Windsor workers ignored for airport solar jobs, unions say
Local workers and businesses are being shut out of jobs connected to a multimillion-dollar solar project at city-owned Windsor Airport, say labour leaders and a company experienced in solar farm construction.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 773 claims its members, as well as local contractors, are being overlooked for jobs at one of the biggest construction projects of the year, Samsung’s Windsor Solar installation.
The 50-megawatt Windsor Solar project, enough to power 8,500 homes in Ontario, will see 100,000plus solar panels installed on a 300-acre site at the airport as part of Ontario’s multibillion-dollar green energy deal with Samsung. PCL Construction, headquartered in Edmonton, is the general contractor for the project.
“There was the mayor, standing on a platform, saying this is bringing jobs to Windsor — (so) how could this happen?” said Karl Lovett, business manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 773.
“I’m very upset — it should have gone to a local contractor,” added John Salvatore, president of Windsor-based Mid South Contractors Ltd., the only local company invited to bid.
Joe Logan, Local 773’s regional organizer, spent months trying to get local electricians considered for the massive project. He said it wasn’t until his union lobbied for the jobs that local companies were given the chance to bid. But soon after a Windsor proposal was submitted, Logan and others started seeing out-of-town ads seeking workers for the project, which is set to get started this spring.
“They just went through the motions ... we had to beg to bid on the job,” Lovett said.
The union was so keen on nabbing a contract that it offered to cut in half the regular rates paid its members, said Lovett. Normally charging up to $60 an hour for licensed electricians, local IBEW members were willing to work on the airport project for between $16 and $32.
In a December news release, Mayor Drew Dilkens described the project as a partnership that included the city, one that would “create jobs during the installation phase of the project.”
“Of course, as mayor of the city I’d like to see as many jobs as possible go to local contractors,” Dilkens said in an interview Thursday. But he added that the municipality’s role was simply to act as landlord for the project, leasing the land to the owners of the solar farm installation. The lease agreement with Windsor will see the owner of the project pay the municipality up to $20 million in land rental and taxes over 20 years.
Had Windsor’s Mid South been given the contract, Salvatore said his company could have created 150 “good-paying jobs, all skilled, with some helpers ... all local guys.” He said his company is experienced building large-scale solar installations. “We’re not Mickey Mouse here.”
IBEW assistant business manager Barry Heeney said nobody expects such a project to simply be handed to a local company, “but you have to give local contractors a fair shot — and they didn’t.”
“The whole process is not something the city is involved in,” said Dilkens, who met with IBEW officials to discuss the matter. The mayor said he spoke with Samsung, who referred him to a PCL Construction manager whose name he passed on to the union.
While insisting he did not want to “trash the mayor,” the union’s Heeney said: “Maybe people who might have had a voice didn’t speak loud enough.”
PCL wasn’t able to provide someone for an interview Thursday but in a short statement emailed to the Star at the end of the business day, the company said “the majority of the work packages have not yet been awarded,” and that it was “committed to working with the local community.” PCL spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson said the company will be holding an information open house “in the near future where local companies and workers can come to the construction site to learn more about the project.”
IBEW business manager Lovett questions how much work might still be available for locals.
“You don’t start hiring people before you’ve got a contract,” he said, referring to online Help Wanted advertisements that for months now have been seeking solar installation workers for Windsor.
The IBEW’s Logan said the union began noticing that, shortly after Mid South put its bid in, online Help Wanted job sites began advertising for solar panel installer positions in Windsor paying as low as $12.50 an hour.
And even the City of Windsor webpage began advertising external postings in December for “general labourers” paying $17 to $32 per hour for jobs “installing outdoor solar panels on a solar farm (located near the airport).” Applicants for the up to 40 available positions “must be willing to join the Carpenter’s Union if hired,” the notice adds.
A spokesman for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 494, said he couldn’t speak for other trades but local members of his union are expecting to benefit from the Windsor Solar project.
“We appreciate whatever comes our way,” said Local 494 co-ordinator Tomi Hulkkonen. He said he expects up to 100 jobs will be coming to his union, but he said he doesn’t know the exact number to be hired, or what the pay will be.
Hulkkonen also said confidentiality agreements prevent him from divulging the names of the subcontractors he’s been advised will be employing his members.
Lovett said the project’s financiers, who happen to also have ties to his IBEW union, advised him in January that, “unfortunately, the contract has already been given away.” Especially with many workers returning home from Alberta due to that province’s suffering oil-based economy, Lovett said hundreds of his union’s members are looking for work.
“Windsor just can’t sustain itself with all this work being given to people outside this area,” he added.
“For the bid we put in, there’s no way anybody could beat us on that job,” said Lovett.