diff --git a/R/workers.r b/R/workers.r
index 20969696..73ec0ecd 100644
--- a/R/workers.r
+++ b/R/workers.r
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ workers = function(n_jobs, data=NULL, reuse=TRUE, template=list(), log_worker=FA
     if (n_jobs == 0)
         return(get("LOCAL", envir=parent.env(environment()))$new())
 
+    gc() # be sure to clean up old rzmq handles (zeromq/libzmq/issues/1108)
     qsys = get(toupper(qsys_id), envir=parent.env(environment()))
     qsys = qsys$new(data=data, reuse=reuse)
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-3-worker.r b/tests/testthat/test-3-worker.r
index 47d2bfbe..52e4ef2f 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-3-worker.r
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-3-worker.r
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ master = paste("tcp://localhost", port, sep=":")
 start_worker = function() {
     skip_if_not(has_localhost)
     skip_on_os("windows")
-
+    gc() # be sure to clean up old rzmq handles (zeromq/libzmq/issues/1108)
     p = parallel::mcparallel(worker(master))
     msg = recv(p, socket)
     testthat::expect_equal(msg$id, "WORKER_UP")