Mary Joe Eaton, Local 1000A

Kretschmar
Toronto, Ontario

It’s a tall statement, but she has the facts to back it up. And she does it with precision and passion.

“The person I am, the things that I have, and the things that I do all go back to that single decision that was made that day to help me and stand side-by-side with me.” That’s Mary Joe Eaton, a wife, mother, union activist, and worker.

On “that day” in 1981, she was an 18-year-old working on the production line in a meat processing plant in Toronto, and about to lose her job. Help came from a co-worker who told her to talk to Dave, their union representative. A couple of hours later, she had a letter from the employer congratulating her on becoming a full-time worker.

Dave Dewar was the president of Local 1000A’s Kretschmar Division, and the chief frontline union representative in the Toronto plant. If not for him, Eaton would have accepted the termination given in the first letter explaining that business had slowed down and there was no place for Eaton who was still on probation. In fact, she was two weeks past probation.

She says, “I didn’t know what to do where to turn. I was just going to take my letter and leave.”

It was her first union experience, and one that led her to developments in her life that she couldn’t have foreseen. She met her husband, Matthew, at Kretschmar. Nearly 30 years later, she still works there, is secretary-treasurer of that union division and a strong activist on many fronts. She’s also had the pleasure of working alongside her mother for 15 years.

Eaton considers the UFCW part of her extended family. And she’s grateful to her husband and daughters, Mandy and Mindy, who back her all the way. “I’m very thankful because they’re all so supportive, and if they weren’t, I couldn’t commit myself as much as I do,” she says.

So in typical Eaton fashion, she is thankful to her family, her union family, and Dewar for all they have done for her. She’s not so comfortable talking about what she’s done for others.

“The credit might be given to me, but it’s actually others who are making it possible for me to receive the credit,” she says.

No union representative can be effective without workers being the union’s eyes and ears throughout the workplace, she says. And when, in 2009, she received a standing ovation and award for exemplary leadership in raising money for leukemia research, she accepted on behalf of her co-workers who “every single week, opened up their hearts, and opened up their wallets.”

Eaton is also a member of Local 1000A’s Women’s Issues network and the Community Action Network, which reaches out to cultural groups, making the union and its diverse membership visible. She’s the certified representative and co-chair on the workplace Joint Health and Safety Committee.

“I noticed that she was one of the few who would speak up,” says Dewar, now a staff representative for Local 1000A’s industrial sector. “She would go to management on behalf of herself and others. She would voluntarily go and talk to managers, or she would come and get me and I’d go with her. That’s how we (union representatives) got to know she was a stand-up person.”

Nine years after that fateful day in 1981, her co-workers made it clear she was their pick for the opening on the divisional executive. According to Dewar, members went to him and said, “We want Mary.” She has since served two terms as secretary-treasurer and is in her third as vice-president.

Eaton is happy to see workers being able to voice concerns and exercise their rights, and she’s gratified with her own part in it. Her reward is in seeing the good that comes from the union and her activism. And it’s in curling up at the end of a day with cup of tea and a good book, knowing that “whatever I did for someone today, I did do my best.