Ever since the legislature’s fall sitting began, the Opposition has been peppering the government with questions about community-benefits agreements.
Those are the new deals through which many public-works projects will be done using members from B.C. Building Trades Council unions. Workers in a range of other unions or associations will be out of luck, unless they quit and join one of the 19 approved unions.
The organizations left out in the cold call themselves “progressive” and are more collaborative and partnership-based with employers, to the suspicion of the traditional trades council. They often represent multiple trades and all the employees in a construction company.
The ones with the in are major supporters of the NDP and were all but explicitly promised this major advantage by Premier John Horgan.
As far as companies are concerned, non-union firms can still bid for those jobs, but employees will have to unionize within 30 days if they are awarded the work.
The new policy, designed to promote apprenticeships, Indigenous training and more local hires, includes a new Crown corporation that will take over hiring and payroll functions.
The new model has been a feature of multiple question periods for the past month, with critics reading objections from unionized workers and companies that will face major decisions on public projects.
Some of them don’t want to change unions and benefit plans. Some say they will lose out in changing pension plans they have built up over the years.
Despite being featured in the legislature, it’s been a low-profile argument.
“Public procurement is not something at the top of most people’s minds,” one of the objectors noted.
They’ve started a class-action lawsuit as part of the campaign against the community-benefit agreement model, but that will take years to conclude.
They tried to raise more attention Tuesday with a news conference at the legislature attended by more than a dozen union members and most of the B.C. Liberal caucus.
Tom MacDonald, a 20-year carpenter and foreman with a major construction company, said the agreement means he won’t have any assurances about whom he works for.
He is a member of the Christian Labour Association of Canada, but he would have to quit and join one of the 19 unions affiliated with the B.C. Building Trades Council to work on a public project.
That would affect his retirement benefits and “everything I’ve worked for.”
He and others got a half-hour meeting with Transportation Minister Claire Trevena afterward to make the case against the policy that she’s been front and centre in defending.
Highlighting the impact on individuals is the second line of attack for opponents of community-benefits agreements. The first few weeks were spent dwelling on the additional cost such deals would build into projects.
The government’s working estimate is between four and seven per cent, but it appears to be an offhand guess.
What taxpayers get for that in the way of social goods was listed when the deal was announced last July. The package includes a targeted approach to maximizing apprenticeships and priority hiring of Indigenous people, women and local people nearest the job sites.
Those goals are all cited on any public project now, but the deal is supposed to realize them better.
For all the problems it will cause workers who are in the wrong unions, their campaign isn’t likely to change the NDP’s mind.
Horgan has already signed on the dotted line with the new council representing 19 friendly unions. There’s no way out now.
The big test of the new model will be how the new Crown corporation — B.C. Infrastructure Benefits Inc. — performs.
It will be responsible for all hiring and assorted human-resource functions formerly handled by the contractors.
And it will take over at a time when finding workers is a much bigger challenge than it used to be. Warnings about a looming skills shortage have been getting more and more dire.
And the go-ahead to a big liquefied-natural-gas plant at the same time the Site C dam construction ramps up will make it even more acute.
Unionizing tradespeople is one thing. Finding them in the first place is another.
