Canadian IBEW Leaders Protest "Company Union" That Wants to Import Asian Workers, Ignore Skilled Canadians

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[NOTE: CLAC is an employer-created "union" that prides itself on low wages and being friendly to employers. CLAC stands for the "Christian Labour Association of Canada ," set up by companies to keep real unions from representing "their" workers. These are jobs that could go to unemployed Canadian and US electrical workers. MW]

CLAC defends itself against charges of
lower wages, hiring foreign workers

Fort McMurray [note: the real labor unions] unions are up in arms over the foreign worker issue, and they’re planning to voice their concerns in a protest Thursday.

By MICHAEL URBANSKI, Today staff, Wednesday April 27, 2005

Fort McMurray Today — Fort McMurray unions are up in arms over the foreign worker issue, and they’re planning to voice their concerns in a protest Thursday.
But CLAC (Christian Labour Association of Canada) Alberta director Dick Heinen told Today this morning the unions are out of touch with reality.
“It’s just wrong to suggest there is a lot of people out there looking for work,” said Heinen, offering to provide work to any tradesperson who comes to CLAC.
“I was at the airport Sunday and I talked to a scaffolder from Nova Scotia, who indicated he’s been called from a Nova Scotia local to Fort McMurray because there wasn’t enough people here.
“But if today the other unions already have to dip into Nova Scotia locals to crew up (provide workers for) the jobs, what’s going to happen two years from now?”
Heinen said a number of studies conducted by federal government and various other organizations, predicted a critical deficit in trades in the near future, adding the “worker shortage isn’t just a CLAC issue.”
His comments come after Dale Crow, assistant business manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and one of the organizers of the anti-foreign workers rally Thursday, accused CLAC of being an employer-friendly union, offering cheaper labour rates to oilsands companies and thus lowering the standards for all unions.
“That’s not true,” retorted Heinen. “CLAC is a value-based union that comes at labour relations from a different perspective. We should be able to balance with a really strong worker advocacy, with the long-term interest of the job.”
Oilsands companies prefer to work with CLAC, according to Heinen, because CLAC is a wall-to-wall union -- single union for a particular workplace.
This means that different trades like electricians and carpenters work under the CLAC banner. In traditional unions, they’re separately represented.
“This allows for much greater efficiencies because we don’t have the same jurisdictional issues that you find with the craft unions,” he said.
CLAC’s partnership approach to labour relations is another reason employers chose the union over others -- “we’re easier to work with,” said Heinen.
Asked why people from other unions aren’t inclined to join CLAC, Heinen said, “we had numerous cases in which the unions have attempted to fine their members for working elsewhere ... many unions simply forbid their members from working for CLAC.”
“There are instances of the unions fining their members $5,000 for working on a CLAC site,” said Heinen. “They’re keeping their members by intimidation.”
Heinen added the unions’ dislike for CLAC has to do with the fact that “for a number of years the building trades have had a monopoly on the large construction work in Fort McMurray. They’re seeing the end of the monopoly, and that is what’s motivating this debate.”
He also rejected the accusations that CLAC pays lower wages.
“CLAC does not have a lower wage package than the other unions. We have a bit of a different structure. But at the end of the day, what the person takes home is the almost the same as other unions,” he said.
Heinen added that the whole foreign worker debate is misleading, because CLAC is looking for highly-trained journeymen trades people who will train Canadians for the job.
“Currently, there are a lot more people wanting to get into the apprenticeship program than we can handle. But there is a shortage of journeymen. Now, for every journeyman that comes in (from abroad) we can bring on another Canadian apprentice.
“So this is about bringing in foreign workers on temporary basis to assist with these projects, which will allow us to increase a number of Canadians to apprentice,” said Heinen.
-- murbanski@fortmcmurraytoday.com