Op-Eds
Workers Advocate’s Message – Business community resistant to pro-worker WCB changes
May 25, 2024 CHRIS GARDNER, president of the Independent Contractors and Business Association (ICBA), wrote an op-ed in the Journal of Commerce on Dec. 21, 2022, taking the B.C. government to task for trying to fix the workers’ compensation system. Gardner also...
Executive Director’s Message – Where will the trades take you?
April 12, 2023 THIS ISSUE of Tradetalk explores the journeys we take as tradespeople. From the early days in the trades to reflections after a lifetime, we’re delving into some of the places you can go. We start this issue by celebrating the opening of the Heat and...
President’s Message – The Value of Union Labour
April 4, 2023 BC BUILDING TRADES (BCBT) unions have spent much of our time in the past several months bargaining the terms of the Standard Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) collective agreement which is set to expire on April 30, 2023. Under the strong...
President’s Message – Mentoring apprentices key to organizing
January 18, 2023 IN EARLY OCTOBER, affiliates of the BC Building Trades and their delegates met at our 50th Annual Constitutional Convention and annual general meeting in Victoria, B.C. The event was well attended, and we had several guest speakers who addressed the...
Executive Director’s Message – Give this magazine to someone who belongs in the trades
December 13, 2022 FOR TOO MANY YOUNG people, the option of pursuing a career in the skilled trades is never offered. They simply don’t know about the opportunities that exist. We’re on a mission to change that by reaching out to as many prospective apprentices as we...
Workers Advocate’s Message – Your Personal Medical Evidence – What is the Employer Entitled to?
November 25, 2022 IN CANADA, THE law is clear: employers may request medical information from their employees in certain situations. However, when an employer can make requests and what they can request continues to be a thorny matter of conflict. Often, even when the...
Executive Director’s Message – People Are Our Greatest Strength
October 25, 2022 THE PROJECTS WE BUILD are so impressive that we can often lose sight of the people behind them. Our members’ touch so much of the provincial landscape. It’s hard not to fill the pages of TradeTalk with pictures of our members erecting skyscrapers or...
President’s Message – Now We Organize
October 18, 2022 ON JUNE 2, 2022, we celebrated an important win for workers in our province. Bill 10 — the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2022 received royal assent and became law, reinstating card check certification in B.C. Card check, or single-step...
Executive Director’s Message – The fight for good jobs
August 21, 2022 SHORTLY AFTER I started working at the BC Building Trades a decade ago, a young man walked into my old executive director’s office. After six years working as a plumbing apprentice, he had just learned that his “apprenticeship” was never registered...
Editor’s Message – Unions: a powerful and effective voice
June 21, 2022 WHEN I LOOK BACK on all the jobs I’ve had, many times I could have used a union. Like the time $10 went missing from our locker room at a fast food restaurant, and the owner decided to bring in her husband, a retired police officer, to...
