Op-Eds

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 – 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...