ECAA LABOUR RELATIONS UPDATE

By Brian Halina, Labour Relations Committee Chair

The ECAA membership includes unionized employers across Alberta whose businesses span various sectors of industry including commercial, institutional, and industrial.

These employers have an annual meeting where they elect the ECAA Labour Relations Chairman to head up the ECAA Labour Relations Committee (LRC). Representatives of the unionized contractors then volunteer to sit on the LRC.

The LRC is the authority representing the ECAA as party to the general construction agreement for electricians covered under Certificate 52 with Local Union 424 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) as the other party to the agreement.

The committee has had many members over the years since its inception and a number of Labour Relations Chairmen over the years. In 1967, Stan Sunley became ECAA’s first president. Although Stan was still involved in labour negotiations, the ECAA presidents don’t usually chair standing committees, and Jake Matthews became ECAA’s first Labour Relations Chairman from 1967 to 1969 as well as in 1975 which was the last time the IBEW went on strike in Alberta.

Stan Sunley then became the chair from 1969 until 1979 (except 1975), followed by Joe Chomany in 1980, Gerritt Wansleeben in 1981-1982, Reg Morris in 1982-1985, Kurt Sorensen in 1985-1986, Ross Andreas in 1987, Art Thormann in 1988-1996, and the current chair Brian Halina from 19962023.

Association with the Union

The Edmonton Electrical Contractors Association signed the first collective agreement with Local 424 of the IBEW in 1946 representing 19 contractor members. One of them was Stan Sunley of Sunley Electric Company who founded Sunley Electric in 1934. In 1935, when the province assumed the licensing of electricians, Sunley was issued License #1 and was an active representative for electrical contractors from 1946-1979. The journeyman wage was $1.15 per hour.

In the original agreement, the Joint Grievance Committee was established which continues today and is the template that most of the union building trades have adopted. It provides a mechanism to deal with industry issues and collective agreement interpretations without having to get resolved through arbitration or litigation.

Prior to the ECAA becoming active in 1967, regional electrical contractor’s associations (which later became ECAA chapters) carried out their own negotiations with either the IBEW Local Union 254 in the south or IBEW Local Union 424 in the north. In 1998, IBEW Local Union 254 construction electricians amalgamated with IBEW Local Union 424 to create a province-wide local under IBEW 424 for construction in Alberta and in the District of Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories.

The ECAA took over the negotiations on behalf of all of the contractors who had signed on to the collective agreements and when the Alberta government created legislation, they created the possibility of “registration” for an association that represented the majority of the contractors who had a bargaining relationship with a union in Alberta.

Once an association attained “registered” status, it automatically had the authority to negotiate with the respective union on behalf of all contractors in the province who had a bargaining relationship with the union, regardless of the contractor’s status with the association. The ECAA applied for and attained this registration status under Certificate 52 and changed its membership categories to address the difference between union members, non-union members, and associates.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s as construction labour relation associations were created across Canada, the ECAA on behalf of its unionized members joined the Alberta Construction Labour Relations Association (ACLRA). The name was later changed to Construction Labour Relations – an Alberta Association (CLR-a).

The reason for joining the ACLRA was an attempt to create a liaison amongst the unionized sector contractors to standardize as much as possible similar terms and conditions in the contracts with the Alberta Building Trades Unions. When ACLRA wanted ECAA to give up the bargaining rights under Certificate

52, the ECAA strongly opposed this and discontinued its membership in ACLRA. This then led to a Labour Relations Board challenge of ECAA’s Registration under Certificate 52 and bargaining rights which was rejected by the Board. This created a major rift between the ECAA and ACLRA. As the 1970s rolled along, relations between the now CLR-a and ECAA improved dramatically and to the present day, the parties have worked together as part of the Registered Employers Association (REO) to create new collective agreements to the benefit of all parties. In recent years this has involved creating where required Special Project Needs Agreements (SPNAs) to address owner needs for major projects such as Syncrude,

Suncor, Surmont, Shell Scotford, CNRL, Keephills Power Generation, North West Refinery, and IPPL to name a few. The REO and Building Trades have been utilizing framework bargaining where the parties agree on common terms and conditions that should be recommended and included in the various collective agreements to have common language around certain terms and conditions of employment so that they are common to all trades.

Contractor and worker benefits

The ECAA together with the IBEW as part of our Collective Agreement have created a significant number of benefits for both the workers and contractors. On April 1, 1971 the Electrical Industry Insurance Benefit Trust Fund of Alberta was established and Arthur A.O. Thormann and Arthur Bainard were the two original ECAA appointed Trustees.

HUB International would like to congratulate Electrical Contractors Association of Alberta on their 60th Anniversary.