Deb Kaufman, Local 1977

Zehrs Markets
Kitchener, Ontario

Deb Kaufman began working  at in 1973 as a part-time cashier at a Cambridge, Ontario supermarket chain store, Zehrs Markets, part of Loblaw Companies Ltd. She was still in high school and wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, career-wise, but she was ambitious and jumped at every chance for more hours, including "scale work," a now-forgotten job of weighing produce for customers. She eventually got promoted to full-time in Produce but became the victim of gender discrimination when the store cut back the number of full-timers in that department.

“You can’t unload trucks and can’t do trim, so you’ll have to go back to cash,” she was told, though she was not given a chance.

Deb found standing in one place at the checkout all day boring so she readily volunteered to leave cash for anything else that came up, such as price changes. Over time, she learned a great deal about Grocery and when the job of Senior Grocery Clerk (now Grocery Manager) came up in the early 1980s, she thought she could do it, though no female had ever held that position at Zehrs.

“I’d like to put in for this,” she told her Steward. “That’s what I was thinking,” replied Scott Penner, (now Local 1977 President) who was also the store’s Produce Manager. So she did.

Her only competition was a male with less seniority, who was given the job. At Penner’s urging, she filed a grievance which the union won, making her the first female Grocery Manager in the chain.

The Store Manager was dead set against women in management and made sure she was forced to do all the heavy and difficult work, such as lifting 40 kg bags of salt, without any help. After a year and a half of back-breaking work and not-too-subtle harassment, she stepped down to work alongside Penner in Produce. When he went to the union full-time, Deb had no difficulty winning his position as Produce Manager and was readily elected as Steward, a position she regularly won for over 25 years, even when she transferred to another store.

"The best thing for me was Local 1977's Stewards Training and Conferences because I met other union activists, learned how to handle myself with management, and gained the confidence that comes with experience and backing," Deb recalls.

She volunteered for so many union activities and committees she now has to pause to recall just the major ones: Grievance Committee, Education Committee, Women's Committee Membership Assistance Committee, Retirement Committee, and more. Deb was first elected to the Local's Executive Board in 1989 and has never left. She is now the Local 1977 Recording Secretary.

Deb's advice to young women in the union is simple and straightforward: "Just come to union meetings and see what happens. You'll soon see familiar faces and start to feel part of the group. UFCW is always trying to reach out to young people to get involved so the opportunities will come your way if you just show up regularly."

"Even if you ultimately don't want to be a union activist," Deb says, "you still should talk up the union to your fellow workers.

"People don't appreciate the benefits of having a union. They have to be told and often reminded that the things we take for granted, like seniority, non-discrimination and a grievance procedure, we only have because of the union. We should never forget that ourselves and not let those we work with forget it either."