The Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA) is lauding Sault Ste. Marie Council’s resolution to begin the process of changing its construction employer status, while others are calling it an “anti-union” decision.
“It is really encouraging that the smallest municipality affected by this — and arguably the one with the least amount of resources to find their way out of this — has taken the bull by the horns and they want to get Sault Ste. Marie out of the situation where their construction projects are being monopolized,” said Karen Renkema, senior manager of public affairs for the PCA. “They recognize that it is just purely unfair that workers can’t work on their own local projects because they have chosen a union of different affiliation or they chose not to be organized.”
Tom Cardinal, northern Ontario area manager for the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario, said the move is “all about an anti-union feeling.”
“This only comes to fruition when there is a big job in the water and sewer sector…in order to get rid of a collective agreement that exists,” Cardinal noted. “We’ve never ever stopped anybody from bidding a project with the City of Sault Ste. Marie.”
Cardinal said the city is wasting taxpayer dollars to attempt to get rid of a collective agreement that they have failed to get rid of twice.
“They are willing to spend upwards of a million dollars in legal fees that will take at least five years at the Ontario Labour Relations Board to fight,” Cardinal claimed.
He also argued there are statistics that say it’s cheaper to build with unionized labour based on skills, the economy and efficiency.
For 30 years, the city has been designated a construction employer and has been limited to accept bids for infrastructure from two unions: the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and the Labourers’ International Union of North America.
“I think it’s really important to be clear that this isn’t a union/anti-union position, it’s an open/closed tendering issue,” Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano told the Daily Commercial News. “The city believes it’s in the best interest of the community and the taxpayers that we have unrestricted tendering processes.”
Council voted in favour of the resolution 12 to one.
We hope this move by Sault Ste. Marie encourages other municipalities
— Karen Renkema
PCA
“This resolution really is just step one,” said Provenzano. “What the city council wanted to do was put the next council in the position to make the necessary applications so that we won’t be designated a construction employer. To do that we have to adjust our budgeting and some of our activities. What this resolution did was direct staff to work over the course of the coming year to make those necessary adjustments so that we can approach 2019 forward differently and then potentially successfully challenge the designation.”
In addition to requesting a resolution supporting fair and open tendering, the PCA and the Christian Labour Association of Canada asked Sault council to actively press for an amendment to Section 126 of Ontario’s Labour Relations Act (OLRA) as well as to work with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to make open tendering a priority issue.
“There are two processes here: there is the legal process and then there is the political process,” explained Provenzano, adding the legal process was dealt with at the council meeting. “We did discuss the importance of proceeding down a political path and I believe in January a couple of city councillors will be bringing forward a motion to press for that legislative change and then also to direct essentially mayor and council to make the lobbying efforts it needs to make to try and effect the change at the provincial level in the legislation.”
According to the resolution, it is expected to cost between $600,000 and $800,000 to change the city’s construction practices and challenge the city’s construction employer designation but the savings from not being designated a construction employer are expected to be between $400,000 and $15 million.
“We can’t really quantify what that has cost the taxpayers and the city of Sault Ste. Marie but we’re of the opinion that there has been a significant cost,” said Provenzano. “We do have a number of large projects coming and if we are restricted by the time those projects arrive we won’t get the results to the tendering process that we would otherwise get if we were unrestricted.”
According to Renkema, the best situation for all municipalities faced with construction labour monopolies is for Section 126 of the OLRA to be amended so that public entities are not deemed construction employers.
“We hope this move by Sault Ste. Marie encourages other municipalities to consider at the very least becoming more vocal on the change for section 126,” she said.
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