BUILT ON EXCELLENCE
UNITED ASSOCIATION 39TH GENERAL CONVENTION
San Diego California | August 1 – 5 2016
Canadian Report
Since the last convention, the UA in Canada, under the
leadership of Director of Canadian Affairs John Telford,
has again experienced unprecedented membership
growth, reaching almost 57,000 members and climbing.
Canada has been very fortunate during the last 10 years
of tough economic times, as UA membership in Canada
has not experienced the downturn that our American
brothers and sisters have had to endure.
The work situation across Canada as we convene for our
39th General Convention is good, and the future looks
promising. The province of Newfoundland/Labrador will
be finishing a $5 billion nickel smelter at Long Harbour.
This project started in late 2011 and will be completed in
late 2016. At its peak, the project employed more than
2,500 UA tradespeople with about 750 Travel Card
members working on the project.
The new offshore drilling rig (Hebron) is being built at the
Bull Arm facility. Work began in early 2012 and will finish
in late 2016; the platform will utilize more than 1,000 UA
members and again some work for traveling members.
The hydroelectric dam project on the Little Churchill River
in Labrador is a five-to seven-year project starting in late
2012, and again will have work opportunities for a
significant number of UA members through 2018. The
rest of Atlantic Canada also has work with a re-fit at the
Point Lepreau nuclear power plant, ongoing maintenance
and new capital projects at Irving Oil in Saint John, New
Brunswick. The possibility of a 40-inch pipeline from
Alberta to St. John, New Brunswick (TransCanada “Energy
East”) will change the economy of New Brunswick forever,
creating thousands of construction jobs for all the building
trades with refinery expansion, tanker fill stations and
increased maintenance work-all great for the UA.
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton are not booming, but the
UA market share is very strong in the institutional and
commercial sector, and we have been successful in
winning the work that is available. In the fabrication
sector in Nova Scotia, we have picked up a modular
fabrication shop at the Pictou fabrication facility, doing
work earmarked for the Vale Inco nickel smelter in
Newfoundland. The facility is currently employing
more than 120 UA metal trades workers building
barges, retrofitting ships and building electrical
generating turbines that are powered by incoming
and outgoing tides. This is a great story for Local 56,
Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The province of Quebec, while not busy at the present
time, has a unique situation because, by government
decree, the construction industry is 100 percent union.
The economy in Quebec will slowly move through this
recovery period, and as work increases our members will
man the projects. The aforementioned Energy East
pipeline, with a reliable source of Canadian oil, will lead
to expansions at the Montreal Suncore facility and the
Ultra-Mar facility at Quebec City.
The province of Ontario is experiencing full employment
in many of our locals, and future looks very bright. The
Ontario government announced plans to refurbish 10
nuclear reactors over the next 12 to 15 years. To capture
this work for our members, UA Canada negotiated an 18year nuclear refurbishment agreement, something that
has never been done before in the construction industry.
By the time of our General Convention, all the building
trades will have signed the UA agreement, which is great
for our members and our fair contractors.
The pulp and paper industry and mining sectors are
showing signs of recovery in northern Ontario, where we
have big expectations for the “Ring of Fire” mining
projects. The institutional and commercial markets
continue to be the backbone of the UA market
throughout Ontario, and this will continue with upwards
Canadian Report
of $1 billion in mechanical installation in the greater
Toronto and surrounding area, along with the construction
of two 1,000 megawatt generators. Over all, Ontario will
see work opportunities for the next two to three years, and
membership and market share should grow.
Manitoba has enjoyed almost full employment for the
past two or three years. We experience a good
institutional and commercial market share, with
increased activity in hydroelectric power (dams) and
renewed interest in mining. Local 254 in Manitoba has
grown and prospered over the past five years and this will
continue for the foreseeable future.
Saskatchewan has the potential to be the next Alberta in
terms of development of natural resources and
petroleum, as this is a province with abundant potash,
uranium, natural gas and oil sands. The local has an
opportunity to grow dramatically over the next three to
five years and has the natural resources to maintain that
growth, not only in membership, but also in market
share. The 2011 through 2016 time frame has seen
Saskatchewan Local 179 double their UA membership,
along with offering travel card opportunities for other
Canadian members.
In Alberta, Local 488 has experienced 20-plus years of full
employment, seeing the local grow to more than 11,000
members and at one time employing 5,000 travel card
members. My report at the last convention alluded to
upwards of $30 billion in new construction in the oil
sands. The reality today, with oil at $30 a barrel, is that
work was not started, while work that is 50 percent
complete has been shelved until oil prices rebound and
become less volatile. The good news is that all the
facilities in the oil sands are producing and when they are
working, they need maintenance. The maintenance work
will keep Local 488 fully employed at times, and possibly
with 1,000 travel card workers in peak times. Local 488
and the GPC/ NMA Committee recognized the
importance of maintenance many years ago, and
because of their hard work, today we control that work.
What Canada, Alberta and Local 488 need is a stable $50-
Page 2
$60 barrel of oil and pipelines from Alberta to the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans.
In Sothern Alberta, Local 496 in Calgary is doing will
under new leadership, and being more of an institutional
commercial market local union, has made huge strides
in the past year-and-a-half and is committed to growing
the local and its market share. The future of Local 496
looks good.
British Columbia is in a battle with a strong, wellorganized non-union element. The industrial work in
northern BC is starting to pick up, and we thought we
would see the rewards of our efforts in engaging the
aboriginal communities with training and
apprenticeships for aboriginal youth, but to date, we
have seen very little increase in our market share in BC.
Local 170 has entered into a number of project labour
agreements for some mine and smelter work in northern
BC that could possibly provide opportunities for our
members. The institutional and commercial work is
presently controlled by non-union, merit and CLAC
(Christian Labour Association of Canada). Drastic steps
will have to be taken by the local if they are serious
about taking on the non-union to increase market share.
If nothing is done, this market will be lost forever.
UA Local 324 has the majority of the work on Vancouver
Island and may have the largest percentage of market
share of any UA locals in Canada. This local continues to
grow membership and market share. This local will
continue to have shipyard work, and in fact, as we gather
for our convention, the BC shipyard may have secured
two new vessels to be built for the Canadian navy.
Four areas of UA jurisdiction not yet commented on are
sprinkler fitting; heating, ventilating, air conditioning
and refrigeration (HVACR); pipeline, and maintenance.
The unionized sprinkler industry in Canada should be
the poster boy, not only for the United Association, but
the entire building trades. The Canadian office has
irrefutable data the 88 percent of sprinkler systems
installed in Canada are installed by union contractors
Canadian Report
utilizing United Association members. Moreover, in the
majority of combination locals in Canada that represent
sprinkler fitters, as well as in the only straight line
sprinkler local, Local 853, the hourly wages is $3 to$4
higher than the plumber/steamfitter rates in their areas.
Wages do not always dictate market share. The
Sprinkler National Agreement has always been market
sensitive without compromising our membership, and
every UA local in Canada should look at this agreement
when trying to regain market share.
The HVACR industry has made major gains since our last
convention. The two straight line locals, Local 516 in
Vancouver, British Columbia, and Local 787 in Ontario,
are the two fastest-growing locals in Canada. In fact,
Local 516 may be the fastest-growing local in all the UA.
The keys to the growth of the HVACR industry are
fourfold: excellent labour relations with our fair
contractors; state-of-the-art industry sensitivity training;
national agreements, and aggressive organizing. We
believe these are the keys to building market share and
membership. The HVACR agreements are the richest in
the country, so once again, market share does not grow
with sub-standard agreements-it grows with hard work.
The pipeline industry has been busy for parts of the past
five years with full employment over three or four
seasons of work. The future looks good with major
projects, such as the Alaskan Pipeline, Energy East, Trans
Mountain Keystone, Line 3 and the Gateway Project
having all now received the green light. Unfortunately,
these projects have now been delayed by environmental
groups, and by not one but two governments that don’t
have the intestinal fortitude to make tough decisions. The
non-union workforce is and will continue to be, a
significant force in the pipeline sector, but our members
are tired of allowing the non-union to grow and prosper
in western Canada and have decided to follow the lead of
the International and the local unions to do whatever is
necessary to reclaim our dominance in the pipeline
industry. We also continue to perform 85 percent of
pipeline distribution work in Canada with UA members
and signatory contractors utilizing a very market-sensitive
collective bargaining agreement.
Page 3
In the industrial maintenance sector across Canada last
year, the UA worked over 13 million manhours. The $30
billion mentioned previously in this report for northern
Alberta does not include work under our General
Presidents and National Maintenance Agreements
(GPC/NMA) in the oil sands. This agreement will continue
to grow in the oil patch, but we are also seeing manhours
grow in eastern Canada at Irving Oil in New Brunswick,
and Come by Chance refinery in Newfoundland/Labrador.
The Canadian GPC/NMA is an aggressive organization led
by UA International Representative Budrow Tozer. We
are confident that, with their efforts, the UA will see
manhour growth across the country with 15 million
manhours for the UA in the not too distant future.
Director of Canadian Affairs John Telford has spoken
frequently about growing the membership in Canada.
Brother Telford states that he believes that each and
every UA local in Canada, regardless of whether there is
full employment or not, must aggressively pursue any
qualified piping tradespeople in its jurisdiction, with a
goal that the apprenticeship ratio must exceed 30
percent of the membership. If we are not growing, we
are losing market share. The UA in Canada would need
75,000 members to control 50 percent of all UA work in
Canada, including the residential, commercial,
institutional and industrial sectors. Today, we have
almost 57,000 members.
As the Director of Canadian Affairs and Vice President of
the United Association, Brother Telford states, “The
building trades and the UA have one goal in mind when it
comes to foreign workers: Americans first and foremost!”
Brother Telford adds that if the UA in Canada continues
down the path we are on today and remains committed
to change and dedicated to the Standard for Excellence,
and if we are determined to remain the most productive,
most professional and dedicated work force in the piping
industry, we will be able to not only maintain the
standard of living our members and their families
deserve, but we will be able to continue to improve those
standards.