“The reason the Christian association has been so successful is that they have had a co-operative labor relations approach, rather than the adversarial labor relations approach that we’ve seen has been the practice of many of the traditional unions, like the building trades unions. I think their success clearly speaks to a role for an alternative – a role for a union that does believe in trying to work with employer to achieve results, rather than hammering away at their employer through more aggressive tactics,” Kushner says. “Clearly they’ve found a resonance within the employer community and they’ve found resonance within the employee community.”

But even clearer is resource and construction industries’ need to find an adequate number of skilled workers to expand operations, while at the same time controlling costs.

According to a 2007 article in a Merit Contractors’ publication called Open Mind, the catalyst for change away from closed, union shops was a series of major projects that experienced hefty construction cost overruns. Shell’s Caroline gas plant (built 1991-93), Nova’s Joffre polyethylene project (1999-2001), Shell’s oil sands mine and Scotford refinery (2001-03) and expansions by Syncrude and Suncor’s oil sands complexes were all done with union labor and had unfavorable bottom-line results.

An industry review of what went wrong in Alberta’s first modern wave of megaprojects put some of the blame on poor planning and lack of completed engineering work before construction began. But labor was also identified as a contributing factor to the cost problems.

“Owners had bought into the closed shop project agreement strategy for labor supply because it promised both labor peace and timely supply of skilled workers. The actual experience on this run of projects was that it did not deliver on either of those key promises. While the project agreements contained strike-lockout provisions, they were unable to prevent wildcat walkouts and wobbles. The promise of adequate labor supply was also not realized, as the peak manpower demands from simultaneous major projects left the union hiring halls unable to fill calls,” says Open Mind.

Suncor’s Firebag project in 2002 is seen as the model for the new labor reality in Alberta. It used an open-site policy and came in on time and within budget, the article said. The model was subsequently used at the two oil sands megaprojects currently being completed and going into production, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s Horizon north of Fort McMurray and the Nexen-OPTI partnership’s Long Lake south of the bitumen belt capital.

As the current northern industrialization wave continues, it has become routine to see a mix of union, non-union and CLAC workers on a project.

Paul de Jong, CLAC’s Alberta and northern director, says part of his organization’s success is based on the concept of peaceful work sites and co-operation.

“Here in Alberta, a lot of workers don’t resonate with traditional union tactics of banging your fist on the table and turning the workplace into a battleground,” de Jong says. “CLAC advocates for its workers, but it’s done with co-operative, partnership models.”

The idea is to emphasize mutual needs of workers, construction contractors and project owners. “We look
at the common interests. When things do get difficult, we’ve got a good track record (of settling disputes).” De Jong and CLAC adopt the same practical attitude as industrial project employers. “Let’s get this thing done,” he says.

But accusations from traditional labor unions that CLAC is a company puppet are wrong, he emphasizes. The charges are a “gross misrepresentation of reality. We believe it’s important for workers to have a say – there is a secret ballot ratification vote on every contract.” This, he says, gives members control of their economic destinies as well as their labor leaders.

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