our community
Local People
Your family, friends and neighbors of Local 250a have a membership of over 110 men and women from the Edmonton area. Our skilled workforce operate everything from the Brewhouse to the Shipping docks. Safety considerations in our profession include: Ammonia, Carbon Dioxide exposure, strong acids and caustics used in the brewing and cleaning processes, regular confined space entries, grain dust explosion, filtration dust inhalation, hot liquid, steam exposure, electrical hazards, high speed/heavy duty equipment hazards, forklift traffic congestion issues, and so on. We have a Joint Health and Safety committee that regularly meets with management to discuss and address hazard assessments, safety training and industrial hygiene problems. The ABI corporation requires all its front line employees to be trained/skilled in Optimization, continuous improvement tools, 5S methodology, KPI analytics, SDCA and 5Why processes which entail different reports, checklists and actions in each department. Here are some of our jobs and what they entail:
Power Engineers (2nd to 3rd class): safe operation and maintenance of boilers, gas compressors, air-conditioning, refrigeration systems, water treatment, ammonia control and more.
Operational Brewers: brewing thousands of hectolitres a day; milling, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, kraeusening, conditioning, and filtering all on the industrial level, operating simultaneous automated systems alongside traditional labour intensive methods. Responsible for following strict HACCP policies and intensive sanitation procedures, coordinating brewing schedules, and communicating with raw material suppliers. These jobs require months of on-the-job training before being able to operate an area solo.
Electricians/Instrumentalists: responsible for the maintenance and repair of the brewery's electrical infrastructure, automated equipment and computerized HMI logic controls that are the brain of the plant.
Packaging/Utility Operators: running of the high speed packaging lines for Bottles, Cans and Kegs. In charge of servicing, operating, and changing over of assembly line equipment such as palletizers, conveyors, saws, bottlewashers, fillers, labelers, pasteurizers, carton machines, coders, etc. The bottle-line is considered to be a source of green jobs, where reusable industry bottles are processed to be refilled.
Millwrights/Machinists: responsible for the maintenance and repair of the brewery's vast variety of mechanical equipment, from pumps and centrifuges, to fillers and compactors, this group has to have a broad skill range to keep the brewery running.
Logistics Operators: certified forklift operators carrying out shipping, receiving and inventory control duties, servicing the packaging lines while being responsible for palletizing, wrapping and compactor equipment. This is a high traffic, JIT area with the steepest standards for following safety protocols.
Quality Control Analysts: product sampling and packaging testing are the core duties of this group to ensure consumer satisfaction and safety.
We have dozens of retirees and continue to be the bargaining unit for temporary workers pursuing secondary education or endeavoring to earn full time employment at the Labatt Brewery.
