End of the Line: Closing the Last Sardine Cannery in America

A Typical Day at the Plant, As Described

[ 211 ] A Typical Day at the Plant As Described by Peter Colson on a norMal day of full produCtion —start cutting at 5:00 a.m. That gave them an hour-and-a-half jump on the packing line. At 6:30 a.m. packing started. Sealing depended on the packing type—if they were doing sardines, which were much faster to pack and cook, sealing would start at 7:30. Fish steaks meant a 10:00 a.m. start time for sealing. The retort operator would have to come in early to do a pM (preventive maintenance) on the retorts. You could lose a lot of production if something went wrong there. He came in at the same time the sealers came in. He would take the sight-glass apart to make sure the float that governed the water level in the retort was functioning, check the steam lines. Make sure the air lines were bled properly, as many controls were pneumatic and water in the lines could mess up the controls. The retort operator would punch in all the required data for the cook. He monitored recorders and changed charts that documented each cycle of the retort. Two hours after they started cutting, the cutters would take a break for fifteen minutes. An hour and a half after they started packing, the packing line would take a break. Two breaks in the a.m., one in the p.m., plus lunch. Packaging would come in at 6:30 in the morning, as they would always have production from previous days they could work on. They ran an eight-hour shift. Sometimes they’d start at 6:00 and finish at 2:30. Seldom did they have to come in on a Saturday. The cleanup crew would come in as soon as the packing was done for the day. They would check their answering machines for a start time, as breakdowns could affect [ 212 ] the timing. Cleanup would take between eight and ten hours. They had to clean the cutting room, packing room, and sealing room. That was a high-pressure wash down, with foam on occasion. Saltwater flumes were left running all the time. Overboard discharge went through Rotostrainers to separate solids from water before it went overboard, and the strainers had to be cleaned on a daily basis. During spawning seasons—usually August and September, and sometimes in the last of February and the first of March—fish eggs would stick to every piece of metal and floor and add to the cleaning time. Maintenance was staggered—some in the a.m., some in the p.m. ...