Building unions campaign for more trades training
Besides awareness, group pushes for hiring B.C. workers for projects
The umbrella group that represents B.C.’s building trade unions has launched its first promotional campaign, as it seeks to boost enrolment in skilled trades and convince lawmakers that major public construction projects should be dedicated first for local workers.
B.C. Building Trades executive director Tom Sigurdson said recent polling shows the public has almost no awareness of his organization or many of the 17 local unions affiliated with the trade council, rep- resenting almost 35,000 workers in everything from excavation to electrical work, gas fitting and finishing carpentry.
“This is part of a campaign that says, ‘ Hey we are out there, you don’t really see us, but once that project is built and you’ve moved into your condo and turned on your lights or filled up your gas tank, it got there because of a construction worker,’” he said. “There’s a group of folk out there that really nobody ever sees, and we just build British Columbia.”
The organization is starting a year-long campaign with electronic, television and print advertising. Sigurdson declined to reveal the cost.
“There’s going to be, hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, a boom in economic activity in our province and we need to be prepared for it,” Sigurdson said.
That means having apprentices start today who will become journey workers for future projects, and encouraging more young women to consider trades, he said.
Sigurdson said one goal of the campaign is to push politicians into promising jobs first for British Columbian workers on major projects. The organization’s polling, conducted earlier this year by Mustel Group, shows 85 per cent of people asked agree that B.C. workers should get first opportunity for jobs on construction projects.
It’s an issue on the almost $9-billion Site C dam project, where government has claimed 87 per cent of jobs in the first phase of construction were awarded to B.C. workers, but Sigurdson said his figures only show 80 per cent.
“It’s important for me and my organization to make sure we have an understanding with all British Columbians that when we are spending, especially public money but even private-sector investment coming into our province, that the jobs that are going to be created are going to be created for British Columbians,” said Sigurdson.
The B.C. Building Trades has been heavily active in politics in the province for years, and traditionally supportive of the B.C. NDP.
Sigurdson encouraged NDP Leader John Horgan to run for the party leadership, but has also been critical of Horgan for failing to solve the split within the party, in which environmental advocates oppose some major projects like pipelines, LNG terminals and the Site C dam.
The new promotional campaign won’t have partisan overtones, said Sigurdson, nor will any of the money be used for the May 2017 election campaign.