Bob Blakely, retiring COO of Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU), is being lauded as a staunch supporter of skilled trades workers across Canada whose efforts to build the trade union movement and organize on matters of important public policy earned him respect from all quarters.
Blakely’s retirement was announced March 1 with eastern Canadian trade union activist Arlene Dunn announced as his successor.
“Bob has devoted his entire adult life to construction workers and all workers in Canada,” said Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, in a statement. “His impact will be felt for generations to come and all workers, whether they were a friend or never knew his name, benefitted from his life’s work.”
Blakely was in a contemplative mood when asked for career highlights on a mid-March afternoon in the CBTU boardroom.
“It just feels like it’s time,” said the Edmonton native, a certified plumber and practising lawyer who still hangs out a shingle with his Edmonton legal firm Blakely & Dushenski.
“The decision was not that hard to make and certainly I have a successor in place, and organizationally we are doing pretty well. It is probably better to retire now rather than when there is a crisis.”
Blakely crossed the country frequently during his 19 years in the job, looking in on the 14 unions affiliated with the CBTU, representing the interests of 400,000 member tradespeople. The character and skills of those workers, and the work they’ve delivered, he said, represent a major source of pride to him.
The esteem of the trades, what people think about us, I think we made serious change in that
— Bob Blakely
Canada’s Building Trades Unions
“The people that do the work aren’t just good, they are marvellously good,” said Blakely. “Go to Hebron where they built the offshore platform, doing things with concrete that weren’t supposed to be possible, and doing it with zero defects, and to a schedule where if anything went wrong, it was going to be a disaster.
“Go to the oilsands where people put together enormous projects and when it comes time to push the button, they push the button and it runs, and at design spec and design quality.
“I don’t think there’s anywhere in world where this sort of thing happens.”
Blakely felt it was important to ensure trades workers earned respect outside their industry, he said, using his father as an example of the existing mindset among some workers. His father was a highly skilled second-generation plumber who read all the books his son brought home from studies at the University of Alberta.
“The esteem of the trades, what people think about us, I think we made serious change in that,” he said.
“My dad had a raving inferiority complex because he was just a trades guy. There are thousands of them out there who think because they are trades guys they are children of a lesser god, but they are not, they keep the world turning.”
Other issues Blakely identified as significant challenges during his time as CBTU chief were asbestos in construction, recruiting challenges, the Stephen Harper government’s Bill C-77, harmonization of the trades and delivery of resource projects.
The whole labour movement joined with the CBTU to fight C-77, which would require extensive record-keeping to such an extent, Blakely said, that regular union functions would be tied up. The bill was finally passed but thankfully, he said, the Justin Trudeau government repealed its measures early in its mandate.
The Liberals also announced a ban on asbestos.
“If you are looking at something that people should thump their chest with and say, we have succeeded mightily, it is asbestos,” he said. “We still have not got rid of it, it will continue to reap a harvest of lives for another hundred years, but we are at the beginning of the end.”
The need to expand recruiting circles to replace the 260,000 boomer trades workers who are retiring is now a major CBTU preoccupation but Blakely said the organization came late to the issue.
“If you look at how industry related to local communities, Indigenous people, women, people of colour, the underrepresented, we blew into town, did the job and blew out,” he said. “In terms of the impact on the local community that was a bad idea.”
Blakely also said he is proud to have been involved in getting the Canadian Building Trades Monument in Major’s Hill Park in Ottawa built, honouring workers who have died on the job.
With Dunn taking over his job and stalwarts from across the country such as Patrick Dillon of Ontario, Darin King in Newfoundland and Labrador and Terry Parker of Alberta showing leadership, the trades are in good hands, Blakely said.
“The fact that we are working together as a team makes a big difference,” he said. “These guys are not reacting, they are making a plan and moving forward with the plan.”
In retirement Blakely plans to be in the garden, golf twice a week with a best friend since childhood, spend more time with his “sweet baboo” — his wife Geraldine — and do some consulting out of his Edmonton office. He has already received offers for projects.
“I won’t be a stranger,” he said.
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