The area of the Peace River where the proposed Site C hydroeletric dam would be built near Fort St. John, B.C.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Frustrated after a year of fruitless negotiations with BC Hydro, an alliance of building trade unions is threatening to lure away construction workers from the Site C megaproject for other work sites if a labour pact isn't reached with the Crown corporation.
"We feel it is going to be a very chaotic construction zone and at the end of it, a big mess," Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, told reporters Monday.
BC Hydro is seeking to change its long-standing labour model for the $8.8-billion dam project, with construction slated to begin this summer.
Over the past five decades, members of the building trade unions' Allied Hydro Council have built British Columbia's dams. Now, the Crown corporation is moving to an open-shop model. It rejects the notion of common wages and is seeking to curb organized labour activities.
In an interview Monday, BC Hydro's president and chief executive officer Jessica McDonald flatly rejected the trade unions' bid to negotiate a project-wide labour agreement, although she has backed down on efforts to ban union organizing, strikes and picketing on the construction site.
"This is about choice," Ms. McDonald said. "It is our desire and intent to maintain a managed open site. …We are not entering into a labour agreement on a site-wide basis."
Mr. Sigurdson said BC Hydro is putting the province's largest public infrastructure project in history at risk with labour instability by trying to attract cheap labour.
He warned that labour instability will be acute if an anticipated construction boom in the north takes off.
"It appears as though they haven't even thought about what happens if we get to a point where we have got two [liquefied natural gas] plants, some mines in construction," he said.
That scenario could lead to a severe skills shortage in the construction trades in British Columbia, he said.
"If there is no project labour agreement – or whatever we want to call it – with BC Hydro, it's a lot easier to go to Site C where they have a crew of 1,500 people on site, and we will try to find people that we need at Kitimat or Prince Rupert and offer them jobs at higher rates."
In a letter to Premier Christy Clark late last week, Mr. Sigurdson asked for help in getting BC Hydro to the table. "British Columbia is poised for an unprecedented level of investment," he wrote. "A stable and reliable work force of skilled tradespeople has never been more important to our province and BC Hydro."
The Allied Hydro Council is proposing a "construction partnership agreement" that would allow both union and non-union workers to build the dam, but all would be paid industry-standard wages and benefits. The model would ensure no labour disruptions and would provide certainty around labour costs over the life of the construction project.
However, the Premier, in a letter to Mr. Sigurdson on Monday, said she will not intervene. "I urge you to continue discussions with BC Hydro to explore any ideas to optimize the managed open site model, while securing the best possible deal for ratepayers."
The building trades have filed a civil suit in B.C. Supreme Court seeking to block BC Hydro's open site labour model plan on the grounds that it violates the federal Charter of Rights.
Last month, after that lawsuit was filed, the Premier told reporters that BC Hydro went too far in its bid to curb union powers and ordered the Crown corporation to change the contract terms to allow unions to organize at the construction site. Mr. Sigurdson said the case will proceed, however, because the proposed labour model still includes limits on union activities.
Justine Hunter