January 23, 2024

Brynn Bourke - Executive Director

Brynn Bourke – Executive Director

TRADETALK READERS are very familiar with porta-potties. They’re rarely cleaned and often filthy. They’re dark and they’re wet. They are too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Most of all, they are unsanitary and unhygienic.

For many years, tradespeople have been doing everything they can to avoid using the porta-potties on construction sites. Many workers arrange their entire day so they don’t have to use them. Often they hold it until they get home or until they can get to a local Tim Hortons or gas station.

When the pandemic hit, everything changed. We repeatedly heard public health messages that said hand washing was crucial and so was limiting our contact with other people. Despite those warnings, construction workers were sent onto sites with no running water for hand washing alongside dozens and dozens of other workers.

Construction workers carried on through the pandemic. It was an emergency and the public needed tradespeople to build and maintain the infrastructure British Columbians relied upon. They kept the lights on. They kept building the homes, hospitals and schools.

But as days turned to weeks, then months and then a year — it became clear. The poor sanitation conditions plaguing our industry were not going to get better unless we demanded better.

We wrote about the initial launch of our Get Flushed campaign in the Spring 2021 issue of Tradetalk magazine. At that time, we argued that WorkSafeBC already had guidelines requiring employers to provide plumbed toilet facilities to workers unless it was not “practical” to do so.

We would soon find out that the word “practical” was being universally used by the construction industry to provide the bare minimum standard of toilets. Time and again, portapotties, rarely cleaned, always smelly and without running water, were the default. No project was ever big enough or long enough to trigger a requirement for flush toilets.

In the first two years, we worked with industry and WorkSafeBC to rewrite a guideline on the maintenance of washroom facilities. We argued for regular cleaning schedules, better lighting, ventilation and heating in winter, access to sinks with running water and flush toilets.

Despite all our efforts, change did not come. And it became clear that change would not be possible from within the construction industry.

So, in spring of this year, we began work on a second toilet policy paper. We adopted a recommendation from Quebec that requires flush toilet facilities on construction sites that have (or will have) 25 construction workers or more. We connected that requirement with the BC Building Code definition of plumbed which would allow for the use of toilet trailers in locations where a connection to sewer and water would not be possible.

We relaunched the campaign and the positive response from the public and political leaders was incredible. More than a thousand letters have been written to the B.C. government calling for flush toilets on construction sites.

In October, Premier David Eby announced the B.C. government will be bringing in a legal requirement for flush toilets on construction sites of 25 workers or more.

This is a huge victory for construction workers and BC Building Trades members should be proud of their role in making this happen. Our unions did this.

This was a fight worth fighting to ensure that the people who build our province will finally have access to basic sanitation on construction sites. They deserve it.

By Brynn Bourke
Executive Director