, and employing strikebreakers to attack picketing employees.50 Quickly, the strike ceased.51During the same year, the United Packinghouse Workers of America—or UPWA—formed. In 1943 the Union trickled up to Canada to gain the support of Canadian meatpacking employees.52
During the Second World War, the increased demand for meat products deemed the work of meatpackers essential, and Canadian workers united under the UPWA. 53 Gainers employees were the last to register with the UPWA in 1945. 54 Women made up a significant percentage of packinghouse employees during and immediately after the war. In 1945, 30% of Edmonton's packinghouse employees were women. 55 The Union argued that women were unfit for many sectors of the meatpacking industry. Certain sectors such as slaughter were among the “heaviest, dirtiest jobs in the absence of adequate numbers of male workers.”56
Gender stereotypes empowered men to rule the majority of managerial, supervisory, and skilled positions in the packing plant, including slaughter and high-stakes butchery. 57 In Edmonton, packinghouse employees were primarily white males, often Ukrainian immigrants.58 Women were commonly employed in lower-paying processing roles, “where table-ready meats such as sausage, wieners and bacon were produced, weighed, packaged, and labelled.” A common societal belief was that only men could handle a knife with finesse and skill.59
The 1960s introduced a wave of new technology and machinery that “eroded skill levels, worker autonomy, and the need for physical strength.”60 Management reaped the benefits of a mechanized system in the form of lower wages and a lack of reliance on expensive skilled labour. Consequently, workers began to feel estranged and frustrated by the lack of control, subdivision, and elimination of many jobs. More and more flocked to the Union. 61 By the late 1970s, Edmonton was home to “the largest concentration of male unionized packing workers in Alberta, and one of the largest in Canada,” with four packing plants employing roughly 2,500 workers. 62 However, women's presence in the plants had fallen significantly. In 1979, women composed 14% of meatpacking employees in Edmonton.63
In 1972, the Gainer family sold the enterprise to Agra Industries Ltd. At the time of the sale, Gainers employed roughly 500 people and had grossed over 40 million dollars. Six years later, Ben Torchinsky of Agra Industries sold Gainers to businessman and Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club owner Peter Pocklington.64 Under Pocklington, Gainers continued operating at its Ritchie site for four more years. In 1982, it moved to northeast Edmonton. Vicky Beauchamp, a lifelong packing plant employee, vice-president of the UFCW at Gainers, and the wife of Gainers president, Gerry Beauchamp, commented on the change in Gainers ownership: “People who worked in the plant under Mr. Gainer said that you were a name when you worked for Mr. Gainer. Agra took over, you became a number. Peter Pocklington took over, you became nobody.”65
Napoleon White worked at Gainers for 46 years, from 1941 to 1987. He commented, “After moving to the north-side plant, I sat down and thought we didn’t realize what we had on the south side. On the north side, the whips came out and they drove us. On the south side, it was more like a family deal. Everybody knew everybody.”66
Peter Pocklington, or Peter Puck as he was known, was a business kingpin in Edmonton’s heyday. Pocklington was the owner of the Edmonton Oilers—perhaps best known as the man who traded Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988. He was also unsuccessful in his bid for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.67 Under the management of the Gainer family, employees would slaughter roughly 1700 hogs per eight-hour day. Pocklington insisted production move faster and demanded employees kill 5200 hogs a day with only four additional men on the line.68
In 1980, Pocklington purchased Swift Canada, another meatpacking company with plants across the country, for about 45 million dollars and merged the company with Gainers. At this period, Gainers was one of the largest packing plants in the country, and according to Pocklington, Gainers annual sales were roughly 800 million dollars.69 This merger left about 400 Swift employees out of work and signified the end of Edmonton’s Packing Town Era as plants around the city began to close.70 Pocklington used the original Gainers site in Mill Creek to store PCBs and other toxic chemicals.71
Catherine Kuehne noticed a change in the neighbourhood when Gainers moved to the north side. People put down roots in Ritchie and community spirit flourished.72
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1986 marked the collapse of oil prices in Alberta, which sent the province hurtling into a deep recession and triggered a string of strikes throughout the region. “Amid the rise in neoliberal policymaking, including the privatization and deregulation that had already begun to take a strong hold on many industries, workers struggled to maintain the protections they relied on. Edmonton’s economy has always been—and continues to be—at the whim of the boom-and-bust oil industry, but the ’80s marked a peak of this instability.”73
The Gainers strike of 1986 arose from an issue of wage parity with other packing plants in the nation. Renette Peevy, a former Gainers employee, describes that “prior to the Gainers strike, Pocklington really stepped out of bounds. It used to be that when one plant settled, everybody kind of got the same contract so it kept it as a level playing field all the way around. Then all of a sudden, Pocklington was coming in and saying ‘No, I’m not interested in a national bargaining system.’ It kind of shook up the whole industry.”74
Pocklington believed that parity would render his company less competitive as he would need to raise prices. Further, he was obsessed with a conspiracy that the Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board set the hog prices too high. He was convinced that Gainers profits were significantly reduced because of the fixed cost of a hog. Due to the high hog costs, Pocklington cut labour costs. He imposed a wage freeze in 1984, which slashed hourly rates for existing employees from $11.99 an hour to $6.99, nearly a 42% cut.75 Further, Pocklington reduced his employees paid sick leave and benefits and threatened to impose obligatory overtime. He also proposed a fictitious profit-sharing model to balance the cutbacks to be implemented once Gainers sales skyrocketed.76
By 1986, sales were up millions, mainly in part to the underpaid and overworked employees. Pocklington bragged about the increased profits, which fuelled frustration among the workers.77 Rather than sharing the wealth with his employees, Pocklington released newspaper ads that called for replacement workers willing to work independently from the union.78 As it was clear that Pocklington would not keep his profit-sharing promise, Gainers employees held a strike vote on June 1, 1986—a sweeping 96% of members voted in favour.79 Pocklington rebutted by threatening to replace the 1,100 employees, but the strikers fought back.80 Former president of the Alberta Federation of Labour and proud picketer Dave Werlin comments, “[workers] were ready for it this time–they were psychologically ready, they were angry, and they stood their ground. Once the strike commenced, there was an almost spontaneous militancy.”81
The War on 66th street began. “The air was crackling. There was so much tension, so much anger. You could feel it as you would drive by: you had this sense that this fight’s really for something.” Picketers paraded signs, barricaded the gates of Gainers, and threw rocks and paint bombs at oncoming busses of scab workers—or replacement employees.82
The buses filled with new employees became a source of violence at the plant. Louis Tancsics, a shipping employee at Gainers recalled, “an older gentleman taking a two-by-four to one of the scabs, knocked him right off his motorcycle. Guys had wrenches, guys were throwing sidewalk blocks. Man oh man, they broke the [bus] windshield even with screens welded on the front, [passengers] were screaming for their lives.”83 During the strike, over 500 people were arrested, and the City of Edmonton spent its entire police overtime budget of half-a-million dollars.84 Police outfitted in cobalt riot gear streamed off of city busses. Roughly 375 police officers—one third of Edmonton’s police force—were assigned to Gainers.85 Later, the SWAT team was involved. Court orders limited the number of protesters allowed on the site. “The Alberta and Canadian labour movement rallied around the workers who made $12-an-hour in a dirty, dangerous industry.”86
Vicky Beauchamp testified, “we were a militant bunch. We weren't a violent bunch. But when somebody's stealing your job under your nose, you're gonna fight for that. That's your livelihood.”87 The strike lasted for six and a half months. “One striker showed up at events dressed as a pig wearing a top hat, tuxedo and a sash labelled ‘Peter Pocklington’ to drive the point home.”88 In an attempt to sway media, Pocklington referred to the outraged employees as “terrorists.”89 The mogul evaded any comments that he was in the wrong, “calling the dispute a ‘tragedy’ created by provincial rules allowing a marketing board to set hog prices rather than let the market decide.”90
“He publicly stated he would never sign another collective agreement, and announced that Gainers planned to terminate the employees’ pension plan, which was worth about $10-million dollars.” 91 According to Pocklington, the strike led to the demise of Gainers. He asserts: “In the end, Gainers got caught between the union and a government-dictated monopoly. We bucked off one union request for a huge wage increase in 1984, partly by setting up a hiring tent for new employees. But things got really ugly in the spring of 1986 when the union struck. There was violence, hatred, very bad stuff.”92 In reality, Pocklington's resistance to a union created a domino effect that led to the industry's demise. The public largely sided with the striking employees. “Gainers and Pocklington became household epithets, and buttons claiming that “Gainers makes wieners with scabs” appeared in the streets.”
About 10,000 to 15,000 people gathered on the steps of the Alberta Legislature on June 12 to protest the working conditions at Gainers—the largest demonstration on the site since the Great Depression.93 On the same day, 500 people paraded to the 66th street location, where a truck delivering hogs to Gainers was ambushed by picketers, which resulted in the arrest of 44 people.94 Across Edmonton, strikers distributed about 5,000 lawn signs, an action that demonstrated public support for the strike. Across the city, residents boycotted Gainers products, which eventually led to the company returning to the retired Swifts branding. 95 A local survey reported that fewer than 25% of Edmontonians were purchasing Gainers products—a steep decline from roughly 75% before the strike. Dave Werlin reports that this smear campaign “was the most effective boycott [he had] ever witnessed. It spread right across the country. “96 Further, this boycott resulted in Gainers sales declining to about 15% of its production.97
The movement spread across Canada. Picketers arrived at a home game for the Montreal Canadians against the Edmonton Oilers on September 19th. They were led by a person dressed up as a pig and another as a hotdog. The picket was one of many nationwide actions to support the boycott. 98
Finally, Premier Don Getty entered as a mediator in the dispute. “Pocklington was promised tens of millions in loans from the government to modernize the plant (he never used the money for that purpose).”99 After immense pressure from the public and the Government of Alberta alike, the Gainers strike ended with a settlement on December 12, 1986. Andrew Sims, the chair of the Labour Board, “ordered the company, in no uncertain terms, to bargain in good faith with the union.”100 Though Pocklington would not commit to a wage increase, he vowed to freeze wages until 1989, when he would implement a 3% increase and maintain the worker's pensions.101 Though the wages were far lower than the industry standard, the employees reluctantly accepted, with just under two-thirds of employees voting in favour of the deal.
The War on 66th Street “revealed a police force seemingly over-eager to escort strikebreakers past the picket line, and a court system zealous in its setting of picket restrictions. More than that, it revealed a band of strikers who would not be defeated.”102 In the wake of the strike, the Alberta Federation of Labour launched a campaign to rework the province's labour laws completely. “The provincial government’s response was to send its Minister of Labour and a number of cohorts on a junket to study other countries’ labour legislation, only to return to the Alberta Legislature to enact even more punitive labour laws. Labour’s key demand for anti-scab legislation was ignored and never implemented.”103
In 1989, Gainers was seized by the Government of Alberta as Pocklington had failed to repay his massive loans. The kingpin fled to California. In 1994, Gainers was sold to Burns Meats and absorbed by Maple Leaf in 1996. After another gruelling strike, the plant was permanently closed in 1997, and over 850 people lost their jobs.104 The old Northside Gainers site is now home to a newly built Edmonton Transit System garage.
Labour historian Alvin Finkle asserts, “‘The main lesson from 1986 was that solidarity helps. Although we didn’t win the Gainers strike, obviously, those workers were able to be out on the picket line for that long and have a crack at getting something because of all the support that they had from within the trade union movement. In general, where workers work together, some good may happen.’”105
We’ve discussed how Peter Pocklington defaulted on huge loans from the Alberta Government following the protracted strike in 1986. To this day, Pocklington still owes the Government of Alberta $13 million dollars.
After resting vacant for decades, Peter Pocklington demolished the Mill Creek Gainers buildings in 1991 to use the land for real estate ventures.106 The buildings were torn down earlier than expected, as neighbourhood residents were so enthusiastic at the prospect, that the demolition team was persuaded to start a month early.107 Ritchie resident M.J. Bischoff described the abandoned plant as “a wart on the ravine.”108 Other residents were worried about the danger the abandoned buildings posed to children in the neighbourhood.
One of Peter Pocklington’s demolition consultants stated, “You have concrete columns you have to jackhammer out. You can’t just dynamite it. You go into it like its a haunted house. It’s a dangerous undertaking.” As a result, the demolition would take nine months to complete. The consultants were unsure of the demolition costs, but the Ritchie Community League estimated in 1987 that it would cost $750,000.109
At one point, the Ritchie Community League discussed the possibility of moving their headquarters to the old Gainers pastures.110 But perhaps the Community Leagues greatest contribution was its success in determining how the former Gainers site would be developed. The original building proposal for the site was an $80 million dollar plan for four high rises—a pair of 27-storey buildings and a pair of 80-storey buildings—in addition to 78 townhouses situated on the bank of Mill Creek Ravine.111 But that is not what is there today. Over the course of years that included public hearings, petitions, and meetings, the Ritchie Community League negotiated what manifested on the Gainers site. What we see today is a combination of condos, townhouses, and a lush green space. Ritchie Community League set the precedent for how leagues could interact with the city on the issue of development.112
Catherine Kuehne writes, “They tore it down. But the building didn’t leave. It sleeps quietly in the neighborhood [sic], buried in the hillside under the high-end adult housing complex. Occasionally a sinkhole appears on the hillside as the building continues to consume anything close to it.”113
Catherine C. Cole asserts, “Today there are few tangible remains of the industry or early community. The Burns plant was demolished in 1988; Canada Packers in 1995; the original Swifts building in 2002. Canada Packers’ brick chimney stack is a lone reminder of the meatpacking era.”114 The story of Gainers is a classic tale of the battle between the working class and the rich. An account of the transformation from prosperity to desolation. The story of resistance. The end of Edmonton's industrial heyday. A classic story of settler success with a villainous twist.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of A Little Bit Ritchie. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating and a review! A Little Bit Ritchie is brought to you by the Ritchie Community League Centennial Celebration Committee. Erin Fraser and Seghan MacDonald chair the committee. This episode was researched by Linnea Bell and written by Elyse Colville. A Little Bit Ritchie is produced by Castria Communications and Media Solutions. This project is supported by the Edmonton Heritage Council and the City of Edmonton. Thank you to Tierra Connor for creating our artwork.
To see photos of the locations and people mentioned in this episode, detailed show notes, a transcription, and references for this episode, visit the link in our description.
If you have a story you would like to share in a future episode of A Little Bit Ritchie, send us an email at community-planning@ritchie-league.com.
On our next episode, we’ll take a look at community spaces—halls, green spaces and playgrounds.
Thanks again for tuning in to this episode of A Little Bit Ritchie. I’m Lydia Neufeld.
Endnotes
1. Lawrence Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants,” Edmonton Heritage Council’s Herzog Heritage, 2012 Oct. 12, https://web.archive.org/web/20140225195805/http:/www.edmontonheritage.ca/herzog-on-heritage/edmontons-lost-packing-plants/
2. Amy J. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse: From Inception to Contemporary Implications,” Human Ecology Review 17, no. 1 (2010): 59-60.
3. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse,” 60.
4. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse,” 60.
5. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse,” 60.
6. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse,” 60.
7. Fitzgerald, “A Social History of the Slaughterhouse,” 60.
8. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1906).
9. Haeden Eli Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry: The Lively Decay of Mill Creek Ravine,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2019, 50.
10. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 51.
11. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 51.
12. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 51-52.
13. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 51.
14. Jac MacDonald, “Founder and namesake of Gainers started with $250,” Edmonton Journal, 1989 Nov. 12, 14.
15. Tom Monto, Old Strathcona: Edmonton’s Southside Roots, (Edmonton: Crang Pub., 2011), 121.
16. MacDonald, “Founder and namesake of Gainers started with $250.”
17. Monto, Old Strathcona, 121.
18. Monto, Old Strathcona, 121; MacDonald, “Founder and namesake of Gainers started with $250.”
19. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 52.
20. Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry, 56.
21. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1906), 38.
22. “J. Gainer & Co.,” Edmonton Journal, 1907 May 21, 11.
23. “A stable belonging to J. Gainer…,” Edmonton Bulletin, 1905 July 22, 8.
24. M. Harold Cogill, “Entrevue de l’histoire sociologique,” Mill Creek Ravine Project, MS-348, Box 3, File 41, City of Edmonton Archives, Edmonton, Alberta, [Translated from original French by researcher].
25. “Disastrous Blaze in Strathcona Abattoir,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1910 Sept. 26, 2.
26. “Disastrous Blaze in Strathcona Abattoir,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1910 Sept. 26, 2.
27. Cogill, “Entrevue de l’histoire sociologique.”
28. Cameron J. Colville, interviewed by Elyse Colville, 2022 June 17, Ritchie Community League Centennial Celebration.
29. David Howell and Mike Sadava, “Demolition of Gainers begins Feb. 1,” Edmonton Journal, 1990 Jan. 25, 17.
30. Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants.”
31. Catherine Kuehne, “Railroads and Ravines” in Edmonton On Location: River City Chronicles, edited by Heather Zwicker, (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2005), 164.
32. Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants.”
33. MacDonald, “Founder and namesake of Gainers started with $250.”
34. Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants.”
35. Kuehne, “Railroads and Ravines,” 165
36. Kuehne, “Railroads and Ravines,” 165
37. Cynthia M. 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, 120.
38. Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 121.
39. “A Child’s View of Mill Creek Ravine,” Mill Creek Ravine Project, MS-348, File 51, City of Edmonton Archives, Edmonton, Alberta.
40. Kuehne, “Railroads and Ravines,” 165.
41. Catherine Kuehne, interviewed by Linnea Bell, 2022 Jan. 17, Ritchie Community League Centennial Celebration.
42. Kuehne, interviewed by Linnea Bell.
43. Cynthia Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’: Packing Men and the Class and Racial Politics of Manly Discourses in Post-1945 Edmonton,” Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal, 32, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 137.
44. David Mercer, interviewed by Don Bouzek, Fall 1998, transcript, Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI), Edmonton, Alberta.
45. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 137.
46. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 140.
47. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 140.
48. Jason Foster, “Meatpacking Workers in Alberta,” Alberta Labour History, Accessed 2022 Feb., https://albertalabourhistory.org/meatpacking-workers-in-alberta/.
49. Allan Chambers, “On the Line: The Struggles of Alberta’s Packing Plant Workers,” The Alberta Federation of Labour, 1912 – 2012: A Century of Struggle and Solidarity, 2012, 6, https://albertalabourhistory.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/D3350-Booklet-On-the-Line.pdf.
50. Foster, “Meatpacking Workers in Alberta.”
51. Chambers, “On the Line,” 6.
52. Foster, “Meatpacking Workers in Alberta.”
53. Chambers, “On the Line,” 7.
54. Loch-Drake, “Unpacking ‘Alberta Beef’,” 183, fn. 34.
55. Chambers, “On the Line,” 10.
56. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 140.
57. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 140.
58. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 137.
59. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 140.
60. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 138.
61. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 137-140.
62. Loch-Drake, “‘A Special Breed’,” 138.
63. Chambers, “On the Line,” 10.
64. Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants.”
65. Vicky Beauchamp, interviewed by Don Bouzek, Fall 1998, transcript, Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI), Edmonton, Alberta.
66. Howell and Sadava, “Demolition of Gainers begins Feb. 1.”
67. Workers History Museum, “The Battle of 66th Street – How the Gainers Strike Rallied a Nation,” Workers History Museum – Musée de l’histoire Ouvrière, 2022 June 8, http://workershistorymuseum.ca/the-battle-of-66th-street/.
68. Gerry Beauchamp, interviewed by Don Bouzek, Fall 1998, transcript, Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI), Edmonton, Alberta.
69. Mike Byfield, "Peter's Parting Shot: Pocklington Will Leave Edmonton Blaming His Woes on Bad Government, Bad Press, Bad Luck and His Own Ego," Alberta Report 25, no. 33 (Aug 03, 1998): 12-17.
70. Catherine C. Cole, “Packingtown Edmonton,” Packingtown, Accessed Nov. 2021, https://www.packingtown.org.
71. “Lack of space held up PCB move,” Edmonton Journal, 1989 July 26, 22.
72. Kuehne, interviewed by Linnea Bell.
73. Christina Battle, “Memory Work: Two powerful photographs of a 1986 workers’ strike suggest the dystopian consequences of collective forgetting,” Canadianart, December 10, 2020, https://canadianart.ca/essays/christina-battle-memory-work/.
74. Renette Peevey, “Renette Peavey, Gainer’s Strike,” interviewed for Packingtown, 2015 Sept. 17, https://www.packingtown.org/renette-peevey.html
75. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” Alberta Views, 13, no. 4 (May 2010): 18.
76. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 18.
77. James Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike,” Rank and File, 2016 Mar. 6, https://www.rankandfile.ca/remembering-the-gainers-strike/.
78. Chambers, “On the Line,” 14-15.
79. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 18.
80. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 18-19.
81. Chambers, “On the Line,” 15.
82. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
83. Gordon Kent, “United They Fell: The Gainers Meatpacking Strike 25 Years Later,” from The Edmonton Journal, Alberta Federation of Labour, 2011 June 13, https://www.afl.org/united_they_fell_the_gainers_meatpacking_strike_25_years_later.
84. Andrea Samoil, “Class Struggle and Solidarity in Neo-Liberal Times: The 1986 Gainers Strike,” MA Thesis, Trent University, 2014, 1.
85. Kent, “United They Fell.”
86. Workers History Museum, “The Battle of 66th Street.”
87. Vicky Beauchamp, interviewed by Don Bouzek.
88. Kent, “United They Fell.”
89. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 19.
90. Kent, “United They Fell.”
91. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 19.
92. Byfield, "Peter's Parting Shot.”
93. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 19-20; Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike;” and Kent, “United They Fell.”
94. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
95. Kent, “United They Fell.”
96. Kent, “United They Fell.”
97. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
98. Workers History Museum, “The Battle of 66th Street.”
99. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
100. Alvin Finkel and Jason Foster, Working People in Alberta: A History, (Edmonton: AU Press, 2012), 192.
101. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
102. Chambers, “On the Line,” 16-17.
103. Edmonton Public Library, “The Gainers Strike, 1986,” 20.
104. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
105. Wilt, “Remembering the Gainer’s Strike.”
106. Herzog, “Edmonton’s Lost Packing Plants.”
107. “Gainers plant demolition set,” Edmonton Journal, 1990 Feb. 21, 20.
108. Howell and Sadava, “Demolition of Gainers begins Feb. 1.”
109. Howell and Sadava, “Demolition of Gainers begins Feb. 1.”
110. “Ritchie League to Discuss Site,” Edmonton Journal, 1945 Mar. 5, 2.
111. “Latest proposal nears completion,” Edmonton Journal, 1979 July 20, 24.
112. Julian Martin, interviewed by Linnea Bell, 2021 Nov. 26, Ritchie Community League Centennial Celebration.
113. Kuehne, “Railroads and Ravines,” 167.
114. Cole, “Packingtown Edmonton.”