Back to work order adds fuel to elevator strike fire

A back to work order for residential elevator constructors in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is just fueling the members of the International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) who are still on strike, says a union leader.

"The companies are trying to drive that wedge in between the union and its membership and also this local (50) and the other two locals in the province. That’s probably their intent at this point. That’s not going to happen,” said Ben McIntyre, chair of the negotiating committee for IUEC locals 50, 90 and 96.

Workers in the residential sector were ordered back to work effective June 17 after an Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) ruling approved the National Elevator Escalator Association’s (NEEA) application to require the IUEC to comply with Section 150 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA).

This section of the Act includes a six week limit on strikes in the residential construction sector in areas such as Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, Durham, and Simcoe.

The OLRB directed the IUEC not to picket residential buildings when work started and NEEA members, KONE Inc., Otis Canada Inc., Schindler Elevator Corporation, and ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Canada) Ltd., will not require workers to cross picket lines at members offices and branches.

"NEEA brought the application because we have an obligation to comply with it. We thought it was best that we comply on our end rather than have someone else go to the board and have the board order us to comply,” said NEEA spokesperson Patrick Moran.

The IUEC has been on strike since May 1, when its contract with NEEA expired. The union represents 1,400 workers in Ontario’s industrial, commercial and residential elevator construction, service and maintenance sectors. There are approximately 50,000 elevating devices in Ontario.

The issue at the core of the strike is the union’s seniority system.

Industry-wide seniority was arbitrated into the IUEC collective agreements across Canada after a seven-month-long national strike in 1972.

"It was seven months before it went to arbitration last time. It’ll be longer than seven months if they think that we’re going to give it up this time,” said McIntyre.

"NEEA has proposed changing from industry-wide seniority to company-wide seniority, which Moran says the IUEC members simply refuse” to talk about.

"They have something that nobody else in the entire industry has, even in the construction industry, and we simply want to get back to something more like regular seniority,” said Moran.

Some provinces have since moved to company-wide seniority and bargained away from that too, said Moran.

In Nova Scotia, the union agreed to grandfather out seniority with new workers entering the industry not receiving seniority. Alberta eliminated seniority and B.C. negotiated seniority into a separate maintenance agreement and a separate construction agreement.

McIntyre said company-wide seniority does not work for the Ontario locals.

You can work on construction and maintenance in the same day. It doesn’t work for us to have it split up,” he said.

"If the company then falls short of work and the guys have to come back to the hiring hall…and the next company picks them up, all their clocks get reset at zero when they go to the next employer. That’s totally unacceptable. That means the older guys will never get a shot at getting to their pension.”

The six-week 1988 strike was also about seniority, said McIntyre.

They know that it’s the one piece that they picked on that will continue us to be in a labour dispute,” he said.

NEEA says compensation is another issue in the dispute. It says current elevator mechanics earn $112,000 or more per year for a 40-hour workweek. Under the deal NEEA has proposed, this would increase to $120,000 per year for a 40-hour workweek.

The IUEC has said other issues include job security and working conditions of IUEC members which put at risk the overall safety of elevated devices in Ontario.

The locals have applied for interest arbitration on Section 150.

They were scheduled to appear at the OLRB on June 24 where McIntyre hoped to clarify the order as many workers were not clear if the order pertained to mixed-use properties.

The Ontario Labour Relations Act defines residential construction work as work performed in the residential section of the construction industry” and includes constructing, altering, decorating, repairing or demolishing” in both new build and existing residential buildings.

IUEC has offered to send the whole contract to arbitration. At press time, the two sides had not met for negotiations since the OLRB back to work order meeting on June 14.

Follow Kelly Lapointe on Twitter @DCNKelly.