October 17, 2024
IN KATE LISCHERON’S HOMETOWN of Cobble Hill, B.C., most people have to leave to find work.
Whether they’re heading to Alberta’s oil fields, getting sent to big projects in Northern B.C. or commuting to Nanaimo or Victoria, she says it’s rare for folks from the Cowichan Valley to find work close to home.
But just two years into her career as an electrician and a little more than a year with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 230 (IBEW 230), Lischeron is working on the Cowichan District Hospital Replacement Project, which is just a 10-minute drive from her childhood home.
“Some of my friends could give birth to their children in this hospital that I’m currently building,” Lischeron told Tradetalk magazine. “It kind of blew me away… this will directly impact the community that I’ve been a part of for my entire life.”
Lischeron’s work on the new Cowichan Hospital is made possible because of a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which is a version of something called a Project Labour Agreement (PLA). That is, a collective agreement for major public infrastructure projects in the province.
CBAs and PLAs ensure that a certain number of local workers, women, Indigenous and other underrepresented workers are hired onto public projects. They also ensure that all workers on a project are either already part of a union or will join one while building it.
“Those are things that we should all be rising up to engage with, and these agreements help to achieve that,” said Phil Venoit, business manager for IBEW 230. “It sets achievable goals for the employers to adhere to. What we get out of it as asocial democracy is a better community within the construction industry.”
CBAs and PLAs are crucial to the success of major infrastructure projects across B.C., but with a provincial election on the horizon, the future of these agreements is uncertain.
History of PLAs
Project Labour Agreements are far from new. The first PLA in Canada was used on the St. Lawrence Seaway project in the 1950s. Throughout the 60s and 70s, PLAs were used on BC Hydro dam projects.
While these early PLAs didn’t set standards for hiring from underrepresented groups, they did provide a single collective agreement for all contractors and unions involved in the project. They guaranteed good wages and working conditions, and provided stability for the duration of the project by eliminating the possibility of strikes or lockouts.
Built in the mid 1990s, the Vancouver Island Highway Project (VIHP) took those efforts a step further by requiring recruitment and training of women and Indigenous workers. It was the first time in Canadian history that a significant effort was made to hire workers from those groups on a commercial highway project.
At the time, women and Indigenous workers made up less than one per cent of the construction workforce.
At peak production, workers from underrepresented groups made up more than 20 per cent of the VIHP workforce, and 93 per cent of the workers on that project were local hires.
Despite criticism that the high wages paid to workers would drive up the cost of the project, a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that the VIHP “has come in under budget projections at virtually every stage of construction.”
Building Trades leaders have shown strong support for the model, then and now.
“We believe that a PLA gives a little more stability in the cost of doing business,” said Geoff Higginson, president of the Bargaining Council of British Columbia Building Trade Unions (BCBCBTU).
But government support for the Project Labour Agreement model didn’t last long. Before his landslide election in 2001, BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell promised to rip up the Island Highway Agreement. Once elected, he did just that, along with a range of other policies aimed at deregulating the trades.
It wasn’t until the BC NDP came back into power with John Horgan that widespread use of Project Labour Agreements was back on the table.
In July 2018, the BC NDP announced that major public infrastructure projects would be built under Community Benefits Agreements, which would prioritize apprenticeship opportunities, as well as hiring women, Indigenous workers and local workers.
A Big Election for PLAs
Since 2018, Community Benefits Agreements have been used on the Broadway Skytrain, the Pattullo Bridge Replacement, the Cowichan District Hospital Replacement and the BCIT Trades and Technology Complex. Despite polls showing three quarters of British Columbians support the use of CBAs, pressure from open-shop contractors and the business lobby could turn the next provincial government against them.
BC United, formerly the BC Liberals, is led by Kevin Falcon, who oversaw the onslaught of deregulation in the early 2000s as the Minister of State for Deregulation of British Columbia.
John Rustad, current leader of the BC Conservatives, also has his roots in the BC Liberals: he was first elected as an MLA in 2005, and was appointed to Christy Clark’s cabinet in 2013.
Premier David Eby has expressed support for the use of PLAs on big public projects, noting that the “requirements around local labour and apprenticeships and so on, is certainly a priority of government’s.”
“PLAs offer family-supporting wages and benefits to B.C. construction workers in a time of massive affordability challenges,” said Al Phillips, business manager of United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and PipeFitting Industry Local 170 and president of the BC Building Trades. “These agreements are a good deal for workers as well as taxpayers, and guarantee opportunities for apprenticeship, training and life-long careers.”
The BC Building Trades is calling on the next provincial government to commit to building all major public infrastructure projects with budgets above $35 million using PLAs. That is, all projects with a price tag of $35 million and above would be built by Building Trades members.
Geoff Higginson and Phil Venoit have been in the trades for decades, and they see this is a crucial time to preserve policies that train and diversify the trades workforce.
“We’re in the final years of a transitional time, when the baby boomers like myself are retiring out of the trades,” explained Venoit. “If we don’t do this right, what we’re doing essentially is dumbing down our trades and industry.”
Higginson said the length and scope of the projects completed under CBAs give apprentices a stable environment where they can complete their apprenticeship hours “under the observation of a Red Seal craft worker, who could sign off on their hours and can make sure they get the on-the-job training that they need.”
For Kate Lischeron, the Cowichan Hospital Replacement Project is an ideal training ground. Over the next few years, she will learn about the complex electrical systems that ensure life support systems continue in the event of a power outage. As the province’s first fully electric hospital, the new Cowichan Hospital will be 30 per cent more energy efficient and 60 per cent more water efficient than the current hospital.
Lischeron said she can see how the hiring requirements are fostering a community on her worksite. She’s been able to meet other women in the trades and she’s reconnected with people from her community, some of whom she hasn’t seen since middle school.
On the Cowichan Hospital Project, Lischeron said she feels like a valued member of the team, rather than just a “diversity hire.”
“It gives you an opportunity to really show that you are serious about your career.”
By Emma Arkell