September 24, 2007

Alberta carpenters launch media campaign to stop wildcat protests

EDMONTON

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Alberta Building Trades Council have taken out ads calling on tradespeople to return to work after a week of labour unrest.

The ads address what they call the inequities of Alberta’s labour laws and ensure union members that legal action is being taken to reform legislation.

The ad from the carpenters union warns dissenters of the negative consequences of refusing to work, “such as criminal charges or civil lawsuits against individual carpenters.”

But electrician Eric Klyne, who was fired from his job following last week’s union demonstrations, called the threat of criminal charges a scare tactic.

He said only a handful of workers haven’t returned to their jobs, adding he has every intention of continuing to work on an event that was planned for Saturday.

Saturday’s event was a “symbolic gesture” with a funeral for Alberta’s Labour Code.

Neither Martyn Piper, spokesman for the carpenters union, nor Ron Harry, executive director for the trades council, were available to comment on the ads.

Klyne said the commitment from union leaders to fight labour laws is a positive development but credited the actions of demonstrators for prompting such action to be taken.

Alberta’s booming construction landscape has been disrupted with pickets and protests recently over a complicated labour law that hobbles building trade unions from striking.

Legislation passed two decades ago says that if 75 per cent of the province’s two dozen building trade unions have settled their contracts, the others must follow suit without a strike or lockout, using an arbitrator if necessary.

Most of the trades have already settled, but the carpenters, roofers, and plumbers and pipefitters are holdouts.

The provincial labour board has filed a cease and desist order against the wildcat strikes and the labour minister has set up a tribunal to arbitrate a contract settlement, but frustrated workers have been defying the orders of the province and their own unions by staying off the job.

Canadian Press

Print | Email | Comment