BC Building Trades Executive Director Andrew Mercier Says There`s No Controversy Over Community Benefit Agreements Rob Kruyt Community Benefits Agreements, also known as project work contracts, have been applied to projects across North America and have been implemented in a series of major public works projects in B.C. history, including the W.A. .C. Bennett Dam in the 1960s and the Vancouver Island Highway project in the 1990s. In 1994, the Christian Labour Association of Canada questioned the proposed employment contract for the construction of the dam on the Columbia River and argued that the requirement for workers to join a construction union is an unfair labour practice. The BC Labour Relations Board found that the requirement was not contrary to B.C.`s labour code and dismissed the challenge. He said that not having a relationship with workers seconded by unions was sometimes a productivity and safety issue. HCL and the union requirement of the project work contract have created a complexity and bureaucracy that are difficult to manage. In some cases, trade wages were significantly higher than market prices, which had an impact on work on other projects.

The quality of the work was not necessarily predictable. Costs have gone up. Todd Strynadka, former president of the BC Road Builders – Heavy Construction Association, was invited a few years ago to engage in public service agreements. She works as an employer in a CBA project, while the work is provided by the 19 unions collectively represented by the AIRCC, which acts as a bargaining partner for trade unions. The CBA itself is a more than 330-page document in which the agreement between the project employer and the AIRCC, whose members will provide labour to the employer, describes in detail. „This agreement ensures that traditionally under-represented tradespeople and apprentices benefit from competitive, equal and transparent wages and skills development,“ she wrote. The ICBA and the Christian Labour Association also questioned the Constructionors Ltd. employment contract for the Vancouver Island Highway project, saying it violated workers` freedom of association.

The BC Labour Relations Board disagreed. „It wasn`t the most transparent process,“ he said. He recalls the opportunity to discuss the CBA with Minister Claire Trevena with a number of contractors of different sizes and agreements with unions. The latter was the first major B.C. construction project with participation and training actions for women, and for the first time, capital measures were part of a project agreement on a highway project in Canada, according to a 2000 study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). „There is no controversy over municipal social benefit agreements,“ Mercier said. The 19 members of the CBA are represented by the Allied Infrastructure and Related Construction Council of British Columbia (AIRCC), which, together with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and the Attorney General of British Columbia, is a challenge fit. This week`s legal challenge is not the first time that a Canadian municipal service agreement or project employment contract has been legally challenged.

Strynadka stressed that one of the industry`s main concerns was and remains the impact of the agreement on how companies and contractors assess risk, and what collaboration with new employees employed by a Crown company could imply for a contractor`s activities and guidelines for everything from culture to safety. Mercier sees the CBA as an instrument that ultimately creates more stability and predictability for large projects.