With God on their Side
As traditional trade unions prepare for battle, the Christian Labour Association of Canada continues its crusade for Alberta converts
by Suzanne Paschall
by Suzanne Wilton
It’s hard not to feel like you’re sitting in a confessional in the company of Dick Heinen. His towering frame, balding head and full, white beard evoke a divine image. With a barely detectable Dutch accent, he speaks firmly, with confidence. But there’s a gentleness about him too, an unassuming fatherly style that instills trust. One can easily picture him delivering a passionate sermon to his brethren. Heinen’s pulpit, however, is not inside a holy shrine. It’s a cushioned seat in the dark lounge of Calgary’s downtown Fairmont Palliser Hotel, where the former preacher is sipping cheap port and extolling the virtues of the Christian Labour Association of Canada, a union with a twist.
As provincial director, Heinen is CLAC’s chief disciple, spreading the word about the labour group known for its aversion to strikes. He defends the organization with almost as much ferocity as Peter did Jesus. And his sword has been getting a workout lately. CLAC is under attack for both its conservative values and pro-business approach, causing so much controversy in Fort McMurray that it has sparked fist fights and rallies by rival tradespeople who take union affiliations so seriously they wear their opposition to CLAC on T-shirts and hard hats.
On this November evening in Calgary, Heinen has just emerged from a meeting of labour groups, construction contractors and oil company officials. They’re here to talk about Alberta’s oilsands in the face of an increasingly desperate shortage of skilled tradespeople. Work on oilsands mega-projects is expected to outpace the availability of workers, with a projected demand for an additional 12,000 employees between now and 2008, according to the Construction Owners Association of Alberta. Other estimates double that amount.
The broader goal of this meeting was to address the labour challenge, but there was also an underlying question – who will represent these workers? Hundreds of kilometres north of Canada’s oil capital, a bitter battle is being waged for the hearts and minds of the men and women who are building the plants that will turn bitumen into black gold. Tensions peaked last summer when CLAC signed a pioneering agreement with major oilsands player Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), prompting unions who once enjoyed a monopoly to launch campaigns against a growing rival they call a “dummy union” and “management stooge.”
Yet CLAC appears to be winning the war. Relying on the turn-the-other-cheek values demonstrated by Heinen to attract converts, the 53-year-old union’s national rolls doubled to 32,000 in the last decade, a time when conventional union membership has been on the decline. In Alberta, membership climbed to 11,074 in 2004, a 20% increase over the year before and nearly triple the number of CLAC workers here in 1995. Heinen attributes this popularity to a societal shift in how workers and companies view industrial relations, a move towards mutually beneficial bargaining that leads to compromises by both sides. Critics, by contrast, say CLAC is the Wal-Mart of the construction industry, undercutting wages, benefits and safety for workers who fought on the picket lines for what they’ve got, and signing up workers without democratic votes.
While it’s debatable whether CLAC is the labour movement’s saviour or Judas, one thing is certain: CLAC is a blessing for business in Alberta, a largely anti-union province with a burgeoning resource and construction industry seeking to capitalize on the high price of oil while minimizing the threat of a potentially powerful labour force that could cripple budgets and delay production. “We all know about ‘redneck’ Alberta,” says University of Alberta labour expert Jed Fisher, “and there seems to be a good fit.”
“Redneck” is tame compared to the names Bob Transtrom has been called because of his CLAC membership. “They’ll call us scabs,” says Transtrom, a 61-year-old carpenter who says he hasn’t been without a job since joining CLAC 11 years ago. He belonged to a traditional carpenter’s union for 15 years before that and only worked six of those years. Transtrom blames nepotism and union politics for his unemployment (although those years were a time of recession). But his loyalty to CLAC is about more than just a job; CLAC has also offered him a home. Many members join, and remain with the union, for more than just a paycheque. They share its philosophical viewpoint. “It’s a close-knit bunch of people,” says Transtrom, a bachelor who professes to be a Christian. “People seem to get along well.”
Since moving to Fort McMurray more than two years ago, Transtrom has watched CLAC expand exponentially. As a union steward, it’s his job twice every 10 days to sign up new workers when they arrive in town. Forty-two new workers were recently added in just one day.
Life in Fort Mac is mostly about work for Transtrom, who spends 13-hour days ferrying workers to and from job sites. Although he occasionally ventures out dancing, he avoids bars like the Oil Can, where hardcore union members hang out. There’s no sense looking for trouble when it already exists on the job. Transtrom has taken reports of imaginary rifles being pointed at CLAC members working atop scaffolding. Insults are common in the corridors of the dormitory-style oil camps where workers of various affiliations live together. Transtrom believes anti-CLAC sentiment was the reason the rear window of a CLAC member’s vehicle was shot out.
CLAC used to be nothing more than a thorn in the side of traditional unions. But the agreement between CLAC and Horizon Construction Management Limited for the $10-billion oilsands project owned by CNRL changed all that. “Our concerns came to a head last spring, when the provincial government granted special status to the Horizon oilsands projects,” says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, an umbrella group representing 115,000 members from 29 different public- and private-sector unions. “It was at that point that CLAC moved from being a serious irritant for the rest of the labour movement to being a challenge we couldn’t ignore.”
McGowan is talking about the Alberta government’s decision to invoke a special clause in the labour code, allowing CNRL to negotiate an agreement with one bargaining agent that will apply to all tradespeople working on the Horizon project, which will at its peak employ a staggering 6,000 workers. The project, and agreement, run until 2012. The deal was struck before any workers were on the ground; there was no ratification vote by the employees it will cover. This, says McGowan, is the fundamental problem. “This,” he says, “is like democracy in a banana republic.”
Building trade unions drew a line in the oilsands after the contract was signed. They launched a series of so-called CLAC attacks, which included boisterous rallies. McGowan, at the helm of the AFL for just a year, became one of the anti-CLAC movement’s leaders, whipping up the crowds during a rally in Fort McMurray last summer. When he took to the stage in front of about 2,000 people from various unions, McGowan donned the trademark “This Is What A Union Town Looks Like” T-shirt, a visible anti-CLAC statement that started appearing on hard hats and clothing on the heels of the CNRL deal. As he spoke, people cheered his vows to fight efforts “to cut unions out of the picture.”
McGowan and other traditional union leaders concede that CLAC contracts offer competitive pay. Workers covered under the Horizon agreement will earn the same hourly wages stipulated in their own respective agreements. However, critics claim that other benefits will be eroded, such as pension plans and overtime pay. “The devil is in the details,” says McGowan, who, along with several others, is being sued by CLAC for calling it a dummy union. “In the case of the Horizon agreement, it’s a serious devil.”
So far, traditional building trade unions have refused to sign the deal. Dave Estabrooks, the business agent for the Alberta Regional Council of Carpenters, says the arrangement is precedent-setting, not only because of how it was negotiated, but also because it opens the door to a 20% reduction in wages through the way overtime is paid, a key factor to earning the double-digit salaries that draw “construction boom chasers” to the area. “Our guys literally fought on the picket lines for what we have in our collective agreements,” says Estabrooks, whose union represents about 3,000 members in Fort Mac. Accepting the CNRL-CLAC agreement, he says, would be akin to “spitting in our face.”
Companies and contractors in Fort McMurray certainly like the return on investment CLAC contracts deliver. As the 20th century drew to a close, CLAC was a bit player, virtually shut out of the oilsands. A small contract that employed roughly 500 CLAC workers on an Imperial Oil project in Cold Lake kick-started the shift that’s continuing today. The project came in on time and on budget, escaping the escalating costs burdening other oil companies that are struggling to stick to their budgets. All major oilsands projects have been subject to cost overruns because of rising labour and material costs. Last August, Shell Canada Limited said the price tag for the expansion of its Athabasca Project had nearly doubled to $7.3 billion. A month later, Syncrude Canada Limited announced that its nearly completed expansion is expected to cost $8.3 billion – a far cry from the initial $3 billion projection.
The Imperial project “became a bit of the light for the industry,” says Heinen. Invitations have come CLAC’s way ever since, allowing it to build a bigger base and take on larger projects. In 2000, the union saw its Edmonton district membership (which includes the northern region encompassing Fort McMurray) grow 34%. CLAC officials predict that more significant growth will follow. The CNRL deal was a major coup. It will solidify CLAC as a key labour player in Fort McMurray.
Construction is now a staple of CLAC’s membership, which wasn’t always the case. More than a decade ago, it secured a foothold in Alberta when businessman Jimmy Pattison brought his Save-On-Foods chain over the Rockies from British Columbia. Before arriving, Pattison struck a deal with CLAC through voluntary recognition to represent grocery workers, shutting out the United Food and Commercial Workers union entrenched in his B.C. stores. Voluntary recognition is a perfectly legal method of organizing, although traditional unions say it violates worker rights because it doesn’t allow them to choose a union.
“Employers go to [CLAC] and they work out a deal so they can make a sweetheart arrangement in order to get a certification and then a collective agreement, which is significantly below standard,” charges Robert Blakely, director of Canadian affairs for the Building and Construction Trades Council. “They’ve discovered the philosopher’s stone that turns straw into gold.”
Nearly half of the current deals in Alberta were a result of voluntary recognition. Nationwide, less than 1% of CLAC’s growth in 2004 was due to that method of organizing. This process doesn’t preclude individual rights, says CNRL, which denies that it chose CLAC to negotiate the umbrella agreement for the Horizon project because of its business-friendly approach (although a company spokeswoman admits that CLAC’s willingness to have an open site, where union workers of all stripes and even non-union tradespeople could be employed under one agreement, was a determining factor).
“As you can imagine, based on the size of the project and the tight labour market forecast, we require the participation of many Alberta and Canadian contractors and workers,” says Lynn Zeidler, vice-president of Horizon Construction Management Ltd., adding that CLAC’s anti-strike philosophy had no impact on negotiations. “The successful execution of the Horizon project hinges on the ‘managed open site’ to attract and retain both contractors and workers.”
It’s undeniable that CLAC is good for the bottom line. Employers avoid the costly down time that can result from jurisdictional disputes between different unions working on the same job sites. There are no work stoppages while a tradesman waits for a labourer to come and move a shovel rather than step over it. Efficiencies also arise from the shift schedule the two sides agreed upon – 10 days on, four off. This will allow workers to be flown in from Calgary and Edmonton, or even as far away as Newfoundland. It’s more cost effective than paying workers to sit on a bus while driving to the job site.
There are also obvious benefits to working with a union that prefers arbitration over labour disruption, a union that’s willing to accept a little less because it’s aiming for a broader social goal rather than simply seeking higher wages. Both CLAC executives, like Heinen, and members, such as Transtrom, say there are benefits to employees as well – benefits beyond the dollar figure that appears on their paycheques. The ever-growing desire for a better work-life balance is addressed through changes in shift schedules in the Horizon contract, for instance, and CLAC members at Save-On-Foods were happy with an unusual contract clause in their first collective agreement allowing them one day off of their choosing for religious or other reasons. “It’s not just about the money,” says Heinen.
Practicing what he preaches, Heinen refuses to “sling mud” at CLAC’s persecutors. He seems to be the embodiment of the organization’s Christian principles. Perhaps that’s because his roots with the union run as deep as his faith in the Christian Reformed Church, out of which the union was born. “I’m driven by treating people fairly and with respect,” he says. “People are made in the image of God.”
One of 11 children, Heinen was six years old when his father moved the family to Canada, one of thousands of Dutch immigrants who came here after the Second World War. The senior Heinen was a stonemason and one of CLAC’s earliest members, joining in 1956. Then in its infancy, CLAC was started by immigrants from Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s, who, according to the organization’s website, “were appalled by what they saw here, a union movement that was unabashedly hostile and forced workers to join if they wanted to keep their jobs.”
CLAC is a multi-sector union, representing workers in the fields of health care, transportation, manufacturing and retail. CLAC ranks 35th in size among roughly 1,000 unions in Canada. It promotes itself as a union based on the social Christian values of mutual respect and the dignity of worth of every human being. Though Christian-based, it says it’s not a religious organization and accepts members of all faiths. The union boasts that it doesn’t use its dues to support social causes or political parties; the 1.4% collected from workers stays in Canada and is used to run the organization. It believes workers shouldn’t be forced to join a union, and CLAC allows employees to opt out. That stands in contrast, CLAC says, to traditional unions affiliated with organizations such as the Canadian Labour Congress, which, according to CLAC, favours a “hard-nosed approach based on socialist principles.”
While traditional unions see employees and management as foes, CLAC views the two as partners. “Like in any marriage, there’s tension between husband and wife,” says Heinen, 55, who followed in his father’s footsteps and joined CLAC at 18. “There are things that need to be resolved and talked about, and we’ve been very successful in developing a relationship with employers that is mutually beneficial.”
Admissions like this give rise to criticisms that CLAC is in bed with management. Even its religious underpinnings haven’t escaped attack, with some critics suggesting that CLAC believes workers should supplicate themselves before the boss with cap in hand. The U of A’s Jed Fisher, a business professor who specializes in human resource management, says the controversy boils down to rival unionism.
“Unions are like companies – they compete for business,” he says. “And to compete, just like politicians and political parties, they adopt different platforms and have different philosophies.” Workers, Fisher adds, are generally better off with a union than without one – whether it be CLAC or another. But what kind of collective agreement a union negotiates depends on its relative bargaining power. “CLAC has unilaterally disarmed itself with its philosophy,” he says. A union can’t let its weapons rust, and when push comes to shove it must be prepared to walk the picket line. “That’s a credible threat,” says Fisher. “Otherwise people will just push you around.”
Although it doesn’t forbid strikes, CLAC views them as an absolute last resort, even writing an unfavourable perspective on picket lines directly into its constitution. One of the intents of the Horizon contract, for example, is to eliminate the possibility of labour disruptions thanks to the presence of one all-encompassing collective agreement with CLAC.
Historically, religious-based unions have been more conservative and less militant, asking for and accepting less. “There is all kinds of history of the Catholic Church saying workers must be treated respectfully and treated fairly,” says University of Lethbridge labour relations expert Ian McKenna. “But the real question always is, can you deliver this without a clash?”
CLAC’s approach harkens back to the Knights of Labour, a trade union that exploded on the Canadian scene in the late 19th century. The Knights did things differently than other trade unions, welcoming everyone to their assemblies and drawing in thousands of workers previously excluded from the labour movement. While addressing grievances in the workplace, the Knights were also concerned with the general health of their communities. Like CLAC, the use of strikes – which in those days were generally bloody – to achieve the broader objective of protecting workers was viewed as a last resort. “The real problem for the (Knights) was they weren’t in tune with what workers needed,” says McKenna, “and the picket line was the only way to force an employer to agree to terms.”
In many ways, times haven’t changed. Strikes remain the one tool in the union arsenal that works more often than not. Even CLAC has used it on occasion, albeit less than a half dozen times in its history. The last time CLAC workers walked out was nearly three years ago. The strike lasted just two hours when Superior Machine and Tool in Chatham, Ontario, refused to sign off on a first collective agreement.
“The company thought this union was a pushover and they didn’t want to seriously talk and we walked out,” says Heinen, finishing the last of the port he’s been nursing in the Palliser Hotel lounge. “It wasn’t very long before the company realized we do have a backbone.”
Since the skirmishes late last year in Fort McMurray, things have been quiet. Traditional building trade unions are coming around, say both Heinen and CNRL. More likely, though, it’s the calm before the storm as anti-CLACers regroup. They’ve realized that they’re up against a force more powerful than first believed. There are hints from the AFL’s McGowan that traditional unions are marshalling resources, preparing for a new fight in Fort McMurray and bringing in reinforcements from B.C., where similar battles have already been fought. “If CLAC and CNRL think they’ve heard the last on this issue from the building trades and broader labour movement,” says McGowan, “they’re in for a big surprise.”
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