BC Conservative bill puts local jobs on public projects at risk
The BC Building Trades has launched a campaign to protect Community Benefit and Project Labour Agreements to ensure major public projects are built by local, skilled workers from British Columbia, while expanding apprenticeships, training, and providing safe working conditions and paying family sustaining wages.
In early March, the BC Conservatives introduced legislation that would ban Community Benefits and Project Labour Agreements on all public projects.
“Community Benefit Agreements and Project Labour Agreements ensure BC workers build BC infrastructure and train the next generation of trades workers,” said Brynn Bourke, Executive Director for the BC Building Trades. “At a time when we’re facing a skilled labour shortage, major private-sector projects are choosing to sign agreements with the BC Building Trades to secure skilled labour. The BC Conservatives’ bill would move BC backwards, preventing public projects from signing agreements and accessing that same stable labour supply.”
“We’ve seen what can happen when public projects are built without these agreements,” continued Bourke. “The BC Conservatives want to take us back to a time when public projects like the Canada Line were built using temporary foreign labour. On that project, foreign workers were paid less than $4 an hour.”
The BC Building Trades is calling on the BC Conservatives to stand with—not against—BC skilled trades workers and to withdraw their bill.
Visit bcbuildingtrades.org to learn more. ■
