As crab standoff drags on, idle Triton fish plant workers plead for help

In Triton, a fish plant that would normally be well into its fifth or sixth week processing crab sits silent, while its 120 employees — like hundreds of others across Newfoundland and Labrador — wait for the snow crab season to start.

Plant worker Rita Lush said Wednesday this year is the hardest workers have ever had in the four-plus decades she's worked at the Ocean Choice International facility.

"Our plant workers are suffering," said an emotional Lush, gathered with several co-workers outside the plant. "We're all worried about each other.… We're a family, and someone needs to do something for us. Our community is suffering."

Fellow plant worker Doretta Strickland — also the local plant union president and a vice-president of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union — said the workers need help. Employment insurance is running out for many, she said, and that's affected the broader community, with people saving their money rather than spending in the region.

"It's serious stuff when you don't know if you're going to have enough money now in the days to come for EI," she said. "Everybody's EI cutting off. Every week it's someone different. And our community's not going to survive."

Like Lush, Yvonne Short has worked at the plant since it opened — and if the machines don't start running soon, she said, she doesn't know what she'll do.

"This is our livelihood, me and my husband, and it's difficult," she said.

Her employment insurance will run out next month, she added.

"You got a bit of savings, but that's not gonna last if the fishery don't start up this year. That's not gonna last till next year. So we needs help, we need the government to step in, do something for us, before it's too late."

Plant manager Barry Vincent said the operation is ready to go, just as soon as crab starts coming in for processing.

But it's not just the lack of crab from Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen — about half of the plant's 18 weeks of operation last year were spent processing crab from Prince Edward Island. This year, though, it's too risky to have crab brought in from outside Newfoundland and Labrador — threats have been made, he said.

"I did get a call from the mayor earlier this year and he did tell me that he had calls from I don't know who, saying if we brought in [crab] then expect everything to be turned upside down in Triton, so it's been a very difficult year."

And as the season drags on with few boats on the water, the plant's normal customers are turning elsewhere, he said, like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec.

"They're all buying there, and they don't understand why we are not buying crab in Newfoundland. So it's a difficult situation for all of us."