Op-Eds

By Andrew Mercier, Executive Director - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE - MEMBERS OF THE BC BUILDING TRADES are in for a busy 2020. LNG Canada, the Coastal GasLink pipeline, Site C, the Trans Mountain pipeline and the ongoing upgrades at YVR all require a steady supply...

By Phil Venoit - IBEW Local 230, RSE President’s View It has been no secret that union busting and impeding the right of workers to form unions has been in vogue since the 1980s. Unionization rates in the private sector have fallen dramatically. The result has not...

By Merrill O'Donnell - BCBT Workers' Advocate Reprehensible behaviour The pullout of the B.C. business community from the Workers’ Compensation Review in August was a disheartening, if not totally unexpected, action by a group of so-called business leaders who are...

By Tom Sigurdson Thank you! Thank you for giving me the honour of being your executive director for the past number of years. I was first hired into the position in 1997 and left in 2003 to work in Ottawa as the director of political and legislative affairs for...

President’s View by Phil Venoit The Red Seal Program was established following the first National Conference on Apprenticeship in Trades and Industries in Ottawa in 1952 and first certificates were issued seven years later....

View From Ottawa By Arlene Dunn Canada’s Building Trades Unions are preparing for this fall’s federal election. The need to get out the vote is more important than ever. Before the Trudeau Liberals were elected in 2015, the building trades had been fighting for...

The Liberal Party of Canada has shown a willingness to work with us Voting is a fundamental right of our citizenship. It is something we ought not to take for granted. Your vote counts! And yes you should get out and vote. Who you vote for is your personal choice but...

Union representative responds to Tom Fletcher's column Another week, another anti-worker rant from Tom Fletcher. The intrepid legislative columnist for Black Press, Fletcher works tirelessly to deliver us biased news and views from Victoria. His last column was no...

If there are two things workers value – in addition to the obvious, like wages and working conditions — it’s choice and voice. And because of this, I’m frankly puzzled that those who purport to support workers’ rights were opposed to Labour Code amendments that would...

By Merrill O’Donnell - BCBT Advocate The duty to accommodate following a worker’s injury has caused longstanding confusion in labour-management relations in B.C. It is critically important for our members, building trades officers and contractors to realize that...