Crab plant workers have punched their time in spades this season — and are being called heroes

Workers at seafood processing plants in Newfoundland have been working all summer long in an effort to make sure snow crab quotas for the shortened 2023 season are met — and they say they're ready for a break.

"This season has been one of the hardest seasons that we have worked here, because we had to do a lot of crab in a short period of time," Louise Power, a floor supervisor at the Quinlan Brothers plant in Bay de Verde, said Tuesday.

She's had four days off since May.

"We all got through it, and made the season work," said Power, who has worked at the plant for 46 years. "Right now, [I'm] happy as a lark."

The celebrations come following a push to harvest quotas in a shortened season.

The opening of this year's fishery was delayed by six weeks following messy price negotiations between the Association of Seafood Producers and the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union.

The price for snow crab started at $2.20 per pound — the same price that was negotiated in April — but increased with market demand and was at $2.60 per pound as of Sunday.

Worker Brian Rose said the shortened season made for a hectic summer, especially when workers pushed to make sure they worked enough to apply for employment insurance, but he's proud of what he and his colleagues have accomplished.

"It was just steady go, hours and hours of meat every day. We had no breaks and, well, that's what we had to do."

The Association of Seafood Producers thanked workers for a job well done in Tuesday's edition of the St. John's Telegram, writing that their strength and perserverance during the season is "a lesson to us all."

Robin Quinlan, president of Quinlan Brothers, said plants in the province processed 10 million pounds of crab per week. He called the work done at his plant "superhuman."

"We operated 12 weeks straight this year, round the clock. We had no shutdown of the plant whatsoever," Quinlan said. 

"You had to live through it to be able to convince yourself that it became reality."

Association of Seafood Producers executive director Jeff Loder called the workers heroes, adding 95 per cent of the quota has been processed.

He said the price of snow crab is beginning to climb and he hopes this year's instability is over.

"I think we can all agree that this should never happen again," he said.

Loder said progress is being made with the FFAW ahead of bargaining for lobster prices, which begins Sept. 12, but reiterated his commitment to make public the details of negotiations

"Progress is being made, but we need to continue to build on that progress, 'cause there's still a long ways to go."

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