Marlene Martin, Local 832

Granny’s Poultry
Blumenort, Manitoba

Chief Steward at Granny’s Poultry doesn’t chicken out — Marlene Martin credits her union for helping her and the members

Being the chief steward at a large poultry operation in Manitoba can be a daunting task, even more so for a woman. Marlene Martin has been the chief shop steward since last January; she has been working at Granny’s for the last five years.

Although the workforce at the plant is nearly split 50/ 50 between men and women, areas such as ‘live hang’ has been predominantly male, that was up until about five months ago when she took the company to task with the help of her union representative Sandy Forcier that women have the right to post for jobs in ‘live hang’.

“In our collective agreements, members are awarded positions based on seniority, skill and ability. We have been asking the company for some time now to allow women to move into job classifications that were once viewed as ‘men’s jobs’. At one time the company viewed certain jobs as being ‘men’s jobs’ and ‘women’s jobs’. With the recent changes in human resources, the company agreed with the union’s position, and we now have two women working in ‘live hang’ and they’re doing a great job,” said Martin.

Sister Martin isn’t the typical person you would expect working in a production facility that is physically demanding. What she may lack in size, she makes up for in her determination and her knowledge of the collective agreement. “I’m impressed with the training shop stewards are provided by the local. They have taught us to be aware of issues we might see on the floor and taught us ways to fix them.”

She also credits the company for giving her a chance. When she applied for a job at Granny’s she was 52 years old. “The fellow that interviewed me said he would call me back. I asked him what the problem was, was it my age? That should not be a problem because I know how to work. They called me back the next day for the job.”

It was after witnessing supervisors constantly ignoring the collective agreement that pushed Sister Martin into her involvement with the local. She said, “I started to complain and the company put me through the hoops hoping that I would quit, but I would just stick up for myself and one day the stewards were having a meeting and they came and asked me if I would be interested in becoming a steward.”

She is proud to have Local 832 representing the members, pointing to the improvements to wages, benefits, rest periods and health and safety issues that have occurred over the years because of the union. “We’ve worked really hard at trying to prevent injuries at Granny’s. One of the things we’ve done is including job rotation to help prevent injuries and the company sees this as a benefit now too.”

Sister Martin has set her sights on helping more of the members receive English as additional language (EAL) training at Granny’s. Many of the new hires at Granny’s are German speaking. “Seventy-five per cent of our women at work don’t speak English. We are trying to get more members involved in learning English. The last time the company posted a notice, nobody knew about the class. The next time a class is being offered, we have asked the company to put in a notice with the employee’s pay stubs in German so they understand.”