August 17, 2012

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers looks to fight growing union stigmas

KELLY LAPOINTE

staff writer

Canadian unions have become “evil” in some people’s minds, says the first district international vice-president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and one of his organization’s goals is to reverse that thinking at its upcoming annual All Canada Progress Meeting .

“There seems to be some kind of a movement in Canada that unions [have] a bad name,” said IBEW first district Canada international vice-president Phil Flemming.

The IBEW wants to rebrand its image to the public, which will be a focus of the Halifax meeting.

“We want to be the electrical union of choice in Canada so we have to work hard on that to make sure that when someone thinks of building something whether it be an oil refinery or a low-rise building that they think of the IBEW as the ones that they want to do the electrical work,” said Flemming.

“Hopefully everybody will go away from the conference with that frame of mind.”

The IBEW has approximately 90 local unions in Canada, representing 60,000 apprentices and journeymen in industries such as construction, utilities, manufacturing, government, health care and railroads.

The IBEW is looking to increase its market share, particularly in the construction industry.

Over the past few years, it has introduced a few programs to achieve that goal, in particular its Code of Excellence, a program that trains workers to have the best productivity they can while working safely and following the collective agreement.

“We’re very interested in working with our clients to ensure that we get the job done within budget and on time and that’s what our Code of Excellence program does,” said Flemming.

The annual meeting is a “rallying point” for members to take political action, he said.
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Over the last year, the IBEW hired Matt Wayland as its political action/media strategist who meets with the local unions across the country to speak about the importance of becoming more politically active.

Flemming said the federal government ordering the airline and postal workers back to work recently is a cause for concern regarding labour relations, though the IBEW does not represent many people who work under the federal code.

IBEW is focusing on Bill C-377, which would require unions and other labour organizations to submit financial statements to the government and ultimately the public.

“We’re accountable to our membership and we do account to our membership on everything we do and everything we spend,” Flemming said.

“We don’t feel we have to be accountable to the general public, they don’t pay dues, nor do we have to be accountable to the federal government or provincial governments, because they certainly don’t pay the freight either.”

The annual meeting is a chance to bring in people from companies that the IBEW works with to talk about issues affecting unions across the country, said Flemming.

Speakers include director of Canadian affairs for the Canadian Building Trades, Bob Blakely and Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti.

“We have lot of work coming up in Canada over the next five to 10 years. We have to talk about apprenticeship training, where we’re going to get the people, how we move people around the country from places of slow employment to places of high employment over the next few years,” said Flemming.

“Also, how we do that to the benefit of our membership.”

Other speakers include IBEW president Ed Hill, Nova Scotia premier Darrel Dexter and New Democratic Party MP Yvon Godin.

Deregulation will also be a topic at the conference.

“Deregulation is not dead in Canada, although it’s under the radar,” said Flemming.

“Deregulation particularly in the utility industry, some of our companies have become deregulated, others are on kind of standby and that has caused us a lot of problems over the last 15 or 20 years.”

The IBEW All Canada Progress Meeting will be held at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax Aug. 19 to 23.

The meeting will also host a trade show on Aug. 20 and 21.

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