Some Cannery Workers Find Jobs After Retraining

When the Van Camp Seafood tuna cannery shut its gates in July, 1984, 1,200 people were thrown out of work, their prospects for finding new jobs bleak. Three-fourths of the mostly female work force had no marketable skills; about two-thirds spoke little or no English.

But a $1.5-million retraining program, financed by federal and state money and jointly administered by the Private Industry Council and the Regional Employment and Training Consortium, has provided nearly 500 workers with new skills, and an additional 150 to 200 are expected to complete retraining courses by Sept. 30.

So far, 392 of the program’s graduates have found jobs.

One of them is Maria Quintero, 43, of San Diego, who worked for seven years as a fish cleaner at the Van Camp plant. She learned general office skills and word processing during five months of training and was hired as a file clerk by a Clairemont insurance firm last spring. She was recently promoted to micrographic engineer, and, although she is earning less than the $7.59 hourly wage she made cleaning tuna, Quintero is happy with her new job.

“It’s better to stay clean and earn less money, and not have someone breathing down my neck all the time,” Quintero said.

Other former Van Camp workers have acquired new skills but still are looking for jobs. Aurelio Marin, 44, of San Diego, a machine operator at the tuna plant, now is a qualified electrical technician. He also acquired proficiency in English during his six months of training and is confident that he will soon find work.

“I have a wife and five children,” Marin said. “I will find something--I have to.”