The End of an
Era
Business Manager & Financial Secretary Treasurer at Local 280, Jim Paquette shares an update, reflections, and gratitude after 25 years of service. By / Jim Paquette • Photos courtesy of SMACNA-BC
Jim Paquette, Business Manager & Financial Secretary Treasurer at Local 280, submitted the following report to SMACNA-BC in May. Since mid-March 2020 when our world was thrown into turmoil with the global pandemic known as COVID-19, SMART Local 280 has tried to be as informative as possible. Local 280 notified its membership prior to Spring Break 2020 to let members know anyone who travelled outside of the country would be required to quarantine for 14 days on their return to Canada. Thanks must be directed to those SMACNA-BC contractors who took the same position.
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Sheet Metal Journal
In those early COVID-19 days, there were changes almost every hour, so trying to keep up was an immense task. Local 280 worked to keep the lines of communication with SMACNABC open and as up-to-date as possible. There were Local 280 members who early on thought that taking two weeks off from work would be enough, that the virus would pass, and things would return to normal. That was not the opinion or the direction that Local 280 put forward, knowing this would be a long ride. From the very early days onward, Local 280 knew that this pandemic had the potential to change much that we had known and taken for granted.
