‘It would be nice to have a job at home’
Bay of Islands ironworker disappointed he can’t get work on long-term care project in Corner Brook
Todd Murphy showed up at the site of the new long-term care home in Corner Brook at 6:30 a.m. on Monday.
The Bay of Islands ironworker wasn’t there to go to work, though, he was there to protest.
The Summerside man was among two dozen members of the Ironworkers Local 764 who are upset they haven’t been given a chance at work on the site.
Murphy said he knows the hiring wasn’t guaranteed.
“But it would be nice to have a job at home.”
The men are migratory workers who go where they’re needed.
“When a job does start in our own area you expect to get a job out of it if you’re experienced enough to go on it,” said Murphy, who has worked in the field for 36 years.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could do something to help out on the job here.”
Macdougall Steel Erectors Inc. out of P.E.I. has been awarded the contract for the supply, fabrication and erection of the steel for the project.
Local 764 business agent Francis Simms said as far as his union knows, the company has five workers on site, with another seven on the way.
Simms said Macdougall Steel Erectors Inc. is a non-signatory contractor with the union, so when he learned it would do work on the project he contacted the company to discuss the possibility of employing local ironworkers.
Simms said he was told “pretty abruptly” that the company wouldn’t hire anyone local and would man the job from P.E.I.
“They had no intention of hiring anybody from the Bay of Islands,” Simms said.
“Everyone here is boomed out across Canada working, but we never went into an area where there were unemployed ironworkers. We went in because there was nobody there to do that job.
“And when the time came we dragged up and came out of it. When the work got slow and there was only enough there for the local people, we moved on.”
Besides being a hiring issue, Simms and Murphy also said bringing in outside workers doesn’t make sense economically. Bringing in workers, they say, costs the company in accommodations and living expenses.
“And I’m here 20 minutes from the job which they got to pay nothing, only wages,” said Murphy.
“So why do they have to go off of the island to get people to come in and take our jobs?”
Jobs, he said, he will pay for.
“I am a taxpayer, too, and this job is being done with my taxpaying money,” he said.
“Our politicians are coming out and bragging about these jobs starting, but yet we’re the guys paying these people, so why can’t they give something back to us?”
Simms said it’s not the union’s intention to disrupt the project, but they will stay put until they get an answer from Macdougall Steel.
“To see if we can come to some kind of an agreement or we can agree to disagree.”
Murphy is prepared to stay on site until he sees a snowplow coming in the road, and beyond that.
Transportation and Works Minister Steve Crocker said he appreciates the ironworkers’ concerns, but there’s nothing the province can do about the situation.
“The reality here is companies in Canada are bound by the Canada Free Trade Agreement, and worker migration is a part of that agreement,” Crocker said.
That means companies have the ability to hire whom they want and from where they want, and this is something that occurs within union locals and internationals.
Crocker said companies sign agreements with unions on the migration of workers, and in making hiring decisions they have to follow the agreements with the unions and the guidelines of the Canada Free Trade Agreement.
He said the province can’t interfere by providing incentives, as that would break the trade agreement.
To change the rules could affect the workers by limiting their ability to work in other areas, Crocker said. For example, companies in Alberta could say they won’t hire people from Newfoundland and Labrador, he said.