October 10, 2024

THE ELECTION RACE BETWEEN B.C.’s political parties is heating up with Premier David Eby seeking re-election on October 19th. He is leading the BC NDP against BC United and leader Kevin Falcon, the Conservative Party of BC and leader John Rustad, and the Green Party with leader Sonia Furstenau.

BC Building Trades members have made significant gains under BC NDP leadership over the past seven years. One big example was Eby’s announcement last year that large construction sites will soon be required by law to have flush toilets. As well, new WorkSafeBC rules regulating asbestos abatement licensing that came into effect in 2024 have made work safer for many tradespeople. Despite many victories, there is still more work to be done regarding sanitation and asbestos exposure on job sites, and an even longer way to go addressing the disproportionate impact of toxic drugs on construction workers.

There are three key health and safety issues that the BC Building Trades would like to see addressed in the upcoming election. Those include: improved sanitation through flush toilets on job sites, increased oversight on the current asbestos abatement licensing model and a proposed drug treatment centre specifically designed for construction workers.

Key Issue 1: Get Flushed

Imagine not having flush toilets or running water for washing hands at work. While unacceptable in every other industry and workplace, it is the current reality for construction workers in B.C.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic when construction work continued almost completely unabated, hundreds of tradespeople worked in close quarters using porta-potties and jerry-rigged handwashing stations with hoses taped to two-by-fours. Construction companies were able to provide flush toilet trailers for some of their staff, those being the managers and the supervisors. Most often, those flush toilets were outfitted with locks on the doors to prevent regular workers from accessing them.

“The hypocrisy of having management toilet trailers with locks on the doors has been spectacular,” said Brynn Bourke, executive director of the BC Building Trades.

Certain corners of the construction industry claimed it was impossible to provide toilet trailers for all workers, so the BC Building Trades started the Get Flushed campaign in the spring of 2021 and published a research paper that looked at other jurisdictions with superior standards of sanitation including the United Kingdom, Australia and Quebec. According to that research, flushing toilets cost approximately $1 per day per worker, but construction companies continued to opt for the universally-reviled port-a-potties.

For two years, the Building Trades followed a WorkSafeBC process in an effort to revise guidelines and educate employers, but it became apparent no companies were going to bite the bullet and voluntarily become the first to move to flush toilets.

“We changed focus,” said Bourke. The Building Trades called upon Labour Minister Harry Bains to change the regulations and compel change. In October 2023, Bains and Premier Eby announced construction companies would soon be required to provide flush toilets on job sites with 25 workers or more.

After a lengthy bureaucratic process, a second WorkSafeBC public hearing took place on July 24 with Bourke presenting. “In this final push, I just want to share who this is for. The people who are at the centre.” Recommendations will go to WorkSafeBC’s Board of Directors next, and then once approved will be made into law.

“Once we implement flush toilets and scale up and normalize having them on constructions sites, they will be there forever,” said Bourke. “This should be the very last summer that workers have to live with abhorrent toilet conditions.”

The BC Building Trades is calling upon Premier David Eby and all of those running in the provincial election to bring the new WorkSafeBC flush toilets regulations into force as soon as possible.

Key Issue 2: Asbestos Abatement Regulations

New WorkSafeBC rules came into effect Jan. 1, 2024 that require workers to go through special training before doing asbestos abatement including identifying, cleaning up or containing asbestos. These were the first of their kind in Canada. The new regulations also require building owners to hire specially licensed companies for asbestos removal.

According to Rob Sheck, “It’s a start, but it’s not enough.” Sheck is the business manager for the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 118. “We’re not against it, but the problem with the licensing program is it’s based off a money-making model versus an occupational safety model.”

Asbestos abatement is an important issue for the Insulators. Sheck wants to see better subject matter experts involved in the process, increased oversight on the current licensing model and continued funding towards early detection of asbestos-related diseases.

Retired insulator Lee Loftus was exposed to asbestos when he was just six years old. Both his grandfather and father were insulators. Loftus remembers his father coming home and shaking the fibres off his clothes like falling snow. It can take only one exposure to damage lung tissue because asbestos fibres are indestructible and travel through the lungs scarring tissue year after year, decade after decade. Now in his late 60s, Loftus has a 30 per cent loss of lung function.

“I have to stop after two flights of stairs,” said Loftus. “I can’t play with my grandchildren.”

The regulations help protect the organized labour movement, but they fall short of protecting the public and the underground economy from being exploited. Unregulated companies exploit vulnerable workers to do abatement jobs they aren’t given proper training for, putting them and their families at risk. There also continues to be challenges with the disposal of contaminated products, which puts anyone who goes to a schoolyard, laneway, or shopping mall at risk when illegal dumping takes place.

The BC Building Trades is calling for better enforcement and oversight of the new provincial asbestos rules.

Key Issue 3: A Proposed Drug Treatment Centre for Unionized Construction Workers

Toxic drugs have a disproportionate impact on members of the Building Trades. According to the Construction Industry Rehabilitation Plan (CIRP), one in five people who die from a toxic drug overdose in B.C. is connected to the construction industry and one in three construction workers is struggling with substance misuse. Construction workers have a 65 per cent higher rate of suicide than workers in other sectors.

CIRP has provided substance use and related mental health treatment and prevention services to the unionized construction sector in British Columbia for more than 40 years.

“We take care of our own and we want to take care of our own,” said Vicky Waldron, executive director of CIRP.

In 2023, CIRP served 542 clients and received more than 6,000 calls, a 43 per cent increase in workers seeking help from the previous year. In 2022, there was a 64 per cent increase over the previous seven years in clients accessing services. Early trends for 2024 indicate there will be yet another jump in numbers.
“It’s a perfect storm,” said Waldron.

Construction is a booming industry with a lot of demand and pressure on job sites to get things done with not enough tradespeople to do them. It’s physically demanding and chronic pain from work-related injuries is often treated with prescription opioids, which can lead to addiction.

Due to the unique needs of the industry, CIRP is proposing a residential treatment and recovery centre with programs specifically focused on serving the needs of construction workers.

“Most treatment centres operate based on clients coming to them who are ready for treatment. Because of the safety side of our industry [drug and alcohol testing] people often come to treatment when they’re not actually ready, but because their job requires them to come for treatment,” said Waldron. “And that’s a completely different psychological profile and requires completely different interventions. If you deliver the wrong intervention, treatment is not going to be successful.”

CIRP is asking the government to make a one-time investment of land and financial assistance for the construction of a fully integrated treatment centre to be operated by CIRP. Ongoing operational costs will be supplied by the industry.

Every year $847 million is lost in the industry in B.C. due to workers missing work or showing up late, hungover or dealing with withdrawal symptoms. The provincial government loses an additional $317 million in lost taxation.

“A treatment centre is a drop in the ocean when you look at that,” said Waldron. The returns would be significant.”

The BC Building Trades is calling on the next provincial government to invest $60m in land and financial assistance to develop the 40-bed treatment centre for construction workers.

by Tatiana Tomljanovic