Open Mind 2015 Alberta

UNIONS VS. DEMOCRACY: The struggle to reclaim our political landscape

Volume 23 • Issue 1 • Spring 2015

A FORUM ON OPEN SHOP CONSTRUCTION

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Contents Volume 23 • Issue 1 • Spring 2015

36

22 10 The Future of Construction: 2015-2035

6 ON THE COVER 6 Balance Beam With a deficit in skilled workers and the baby boomers ready to retire, Alberta’s construction industry engages its new torchbearers – high school students

By Robbie Jeffrey Photography by Bookstrucker

14

The next 20 years will host an array of technological changes in construction.

If you’re not looking ahead, you’re already behind

By Kirk Alter

36 The Contractor of the Year Awards

14 State of Disunion

Meet the innovative and exceptional talent in Alberta’s construction industry

Unions exert tremendous influence on our political landscape. What impact will this have on the construction industry’s future?

By Line Porfon

19 Merit Has Changed the Construction Industry

43 Open for Business An update from Merit Canada on its triumphant 2014

By Terrance Oakey

46 By the Numbers The data behind the decisions

The recent past president of Merit Alberta looks back on the last 28 years in the industry

By Stephen Kushner

22 A Workforce that Works So you need a TFW? There’s a grant for that

By Peter Pilarski

26 A Natural Alliance ABC and Merit Canada join forces to tackle common problems and share best practices

By Joanna Masterson

32 Aging with Grace The aging workforce’s impact on health and safety

By Gary Clevenger and Brian Roberts

32 OPENMIND SPRING 2015

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President’s Column

The Future is Wide Open Volume 23 • Issue 1 • Spring 2015 Publisher

Ruth Kelly

Executive Editor

Malcolm D. Kirkland

Associate Editor

Suzanne Pescod

Director of Custom Content

Mifi Purvis

Assistant Editor

Robbie Jeffrey

Production Manager

Betty Feniak Smith

Production Technicians

Brent Felzien Brandon Hoover

Circulation Manager

Karen Reilly

Vice-President Sales

Anita McGillis

Advertising Representatives

Kathy Kelley Alison DeGroot

Sales Assistants

Julia Ehli Ashley Martin

Art Director

Charles Burke

Associate Art Director

Andrea deBoer

Assistant Art Director

Ben Rude

Contributing Writers Joanna Masterson, Terrance Oakey, Stephen Kushner, Peter Pilarski, Gary Clevenger, Brian Roberts, Kirk Alter, Line Porfon, Robbie Jeffrey Contributing Illustrators and Photographers Bookstrucker, Michael Byers, Isabel Cardinal, David Moore, Heff O’Reilly, Ben Rude Open Mind is published two times per year by Venture Publishing Inc. for Merit Contractors Association.

Venture Publishing Inc. 10259-105 Street, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 1E3 Tel.: (780) 990-0839 Fax: (780) 425-4921 admin@venturepublishing.ca www.venturepublishing.ca Merit Contractors Association 103-13025 St. Albert Trail, Edmonton, Alberta T5L 4H5 Tel.: (780) 455-5999 or 1-888-816-9991 Fax: (780) 455-2109 meritedm@meritalberta.com www.meritalberta.com Merit Contractors Association is a non-profit organization that offers human resource services to the open shop construction industry.

Printed in Canada by Transcontinental LGM Graphics The opinions conveyed by contributors to Open Mind magazine may not be indicative of the views of Venture Publishing Inc. or Merit Contractors Association. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, neither Venture Publishing Inc. nor Merit Contractors Association assume any responsibility or liability for errors or omissions.

On behalf of Merit Contractors Association,

welcome to the 23rd edition of Open Mind magazine.

The past year has been full of change for Merit Alberta as Stephen Kushner has retired and I have taken over the role of president at Merit Contractors Association.

As the construction landscape continues to shift with changing economies and a diverse scope of people working in the trades, this edition of Open Mind aims to tackle some of the future challenges and opportunities of the industry.

As an organization, Merit is dedicated to positioning the trades as a desirable career path for Albertans. In the story “Balance Beam” we highlight the ways schools and industry are working together to provide trades opportunities to high school students.

Technology, workforce development, and productivity will all be important factors in the next 20 years. Respected and knowledgeable industry insider, professor Kirk Alter of Purdue University, gives us a look at the future of construction in “The Future of Construction: 2015-2035.”

Canada’s shifting policies both federally and provincially have significant impacts on the construction workforce of Alberta, and the issues surrounding those policies and their implementation are explored in “A Workforce that Works.” And Terrance Oakey, president of Merit Canada, provides an update on activities at the federal level of government and how Merit Canada is working for the open shop movement in the article “Open for Business.”

Along with an update from Merit Canada, “A Natural Alliance” is the announcement of a new partnership between Merit and the Associated Builders and Contractors organization in the United States, with input from both parties on the newly formed relationship.

The fifth annual Contractor of the Year Awards showcases the amazing work and projects happening in our province, and the winners of the 2015 awards are profiled in this edition of Open Mind.

Thank you for your interest in this magazine – we hope it leaves you with some insight into the most important issues facing our industry today.

If you have any suggestions for future topics, please let us know.

We wish you a successful 2015!

Canadian Publications Mail Product Agreement #40020055 Copyright © 2015 by Merit Contractors Association No part of this publication should be reproduced without express permission of Merit Contractors Association.

Malcolm D. Kirkland PRESIDENT MERIT CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

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Balance

BEAM

With a deficit in skilled workers and the baby boomers ready to retire, Alberta’s construction industry engages its new torchbearers – high school students

PHOTOS: BOOKSTRUCKER

BY ROBBIE JEFFREY

OPEN SHOP: Students are engaged and working hard in one of SAIT’s dual credit programs.

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OPENMIND SPRING 2015

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he Alberta economy is a balancing act on a grand scale. In periods of prosperity, we invest for the inevitable slowdown. When the iron is hot, we approach cautiously before striking. With this sense of delicacy, Alberta’s construction industry tries to tackle its labour shortage – a major concern for a province with billions of dollars in new projects planned, and for an industry in which so many senior employees are poised to retire.

Alberta’s population is both growing and aging – a precarious combination, given that the provincial government predicts a shortage of 96,000 workers over the next decade. Most of that void will affect the trades and oil and gas. Employers have looked for workers from elsewhere in Canada and abroad, but this is a stopgap measure. For the demand to align with the availability of skilled labour, the province will need a solution that’s closer to home and sustainable. And sustainability is Peter Pilarski’s main objective.

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Benefit Boom Balance Beam

As vice-president, southern Alberta, of Merit Contractors Association, Pilarski is heavily involved in dual credit programs, partnerships between school boards and industry that allow students to work towards apprenticeships while completing their high school education. The key to a sustainable future for the industry is to engage the province’s up-and-coming workforce – to persuade high school kids into a career in construction, he believes. “From Merit’s perspective, our number-one priority for any initiative is that it needs to be sustainable,” he says.

dropout rate decreases modestly most years, its 2013 dropout rate was higher than it was in 2011, and it’s still one of the highest in Canada. And First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Alberta have dropout rates that more than double the provincial average.

At the same time, industry and government leaders across the province are bringing attention to the fact that our educational mandate is at odds with the realities of our economy. In January 2014, Thomas Lukaszuk, then minister of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour, said that efforts to align post-secondary education programs

“These programs provide real-world opportunities,” Debbie Vance says. “They transform kids, schools and communities.”

Pilarski’s projection of the labour shortage is much grimmer than the provincial government’s: he says a safe estimate for how many workers the construction industry alone will require in the next 10 years is 100,000. And despite the current slump in oil prices, he says, “We have a lot of people retiring over the next 10 to 20 years. In an environment where we’re already short, it’s a crunch.”

Yet the construction industry’s labour shortage is symptomatic of larger issues both within the province and the education system at large. While Alberta’s high school 8

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

and the demands of the economy were paying off, but he still warned of drastic shortages. And Ken Gibson, executive director of the Alberta Construction Association, told the Calgary Herald that despite the “millions of dollars put into scholarships, tuition refunds, and other programming and training around recruitment of an Alberta workforce, the demographics and the changing nature of the work means we’re still going to have to supplement the local workforce that we’re growing.”

Part of the challenge in Alberta, says Pilarski, is that the education system steers

kids more forcefully toward university, away from the trades. “There are many kids who would like to use their hands and their creative minds a bit more,” he says. “We need to provide opportunities to those kids who could flourish in a more hands-on career.”

Debbie Vance, a dual credit administrator with the College of Alberta School Superintendents (CASS), is in the business of marrying education and local career opportunities. She too sees construction as a vehicle for teaching kids more of what they want to learn, and for relieving other problems within the education system as well.

Dual credit programs allow students to gain credits for graduation at their high school, but also to receive a post-secondary transcript – dual enrollment, in effect. Vance talks unreservedly about the budding partnerships between schools and industry, and is clearly inspired by what she sees at her job.

“I’ve worked in this world for 15 years,” she says. “Dual credit is becoming more and more important.”

In 2013, the Alberta Government pledged $11 million for dual credit programs.

CASS manages the grant process. As Vance explains, the programs have four main goals: to help high school students complete high school; to increase post-secondary completion and registration; to help students connect more with the labour market and understand workforce development; and to form partnerships. And while dual credit programs cover a growing number of disciplines, the trades feature prominently. Vance says that when CASS had its first round of applicants, “almost everybody applied for the trades.”

But she admits that the province is missing out on an opportunity. Like Pilarski, she points to Alberta’s dropout rate. “They’re not engaged,” she says of students. “They’re quite bright, but they don’t see the relevance of what they’re learning.” She believes that a transformation in how students learn about construction could engage the potential dropouts and sate the need for skilled labour. “We’re not providing the right educational opportunities for the construction industry,” she says.

The issues of labour shortage and Alberta’s dropout rate, and the disconnect between the economy and the workforce, means Alberta faces a number of

workforce-related obstacles. But Vance and Pilarski hope they can solve them in tandem, and to mutual benefit.

Kids used to learn about construction in their schools’ construction labs. Some 15 to 20 years ago, the federal government funded these labs, but over time they gave way to less expensive programming like drama classes. The labs that still exist are mostly outdated and inadequate. In parallel, the number of teachers with construction experience has dwindled. There are programs that will help teachers learn a trade, or will help a tradesperson get an education degree, but a two-year or longer commitment is an unrealistic hurdle to expect either side to clear.

Merit is working to create partnerships with Edmonton, Calgary, rural Alberta and First Nations groups, and hoping to expand on a dual credit program in Calgary. It has also discussed possibilities with SAIT and the Calgary Board of Education. Pilarski says that to make a dual credit program work, it needs to have multiple partners involved – preferably two school boards in the region, a post-secondary institution, and as many industry partners as possible. And the recent successes across the province show that cooperation should come easily.

Pilarski makes the case that the more kids learn about the construction industry, the more they’ll consider it a viable career,

about being a manual labourer,” he says.

That’s a large part of the industry’s appeal – gone are the stereotypes of construction workers as academic underachievers; today’s industry requires creative and technical talent across all fields. Engagement in the field should be used to motivate kids to do well in school, Pilarski says. Construction offers hands-on, tangible examples of complex, theoretical math and science principles, the likes of which a student might see on a jobsite before they see it in a classroom. It seems odd to propose that experience in construction can help high school students with algebra, but the experience goes farther than that.

“In school, there are a lot of students asking, ‘Why am I learning this?’” Pilarski says.

“The dual credit programs give kids the answer to that ‘why.’ And once they figure out the ‘why,’ the ‘how’ becomes intriguing.”

But teaching kids about construction is not necessarily the point; the goal is to teach them about the world with construction, using construction. It’s not hard to get kids excited about it, but too often, what’s holding them back is the pressure to ignore the trades and go to university.

Gary Gies is the executive director of the Red Deer Construction Association (RDCA), and is also an active champion of the industry. He wants to demonstrate ideas to classrooms using real-world examples. He names the non-profit Careers: Next Generation as a

“In school, students are asking, ‘Why am I learning this?’” Peter Pilarski says. “The dual credit programs give kids the answer.” and a number of programs have borne this out: He cites an example of a partnership in Red Deer where every morning, for five days a week, about a dozen students join a builder on site, to help build a house.

And in southern Alberta, the Junior Achievement program works with industry stakeholders to develop a program that has kids build a mock business in the construction industry. Both programs are going over well with students, parents and educators. “The excitement of these programs is that it allows both kids and parents to see that construction isn’t just

model for a work experience program, and is working on improving a Try-A-Trade program for the Central Alberta Career and Job Fair this year. But perhaps most radically, he wants to see construction in the school curriculum. He wants teachers to identify points in the syllabus where construction principles could highlight otherwise abstract ideas. Maybe a concrete company could come into the school to illustrate a lesson on angles, he suggests.

Gies says that in 2014, the board of the RDCA made it a priority to reorganize its committee structure. It now has a dedicated

education committee, consisting of many board members. He has organized hands-on presentations for schools – a sheet metal group once had the students build whistles.

Like Junior Achievement, his presentations are popular, and he attributes their success to their practical applications, as Pilarski does. And the education committee features leaders from industries and practices across the spectrum, from lawyers to plumbers.

“We work with blueprints and we’re doing calculations – all the stuff they’re doing in school, but we’re relating it to the real world,” Gies says. “We’re trying to give them that perspective. There’s a reason why they’re learning these things, and once they get out into the real world, a lot of it applies.” The ultimate goal is for the students to want to learn more about it and to get some work experience in the field. By the time they’re in their early 20s, Gies says, they can be well on their way to a good career. And the construction industry will be well on its way to a balanced, sustainable workforce.

Pilarski thinks that there’s more enthusiasm for dual credit programs today than there was before the recent slump.

Low oil prices mean the labour market has a chance to recalibrate; employers in construction will still be looking for employees, just less frantically.

But it also means that people are getting creative. Partnerships abound. Optimism is at an all-time high. “Out-of-the-box things are happening – we’re getting away from the need for bricks and mortar. We can give kids opportunities away from high school,” he says. Gies is also enthusiastic about bringing the next generation into his industry. “By being in schools, in front of teachers, I think some people will be amazed at some of the things that happen within our industry,” he says.

Debbie Vance shares in the optimism too, of course. She says that Gary Gies is doing great work and that Merit has been an ally in her promotion of dual credit programs. And she’s firm in her belief that the construction industry can help remedy problems of the education system at large, that it can help lower dropout rates and further professional satisfaction. “These programs provide realworld opportunities,” she says. “They transform kids, schools and communities.”

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10

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

ILLUSTRATION BY: DAVID MOORE

The

of Future Construction: 2015-2035

The next 20 years will host unprecedented technological changes in the construction industry. If you’re not looking ahead,

BY KIRK ALTER you’re already behind

T

he confluence of computer modelling, mobile devices, and new building materials has put us at the beginning of a new era for construction,” says Darren Conlee, construction executive, M.A. Mortenson Company.

A new era indeed! Construction has entered into its next iteration and the successful contractor will learn to embrace change and prepare for its future by gaining the skills, tools, technologies, mindset and culture required to fully engage and profit in this paradigm shift.

All change is marked by this typical adoption-innovation cycle: Innovators and early adopters embrace technological and systemic change in response to a small group of forward-looking customers who want technology and performance, while the rest of the industry lags behind in adopting new processes, techniques, tools and ideas. Eventally, pragmatists see the shift in the industry and move to catch up. Finally all but the laggards see the light and come to change, whether by choice or by force. The laggards and skeptics are the Luddites, and they hold on to the past… until it kills them.

This is an exciting time to be in the construction industry. Everything is changing rapidly. Yes, we still face significant challenges – with skilled labour as the biggest – but the future is extraordinarily bright, and contractors must determine their roadmap for success for the next 10 to 20 years.

There is much to learn and much to do to catapult the contractor of today to success. To be successful you’re going to have to address your capabilities and skills in at least the following areas: computer modeling and BIM; mobile devices; new building materials; modularization; robotics and automation in construction; 3-D printing; labour productivity and the human/machine

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

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The Future of Construction: 2015-2035 interface; wearable technology; superintendents and technology; the future of estimating, planning and managing the project; workforce recruitment; supply chain relationships and division of labour; greater transparency; and the rethinking of how you add value and what your firm actually does.

The intent of this article is to simply introduce some of the ideas, and provide some suggestions for action plans for the successful contractor. Proficiency comes with more investigation, asking questions, research, practise and experimentation.

One way of thinking about the future and your firm is to decide what changes you want to act on now, which ones can be acted on in the near term, and which ones will take time to capitalize on.

What to do NOW – if you aren’t already doing these things, then you’re a late majority conservative, and on your way to being a laggard.

1. All field supervisory personnel and project managers must be using contemporary technology to do their jobs effectively.

The use of mobile devices to perform data capture and analysis, communication and coordination tasks is the minimum expectation today.

If your field supervisors are not using tablets or iPads in the field, then you are definitely behind the times. I’ve heard all the excuses: “We have laptops…I gave them a smart phone…what’s wrong with good old paper…my supers are older guys and they won’t use the technology.” All of that is simply rubbish. There is no better way for the field supervisors and project managers to manage, document, evaluate, coordinate and communicate than using a tablet or an iPad. All of their drawings and specifications should be immediately accessible to them. They should be able to provide inputs into the company systems in real time and get real-time feedback. There are multitudes of online sources to help if you are not up to speed.

2. Your project planning and execution must be informed by the ability to use data and modeling in an effective way. Computer modeling and BIM may be optional 12

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

now for you and your firm, but it will not be that way for long. Your ability to accurately and quickly represent your plan for the project and how you and your systems interface with all other building systems is rapidly becoming a minimum requirement. If, when you are talking about BIM, you’re still talking about collision detection you are behind the times. Collision detection is old news, and frankly something we’ve done for a long time. Where is your level of expertise and added value when talking about using BIM? How about taking your knowledge and expertise of BIM here:

3. If you are still performing your field layout functions the old-fashioned way, then you are behind the curve. Electronic layout is faster and more accurate and enhances field productivity and coordination. Laser scanning to perform rapid, accurate, non-disruptive or non-destructive field measurement of existing conditions is far superior to field measuring, and provides a superior method to documenting as-built conditions. The excuses that construction firm owners and managers make that the technology is too expensive are poor rationalizations. The tools required to perform electronic layout and scanning cost about what a typical pickup truck costs. Most pickup trucks that construction companies own provide little in ROI as most are used for nothing more than hauling one employee around from home to jobsites. Electronic layout and scanning tools provide a significant ROI. At DPR today, robots are laying out walls 50 to 100 per cent faster than humans.

4. Yes, as an industry we have a problem attracting young people. In a large part, the reason for this is that our industry acts like a dinosaur. We’re late to adopt technologies; we refuse to envision what we do as highly sophisticated manufacturing that would benefit from the use of robotics and technology; and, unless you’re already built that way, it seems dirty and not much fun.

Technology resonates with young people.

They are gamers. The successful contractor of the future will realize that project management in construction will be very much like a video game. Parts, components, robots and human craftspersons will be tracked in real time as the “game” progresses. Simulations will occur in advance of actual construction, and you will be able to analyze alternative results. This isn’t science fiction; we can do this now – but most companies aren’t there yet. The quicker you gain the capabilities, the quicker you will attract new entrants.

The near term: We’re already past the innovator phase and are into the early adopter phase, but if you don’t get a move on, you’re going to miss the party.

5. Stick-built construction is on its way to being dead. Watch the videos of massive high-rise buildings built in 15 days. Watch major contractors like M.A. Mortenson use modular construction in contemporary health care construction. If you are not thinking about how to modularize your construction specialty then you are in trouble. We are moving from a time where each individual specialty contractor added value by limiting their scope and their planning to a specific trade and a limited part of the building system. Now systems thinking is the driver, and modularization is shifting the industry from having separate drywall, electrical, and mechanical contractors to having large off-site fabrication facilities where building systems are preassembled and then installed in the job as large building components. The contemporary job site will include the wall techs and the floor and ceiling techs where small crews are simply making the interconnections. That will continue until we can figure out how robotic assemblers can do the same function faster.

6. It’s time you figure out which parts of holographic measures to examine the your construction activities can be automated. None you say? Think again. Go online and check out the YouTube videos of automated bricklaying, automated road building, and automated crane operations.

No more bemoaning that fact that good masons are hard to find – buy the machine!

No more having to hire an operating engineer to sit in a tower crane, as a computer can do it more efficiently, safer and at a lower cost. Do these things take away work from craftspersons? No, but they help us solve our labour shortage problems, they automate our processes, and help us to do a better job at satisfying our customers.

proposed project in detail, and respond to changes quickly without spending expensive labour resources.

9. All human crafts workers will be enabled with machine interfaces to assist in communication, documentation, and optimizing field labour productivity. We already have the technologies – GPS, RFID, and on-board instrumentation (OBI) and the like, to more effectively manage our most expensive resources. The use of tracking devices, wearable technologies and body/hard-hat cameras will become de rigueur.

In the long term: If you’re not here yet,

7. The use of drones and other small-scale you’re still okay, but 10 years from now robotics will enable us to better survey the progress on jobs, provide visual documentation, monitor safety and identify bottlenecks on jobs more quickly. Are you envisioning how to use small scale robotics to enhance your management capabilities?

Your competition sure is.

8. The notion of having estimators will die out within the next 10 years. The use of on-screen takeoff and the subsequent generations of software will make the need to have anyone in your firm taking off drawings will seem antiquated. What you will need are analysts, not estimators. Your analysts will be experts not at simply identifying planned costs from a set of documents pre-bid; instead they will be experts at using electronic measures to analyze, examine what-if scenarios, pre-plan projects using

you won’t be.

10. The materials revolution will be upon us. Already early innovators are reaping profits from thinking about dramatic changes in materials and applications.

As with all innovators and early adopters, those who get to the party first reap the most benefits. Some examples of the materials revolution include: Thin-film solar cells that can be applied to glazing or other building materials. Building Integrated PhotoVoltaics (BIPV) are not new. What’s new is that the technology is rapidly approaching affordability, and the business opportunity should be obvious. The energy challenges are not going away.

Bioreactive facades – double-glazed panels filled with a mixture of water and unicellular algae that grow in direct response to sunlight. The algae is harvested and processed to produce methane gas that is either stored locally or used to fuel the building. The system also provides shading as the glass becomes cloudy, blocking direct sunlight. How are you thinking about growing building components?

Smartwalls and modularization.

Intelligent wall systems are manufactured in a factory and delivered to the job site in a finished state, incorporating cables and ductwork plus external drywall, then simply dropped into position by a crane, simultaneous with the superstructure.

The system is pretreated for weathering, and also avoids the large amount of noise, dust and waste typically generated. We’re

already doing this – when will you be?

3-D-printed cladding. Skanska commissioned industrial 3-D-printing firm Quickparts to produce cladding for eight complex interfaces at the tops of steel columns supporting the polymer ETFE roof over a garden at the Bevis Marks office project in London. Quickparts used a selective laser sintering machine that fuses layers of powdered Nylon PA 12 to build up the complex shapes based on the architect’s original CAD file. The process was faster and cheaper than alternative spliced steel-plate options.

Do you know what sintering is? Did you know that there are already companies that specialize in large scale 3-D printing in construction? Have you begun to conceive of how buildings that you’re working on will have significant components that are printed with large-scale 3-D printing?

Conclusions and a way forward Construction has entered its next phase.

The shift from the tired but comfortable low-margin job approach to building is finally heading out to pasture.

The winners and the most satisfied participants in the construction game of the next 20 years will embrace at least the 10 items addressed above. There are many, many more opportunities and technologies to address, and much more detail that can be achieved outside of the parameters of this brief article. The intent is to whet your appetite, challenge your current way of business and spur you to action. The only way to get there is to go.

The culture of change must be embraced – the rest is simply learning.

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OPENMIND SPRING 2015

ILLUSTRATION BY: MICHAEL BYERS

STATE DISUNION OF

Unions exert tremendous influence on our political landscape. What does this mean for the future?

BY LINE PORFON

T

he recent past has shown that unions are increasingly using

mandated union dues to influence political outcomes that don’t align with the voting preferences of their members. Take for example the 2014 provincial election in Ontario. Unions spent over $10 million in third-party advertising on a campaign targeting candidate Tim Hudak. The workers’ rights campaign, similar to a political lobbyist or party, operated a war room, with people working on the ground and advisers creating strategies. In an unprecedented move, for the first time in its 60-year existence, the Ontario Provincial Police Association launched its own attack ads. The public questioned whether the police remained non-partisan, an essential component of civil liberty and due process. Members of the OPP tried to distance themselves from the ads, stating that the union was speaking on its own behalf, not for members. But you have to ask yourself, how can a publicly subsidized mandated organization colour its objectivism through actions that contradict the wishes of its membership? The answer is that this is acceptable only in a world where union leaders are not accountable to anyone – not their members, nor the Canadian public.

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State of Disunion

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Union organizations, like the Canadian Labour Congress, have publicly threatened to bring down Stephen Harper with an Ontario-like campaign in the next federal election in 2015.

They recently elected a new radical leader, who has promised to resource a “ground war” to supplement their “air war.” The CLC and other union representatives point to government taking away workers’ rights, but what they really mean is that progressive governments have recognized that competition is the highest predictor of economic growth and opportunity, and are therefore changing legislation that take away organized labour’s ability to enlist workers to their cause, support businesses’ crippling strikes and collect union dues for questionable purposes.

Canadians agree. Although three million Canadians have entered the private sector workforce since 1997, unions have only increased by 100,000 to 1.9 million workers, fewer than 18 per cent of Canada’s workforce. And the trajectory continues to point down. Most of the union power base is found in the public sector, with a 74 per cent unionization rate.

And this too is at risk with anticipated austerity measures in Ontario and even Alberta.

Unions defend their ability to use union dues for political purposes as a democratic right in Canada, but what they fail to admit is that Canada is the only Western economy that fails to both mandate union dues and the use of those dues to fund political and social activities. In the United States, workers can opt out of paying union dues that are used for anything other than bargaining purposes – in other words, activities related to political and social causes. In the United Kingdom, workers can opt in or out of a union, and are not forced to join in order to attain employment.

In European countries like France, Italy and Germany, unions are prohibited from using dues for political contributions. And finally, Australia is a combination of the above, where workers can opt of a union or opt out of paying dues that would contribute to political activities. To ensure compliance with these restrictions, unions in all of these countries must disclose financial information on major expenditures.

Unfortunately for workers in Canada, none of these restrictions apply. And to add to this injustice, union dues that are used for political purposes are tax deductable – in essence, partly subsidized by all Canadian taxpayers. Given the closed financial books of unions, not only are Canadians unable to see where their subsidies are going, but many union members cannot access financial information that would prove where their hard-earned dollars are going and what political activities are being funded.

The federal government has launched a legislative framework through Bill C-377 that would require unions to publicly disclose finances, creating a culture of accountability in organizations where workers have no choice but to join and fund. Currently, workers who have to join a union as a condition of employment have to pay dues whether or not the union leadership wastes their money on political activities they may not agree with and likely have little direct benefit.

Bill C-377 would establish a new reporting structure, which

will include the time and funds spent on political and social causes. This way, workers can know what is spent, and decide whether they want to join a union that supports political parties that they don’t support, or fund initiatives and attacks that directly undermine their own interests. Examples of these attacks are union support for anti-nuclear environmental groups by CAW, who represent many nuclear plant workers, and lobbying against pipeline projects, even though the industrial sector in northern Alberta has approximately a 50 per cent unionization rate.

In these cases, the political ideology of union leaders trumps the employment interests of those they purport to represent.

Unions argue that they should not be forced to disclose their finances or their activities, citing that the legislation is discriminatory, invades the privacy of individuals, steps into provincial jurisdiction and is unconstitutional. Unions also ask why this type of legislation should apply only to unions and not to associations.

The reality is that paying dues in some

sectors and provinces is mandatory if you want to work in that sector. Saying that a worker can simply leave a position or look for work elsewhere is contrary to basic human rights, and public opinion

financial information, fully 77 per cent of respondents said yes; for disclosure of union money spent on political parties, advocacy groups and charities, the response was even more overwhelming – 84 per cent of Albertans say yes, 63 per cent of them strongly so.

And on the topic of whether or not members should have the ability to opt out of the portion of their mandatory dues that fund these “extra-curricular” activities, 69 per cent of Albertans responded yes.

On other union issues, Albertans were equally explicit in their view that unions should be more transparent and accountable. It doesn’t matter if you belong to a union or not, or which political party you support: Canadian polls repeatedly come up with the same results – in 2002, 2003, 2008, 2011 and again in 2014.

Union leadership voices continue to stridently trumpet their version of worker rights. But they should not replace an individual’s right to select their choice of political support, nor should they presume to use mandated union dues for activities that do not directly impact their members’ working opportunities or conditions. And Canadians agree.

Albertans are explicit in their view that unions should be more transparent and accountable. It doesn’t matter if you belong to a union or not, or which political party you support: Canadian polls repeatedly come up with the same results. has continually increased to support these rights. The federal government has not only focused on unions – it has taken a strong approach on accountability and transparency for charities, publicly owned corporations, governments, political parties and, most recently, First Nation groups.

Recent polling that shows that Albertans and Canadians overwhelmingly support union transparency: regarding public disclosure of detailed union

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MERIT Has Changed the Construction Industry

A message from past president of Merit Alberta

BY STEPHEN KUSHNER OPENMIND SPRING 2015

19

Merit Has Changed the Construction Industry

plan, a Group Retirement Savings Program, Job Placement Services and Foreman Training Programs.

Merit’s board of directors undertook the challenge of developing effective services. It structured committees of contractors, hired staff and engaged outside providers. Today, more than 65,000 people have their benefits through one of Canada’s largest private sector benefit plans run by Merit. Membership in Merit Alberta has expanded from the original 15 to some 1,400 firms and with growth of 10 to 12 new firms every month. Merit was able to step in and fill the void in provision of human resource services to small and large firms, and not just in Alberta. Today, Merit Associations exist in all provinces except Quebec and P.E.I., with more than 3,500 member firms across the country. Merit Alberta was very active in taking the concept across the country.

While Merit is best known inside the industry for its services it has had a considerable impact in the area of public policy. Key changes Merit influenced in Alberta include:

M

ore than 28 years ago, 15 general contractors gathered in Alberta and agreed that the construction industry needed to move in a new direction. The industry was struggling to adjust to the new realities of significantly less construction work after the collapse of the energy industry in the early 1980s.

This collapse meant many construction firms were fighting for their survival as project volumes were down. Fifty per cent margins were skinny, wages had significantly declined and unemployment in the trades was in the double digits. Out of this crisis environment, Merit was formed to bring about a new direction for the construction industry.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Building Trade unions and their contractors in Alberta were completing 80 per cent or more of construction work, but by the mid 1980s the percentage of union work had declined to 20 per cent, as the union model was simply not viable and firms had to re-orient or wither away.

Merit was formed to bring about a new orientation in human resource

20

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

management and provide a catalyst for effective human resource practices.

By 1987, hundreds of construction owners and managers attended seminars on how to operate a non-union company, how to treat employees properly, hire effectively, reward performance, coach new hires, mentor apprentices and provide safe work sites. Merit as an organisation developed a portable hour-bank benefit

1) The introduction of the secret-ballot vote on union certifications (1988) 2) Changes to apprenticeship ratios so that one journeyman can supervise two apprentices. Some trades in the 1980s were three or four journeyman for each apprentice 3) Changes to the Labour Code to make it more difficult for unions to “salt” construction companies through unethical organising practices (2008) 4) Prohibitions against unethical subsidy practices in the union sector, or “MERFs” (2008) Merit is widely recognised by the construction industry as an organisation that has a strong voice, and its perspectives are highly valued on topics like temporary foreign workers, youth engagement in our school system, employment standards, infrastructure spending, and alcohol and drug testing.

Further, Merit Alberta was instrumental

in forming Merit Canada and bringing together the eight Merit provincial associations under one national banner.

Merit Canada has lobbied to repeal antiquated wage schedules for federal projects, eliminated union control over the Construction Sector Council (now called Build Force) and has been instrumental in helping advance two federal private member bills (Bill C-377, concerning the requirement of unions to disclose how they spend union dues; and Bill C-525 ensuring federal sector workers, including construction workers in the Territories, have the right to a secret-ballot vote on

union certifications). Merit has achieved all these results since the formation of Merit Canada in 2008. Anyone

MERIT HAS ACHIEVED BIG CHANGES IN ITS HISTORY TO DATE AND TRULY HAS FULFILLED ITS PRIME OBJECTIVE OF BEING A CATALYST FOR ENLIGHTENED HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES. following changes in the federal arena knows how significant and difficult it is to achieve these kinds of results in a

few short years.

Merit has achieved big changes in its history to date and truly has fulfilled its prime objective of being a catalyst for enlightened human resource practices. The industry would have embraced new ways of managing its workforce but through Merit changes happened more quickly and more effectively.

I have stepped down in my role as president of Merit – a position I have held since 1988. I look back with much pride at what has been accomplished by the many directors who have served on the Merit Boards across the country and the very dedicated staff, many who finished off their careers taking our industry to a new level. Merit has made its mark, yet there is still much work to be done, and the future looks promising.

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attitudes towards workforce issues and the resulting shifts in policy will significantly impact employers in the years ahead. While these policy changes have already created significant short-term pain, they also provide a unique opportunity for governments, educators and employers to work together towards more impactful structural improvements to immigration, K-12 education and corporate training programs. Governments are trying to put employers at the forefront of a more formal investment in human capital, and they are looking for businesses to step up to lead the charge.

22

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

The most controversial shift in government policy occurred at the federal level when then-Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, Jason Kenney, announced a series of changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), making it much more difficult and costly to access for high-wage employers and virtually impossible to access for low-wage employers.

While the minister’s changes have been frustrating to employers and will no doubt make recruiting more difficult for Alberta’s construction industry, the federal government is hopeful that their new Express Entry Program will be one of

that Works

BY PETER PILARSKI

the solutions. Express Entry was launched in January 2015 and is designed to help employers recruit foreign workers more quickly on a permanent basis. If this program works as planned, it will provide employers with an excellent source of permanent foreign labour, which is far better than dealing with all of the issues associated with the recruitment and employment of temporary workers.

The TFWP changes were dramatic and significant. But the federal government’s changing attitude may have a more important and enduring impact on the Canadian employment landscape. Open shop contractors will need to take a leadership

role to ensure that the needs of our industry are at the forefront during this time of structural and cultural change.

At the federal level, this change begins with the government’s new Canada Jobs Grant Program. Minister Kenney had spoken publically countless times about the paradox of “too many Canadians without jobs and too many jobs without workers,” and this training grant program is one solution that he has proposed to encourage more investment in human capital. The Canada Job Grant Program provides employers with grant funding for two-thirds of the cost of training programs which – subject to government approval – are at

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

23

A Workforce that Works

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the discretion of employers. Merit Alberta strongly urges open shop contractors to take advantage of this grant funding, and has confirmed that several Merit College of Construction programs qualify.

The federal government has countless other programs designed to help address the issue of people without jobs and jobs without people, including the Apprenticeship Grants Program, the Canadian Apprentice Loan Program, the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy, Skills and Partnership fund and many more. For more information about how to access these programs, contact Merit Alberta.

At the provincial government level in Alberta, the changes occurring in the K-12 education system are more significant, and have the potential to drastically improve the construction sector’s ability to recruit students into our industry.

Unfortunately, these changes are not well understood – several years of heavy lifting by governments, educators and industry professionals are needed to ensure the successful implementation of well-designed strategies.

It is a transformative time in Alberta and Canada with respect to immigration, training, and workforce development and now more than ever, employers are being asked to play a bigger part in the investment and development of their human capital.

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A major change at the high school level is the introduction of the Provincial Dual Credit Strategy, a partnership between the Alberta Government, educational institutions, businesses and industry groups to provide high school students with opportunities to explore future career interests and to prepare them for transition from high school to post-secondary. Importantly, the Dual Credit Strategy allows high school students to earn post secondary credits while also earning high school credits allowing the student to concurrently explore potential career interests. With dual credit, a high school student can now graduate with their first-year trade certification complete – this strategy has the potential to transform the experience for many students and could lead to improved completion rates and more available workers for the construction industry.

More high schools in Alberta are embracing the Dual Credit Strategy and the key to the program’s success is the development of partnerships with industry that will create meaningful career exploration opportunities for

students. Several impressive partnerships exist, and Merit Alberta’s Board of Directors has set aside funding to contribute towards the development of more programs. Merit Alberta is currently exploring dual credit partnership opportunities, as well as other workforce development programs aimed at the high school level with school boards throughout the province, and we need employers to play an active role as these strategies and programs are rolled out in order for them to be successful.

Another significant policy is Alberta Education’s Curriculum Development Prototyping, which is the education system’s attempt to use a collaborative approach to developing a new curriculum for kindergarten to grade 12 students. The prototyping strategy is getting input from a broad range of stakeholders, including business and industry, and this work will completely change the way education is delivered in this province – construction employers should make their voices heard in this exercise before the opportunity disappears. The impact of this work is too important for employers to ignore. To this end, Merit Alberta will create opportunities for employers to learn more and to provide a contribution.

It is a transformative time in Alberta and Canada with respect to immigration, training, and workforce development, and now more than ever, employers should play a bigger part in the investment and development of their human capital. The open shop construction sector has an opportunity to take a leadership role in these new approaches to ensure that the workforce development needs of our industry are met to the greatest extent possible. Merit Alberta encourages all of its members to consider how you can best become involved to shape the future of our province and country.

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Natural Alliance ABC and Merit Canada join forces to tackle common problems and share best practices

BY JOANNA MASTERSON

26

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

T

he predicted shortage of skilled craft professionals is not unique to the United

States. In addition to the roughly two million workers needed stateside by 2017, Canada will need at least 300,000 more during the next decade.

Can Canada and the U.S. solve this workforce crisis? That’s part of the mission of the CAN-AM Merit Alliance, formally established in February 2014 with the signing of a joint resolution by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and Merit Canada. In March, the groups bolstered the alliance with the addition of two ambassadors: Tim Walton, director of external affairs and public policy for Maine-based Cianbro, and Ron Yoneda, corporate human resources manager for Alberta-based SITE. Both associations are rooted in the merit shop philosophy and share a passion for supporting free enterprise. Ultimately, the alliance formalizes an already strong relationship, with goals to: • help contractors provide rewarding long-term careers for their employees; • encourage and promote the safety and welfare of all employees; • support government policies that facilitate the awarding of contracts without regard to protectionism; • increase international business opportunities for firms and reduce barriers to the employment of workers outside their native countries;

• provide services to the American and Canadian construction industries; and • facilitate more effective service delivery to both associations’ members.

“Working together on this initiative provides for the free flow of information and sharing of resources that are beneficial to both organizations’ members,” says ABC president and CEO Mike Bellaman.

“The hope is that this alliance can become somewhat of a template for similar relationships with likeminded organizations in other countries across the globe.”

Eric Regelin, 2013 ABC National C h a i r m a n , w a s e s s e nt i a l t o t he genesis of the alliance. “There are people around the world who believe the same things that we believe: that everyone should have an opportunity to participate and thrive in the construction industry without artificial barriers being placed in their way,” he says.

“These people may not know the term ‘merit shop’ yet, but I think it’s in the best interest of ABC to reach out and form alliances for mutual benefit.

“I could think of no better place to start than with our Canadian friends,” Regelin says.

Merit Canada was established in 2007 when eight provincial associations came together to form a united voice for the open shop construction industry. The Merit associations across Canada have about 3,800 member contractors (employing roughly 60,000 people) that build more than 70 per cent

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

27

A Natural Alliance

of the industrial, commercial, insti- of concentration for the CAN-AM tutional and residential construction Merit Alliance.

“There are several opportunities projects across Canada. As of 2011, the Canadian construction sector employed for member companies to provide 1.26 million people, with 900,000 services across the border that have working in the open shop sector – been hampered by regulations representing almost 8.6 per cent of the currently in place,” Bellaman says. “By working together nation’s total labour force.

“We’ve always thought about doing through the alliance, we can present something like this because we’re a united front and a consistent message likeminded in our philosophy and face a lot when speaking with government leaders of the same challenges,” says Merit Canada on both sides of the border.”

For example, industrial shutdowns workers, I have to advertise the position president Terrance Oakey. “When we brought the idea to our membership and in the Gulf Coast tend to take place from and then wait up to six months to get a ABC did the same, we got a good response.” September to April. In Canada, they positive approval. By that time, the project “It made sense to formalize these strong typically occur from May to September. is over. It’s hard to pinpoint exact timing connections and put it into a framework That means expert workers are sitting idle and the number of employees needed for a that can flourish,” adds Stephen Kushner, rather than potentially working 10 months construction project. If we could streamline that process of getting people across the past president of Merit Alberta – the largest a year in both countries. border, I could provide a lot of provincial association within jobs in the off-season.”

Merit Canada, with about 1,400 Another goal of the alliance contractors employing 40,000 to “WE FACE COMMON ISSUES, ESPECIALLY is to offer members of both 50,000 people. “We function on a ON THE TRAINING AND ADVOCACY SIDE. associations access to each similar model of tools, technology other’s education and safety and materials. There is a border, WHEN VICTORIES ARE HAD OR TACTICS training programs. “This could but there isn’t a border.”

ARE DISCOVERED, IT’S IMPORTANT THAT be the start to opening the dialogue with governing bodies Shared Challenges and WE SHARE THEM SO WE CAN LEARN to eventually recognize the Opportunities FROM THE WORK THAT ALL OF US DO.” safety and training credentials When the recession took of people doing cross-border hold in 2008, Canada wasn’t – Terrance Oakey, Merit Canada president work,” Bellaman says. as deeply hurt as the United Other issues on the alliance’s States. According to Kushner, radar include exchanging the Canadian economy took a little dip in 2009, but was largely back to “Immigration is a major issue,” Oakey information on legislative initiatives normal in 2010. Activity in the oil sands confirms. “We’re looking at what the related to open tendering and project market is particularly strong, with pipeline irritants are for members trying to bring labour agreements, job targeting, and and other projects in the $10-billion workers to and from Canada and the fair labour laws and policies. The group also hopes to expand affinity programs to $12-billion range drawing workers United States.” and their families to Alberta – causing For SITE, which provides environ- and services to both organizations’ increased demand for hospitals, schools mental, infrastructure and access services memberships. Additionally, preliminary and housing developments. for oil, gas and resource development discussions are under way regarding the “We’ve been dealing with labour companies, skilled trade jobs are the possibility of organizing international peer shortages this whole time; manpower most difficult to fill, especially pipefitters groups and an international conference for is very tight,” Kushner says. “Some of and welders. “There are good people out open shop advocates around the world.

“We face common issues, especially on our contractors have to turn down work there; we just don’t have enough of them,” because they don’t have the workers to Yoneda says. “Apprenticeship program the training and advocacy side,” Oakey perform the projects. We’re focusing numbers aren’t where they need to be to says. “When victories are had or tactics are heavily on trying to bring young people sustain the amount of construction going discovered, it’s important that we share them so we can learn from the work that all into the industry, as well as focusing on on in the province.” leadership development and succession B u t c u r r e n t l y , c r o s s - b o r d e r of us do.” planning.” employment is too frustrating to be It’s a familiar predicament for effective. “There’s a lot of government red JOANNA MASTERSON IS EDITOR OF CONSTRUCTION FOR MORE INFORMATION, EMAIL MASTERSON@ American construction businesses. As tape to qualify someone to go back and EXECUTIVE. ABC.ORG, VISIT WWW.CONSTRUCTIONEXEC.COM OR FOLsuch, cross-border mobility is a key area forth,” Yoneda says. “To import American LOW @CONSTRUCTIONMAG. 28

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

MEET THE AMBASSADORS

Tim Walton

Tim Walton Director of External Affairs and Public Policy Cianbro, Pittsfield, Maine How he got involved in the construction industry: I spent time early in my career managing a variety of campaigns and then worked in Congress. On one campaign visit with the Maine Chapter, I told then-Representative Jim Longley that if a job ever opened at Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), I would apply because the organization shares my values 100 per cent. About five years later, the Maine chapter president position became available and I was hired. I did that until January 2005 when Cianbro, which was heavily involved with ABC, hired me to be external affairs director – covering government affairs, public affairs, charitable giving, etc.

What Cianbro specializes in: Cianbro self-performs civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, fabrication and coating work in the power generation and energy, modular manufacturing, refining and petrochemical, industrial, marine, fuel transmission and distribution, commercial and institutional markets, through its workforce of more than 4,000 employees.

The company offers construction services from the conceptual stages of design through implementation, to start-up, commissioning and turn-key operations.

His role in the alliance: Too often we put self-constraints on when it comes to the economy. We only think about the national economy, yet we know there are likeminded contractors and construction groups around the world. I appreciate 2013 ABC national chairman Eric Regelin’s foresight to create the alliance and the ABC executive committee’s support for it.

Now, my job as ambassador is to promote the alliance’s programs, events and public policy initiatives, and to consider any services that can be offered to our respective memberships.

Why he was chosen to be ABC’s ambassador: “As a former ABC executive committee member, Tim understands the long-term goals of the association and the needs of the industry. This, coupled with the fact that he is well respected, made him a great candidate to help develop a relationship between ABC and Merit Canada,” says Mike Bellaman, president and CEO of ABC National.

Ron Yoneda Corporate Human Resources Manager SITE, Sherwood Park, Alberta How he got involved in the construction industry: I’ve run several businesses and worked as a construction labour provider supplying temporary workers to construction companies. I then got into the recruitment business, specializing in construction and engineering. The construction industry was starting to take off in Alberta, so it was a good opportunity to get involved. In 2010, when SITE was founded, I was brought on as a consultant to help

Ron Yoneda

with recruitment efforts. It rolled into a full-time HR position because, as a start-up company, we had to develop job descriptions and formal policies and procedures.

What SITE specializes in: The company initially stemmed from the merger of two heavy civil firms with about 200 employees. It has been acquiring additional firms for the last four years, with the most recent acquisition located in North Dakota. Today, the firm employs 1,200 to 1,500 people depending on the season. SITE positions itself as a remote access company specializing in oil services: clearing, seismic work, surveying, pipeline, mechanical and earthwork (i.e., everything prior to actual plant construction).

His big-picture view of the alliance: Longer term, we’re looking at ways to

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Why he was chosen to be Merit Canada’s ambassador: “Ron’s company is active in the United States and Canada; it’s important to have someone with an appreciation for the challenges of working in both countries. He also has a strong HR background, which encompasses some of the alliance’s top concerns,” says Stephen Kushner, president of Merit Alberta.

The CAN-AM Merit Alliance is interested in meaningful dialogue with members of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and Merit Canada who can offer fresh perspectives on market trends and performing work in the United States and Canada, as well as offer suggestions on where the alliance can be replicated in other countries.

“Companies that can provide experiences as to how current regulations have hindered their ability to win work or do work across the border are especially helpful,” says ABC president and CEO Mike Bellaman. “Their insight will allow the alliance to write the narrative and better explain the issues with the current system.”

Ultimately, all members of ABC and Merit Canada are part of the alliance through the involvement of their associations.

“It’s important to keep talking and sharing ideas and to get the word out that this alliance exists,” says Ron Yoneda. “If enough people know about it, we can make a difference.”

TO LEARN MORE OR GET INVOLVED, EMAIL ABC CHAPTER DEVELOPMENT MANAGER STEPHEN LEWIS AT SLEWIS@ABC.ORG.

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STRENGTH

32

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

LIGHT

The aging workforce’s impact on health and safety

BY GARY CLEVENGER AND BRIAN ROBERTS

W

ith 31.9 million workers over the age of 55 estimated

to be in the U.S. labour force by 2025, it’s important to examine the physical, psychosocial and cognitive issues related to aging. Construction companies cannot continue to run their businesses as usual and expect older workers to remain safe.

A major impact on workers’ compensation is that aging generates co-morbidities (i.e., multiple illnesses or injuries that lead to increased recovery time). A 55-year-old worker suffering from a back injury caused by cumulative trauma also may suffer from disc degeneration found in almost all men and women over the age of 40. While older workers have low absenteeism, turnover and accident rates, they take longer to return to work after injuries and illnesses because they are likely to heal slower and have pre-existing health problems.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE, MARCH 2014, A PUBLICATION OF ASSOCIATED BUILDERS AND CONTRACTORS SERVICES CORP. COPYRIGHT 2014. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

33

Aging with Grace STRENGTH Loss of strength stems from decreased muscle mass. Muscles take longer to respond to action and fatigue as people age. The number and size of muscle fibers also decreases.

Heavy lifting and lowering, awkward positions and static postures are all risk factors for workplace injuries. Tasks requiring grip force and exertion, as well as repetitive tasks, are more difficult with decreased strength and endurance.

Reduced grip strength goes along with reduced muscle and soft tissue capabilities. Hand grip strength decreases, making it more difficult to accomplish routine activities such as turning a valve or lifting, pulling and opening materials.

To assist aging workers, reduce the time spent performing these tasks or provide mechanical assists. For example, choose hand tools and handheld devices that are appropriately sized to compensate for reduced grip strength. To prevent soft tissue injuries, identify the jobs that carry the greatest physical risks to the various soft tissue groups through a systematic, quantifiable process. Prioritize the jobs that will keep employees working longer, as well as those that could be used for return-to-work duties. Some of the ways to help employees include: • reduce work with static muscle effort (i.e., sustained, fixed postures); • increase use of mechanized equipment; • keep work in a neutral zone (i.e., remove materials from the floor); and • reduce or eliminate twisting of the upper torso.

VISION Vision is by far a worker’s most important sensory channel. Approximately 90 per cent of most of the information learned in a lifetime enters through the eyes.

Normal age-related changes in vision include impaired ability to adapt to changes in light levels (a 60-year-old requires two to three times the amount of light as a 20-year-old), extreme sensitivity to glare, reduced visual acuity (ability to discern detail), and restricted field of vision and depth perception. Impaired depth perception may cause a person to perceive a shadow on the floor as a step or a hole, and visual misinterpretation based on visual misinformation can severely impair an individual’s ability to function safely.

LIGHT The single largest missing ingredient in workplace facilities to assist aging workers is light. Using more taskspecific lighting and indirect lighting, especially with computers, creates a better working environment. Use soft, white lights rather than bright, clear lights, which create glare.

Pools of light can distort perception of height and depth, causing stumbling or tripping. Uneven brightness patterns can produce shadows or create the illusion of steps or edges where light and shadow meet. Provide gradual changes in light levels.

Reducing glare contributes to comfort and helps minimize falls and maximize attention span. Appropriate task lighting increases a worker’s level of performance. Very few managers correlate productivity and efficiency to the correct light levels.

High contrast is very effective in enhancing visual function. For example, an edge band of contrasting colour can help a worker see a desk or countertop more easily. The aging eye is best able to discriminate saturated colours at the warm end of the spectrum, and colours with a high degree of brightness, such as yellow, are particularly visible. Distinguishing between blue and green and blue and violet hues can be difficult.

COGNITIVE ABILITY Mental processing and reaction time become slower with age. In fact, it starts in young adulthood (late 20s) and by the time people are 60 or older they generally take longer to perform mental tasks.

Some experts contend older adults do not lose mental competence; it simply takes them longer to process the necessary information. In addition to cognitive decline, slower processing speed has been linked to a decline in motor function.

Therefore, older adults may have less dexterity and coordination than when they were younger.

Certain training methods work well for older adults. Their best method for learning is direct, hands-on experience so they can use what they learn right away. It is important for older workers to be involved in planning and training. Relating new learning to past experiences, accommodating for vision and hearing loss, and establishing an acceptable pace for learning new information are critical elements to retaining new information.

It is important to understand cognitive changes are not universal. The degree of decline can be small and likely will not interfere with day-to-day functioning. It may take older employees longer to learn something new, but they can still learn.

The following are factors impacting a person’s cognitive function.

• Exercise. Regular exercise helps maintain blood flow to brain cells.

• Diet and nutrition. Maintain proper weight, minimize the consumption of animal fats, and eat more fruit and grains to maintain good brain function.

• Emotional health. Stress, depression and other psychiatric conditions can negatively affect memory.

• Pain. Physical pain interferes with the ability to pay attention to information, which hinders learning.

• Medication. The side effects of and interactions among medications may interfere with memory.

Research indicates the nation’s 79 million baby boomers want to continue to work either full or part time. To ensure a healthy work life, employers need to address the relationship between the functional capacities of younger and older

employees. Assessing the capabilities and limitations of older workers and working within these parameters will positively affect productivity, efficiency and safety among all age groups.

Gary Clevenger is national risk control director-construction for CNA and Brian Roberts is CNA’s director of workers’ compensation and ergonomics for risk control. For more information, email gary.clevenger@cna.com or visit cna.com/riskcontrol.

This Year’s KEY Players The 2015 Contractor of the Year Awards recognize construction professionals who are building a better tomorrow

BY ALBERTA VENTURE STAFF erit Contractors Association, Alberta R oa d bu i lder s a nd Heavy Construction Association (ARHCA) and Alberta Venture magazine present this year’s Contractor of the Year Awards. The finalists include those compa n ie s a nd i nd iv idu a l s who strive for efficiency, innovation and practicality. Their successes reflect best practices in the industry. We celebrate their leadership.

Public and private companies that have a regional office in Alberta are eligible to enter these awards. The organizations sell construction services, employ tradespeople, and/or contract out labour supply in the industrial, commercial, institutional, residential, civil, road building or oilfield construction sectors.

The six award categories include: General Contractor Under $50 Million, General Contractor Over $250 Million, Trade Contractor Under $15 Million, Trade Contractor Over $15 Million, Heavy Civil, and Construction Person of the Year.

Keep reading to find out which companies were chosen by this year’s adjudication panel and why.

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OPENMIND SPRING 2015

General ContraCtor Under $50 Million WINNER: Kemway Contractors CEO Terry Kemp, Edmonton A family company, Kemway has been growing steadily, weathering a changeable economy over its 25 years. In the last five years, the company has made a substantial effort to grow, hiring new talent and developing from within its own ranks.

Kemway Contractors CEO Terr y Kemp attr ibutes K e mw ay ’s g r ow t h t o it s f i ve core values: commitment to people, teamwork and collaboration, excellence and professionalism, integrity, and a focus on results. “We live our corporate lives by those values,” he explains.

“And we were one of the first smaller companies to get a core safety program,” Kemp says. Kemway’s entrenched safety culture and its core values have helped it navigate the challenges of projects such as the various warehouses and offices built in extreme cold and requiring several major changes over the course of the work, or a wholesale facility in Leduc, which required constant correspondence with decision-makers in Europe.

Kemway focuses on growing the skills of its workers. Kemp describes the company’s growth as “organic,” because many of its employees started young and inexperienced, growing their skills over the course of their careers with the company.

Kemway has focused on delivering reliably good results for clients; Kemp believes this consistency has earned the company recognition. “What I’m most proud of,” he says, “is we haven’t changed our focus or our quality.”

FINALIST: Pemco Construction General Manager Kevin Lapes A strong reputation in and around Edmonton has helped entrench Pemco as a reputable company in the city’s construction industry. With solid employee retention, open communication and a record of building and maintaining important infrastructure within Edmonton, Pemco is a leader in the sector.

FINALIST: Maverick Oilfield Services CEO Christopher Challis Maverick has been a growing force in the oil and gas industry for over 36 years. In its time it’s never sacrificed the standards it upholds in safety, employee development and the quality of the work it does. This dedication is evident in the variety of jobs it has taken on, including oil and gas extraction facilities and pipelines throughout Western Canada.

PCL Construction

General contractor over $250 million WINNER: PCL Construction CEO Paul Douglas, Edmonton Best known for larger projects – such as the Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton, and the Phillip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Grande Prairie – PCL Construction has a presence across Canada and beyond.

President and chief operating off icer of Canadian and Australian operations Dave Filipchuk says the keys to PCL’s success are planning and risk mitigation. The company has a reputation for navigating each job by involving project management and supervision in the bidding process. “Ideally, the people who do the estimate do the job,” Filipchuk says.

PCL is responsible for work on many of Alberta’s important civil and private buildings and structures. These include Edmonton’s High Level Bridge and Calgary’s Bonnybrook Sewage Treatment Plant. As managing partner, PCL undertook the construction of the Airport Trail Tunnel in Calgary, a passage to accommodate six lanes of traffic plus LRT, contending with a tight deadline and adverse soil conditions and electrical complications.

The employee-owned company straddles commercial and industrial construction, working across Canada and in the U.S., the Caribbean and Australia. “When one location goes into a slump, another’s often booming,” Filipchuk says. “We have employees that are willing to move.” Filipchuk credits the workforce for its adaptability. “We have long-time stable staff,” he says, “so the people executing the work are not hired on a job-byjob basis.”

FINALIST: Stuart Olson CEO David LeMay Working in general and trade contracting since 1911, Stuart Olson has completed integral projects like the restoration of the

Shaw Court and headquarters in Calgary after an electrical fire and flood in 2012. With a guiding corporate social responsibility program, and development programs for its employees in skill upgrading, apprenticeship, and management, there’s room for workers to grow and prosper.

FINALIST: JV Driver CEO Bill Elkington JV Driver is a company that works in almost every sector, having completed projects of various sizes in oil and gas, petrochemical, energy, forest and mining environments. Prioritizing safety and innovation, the company encourages teamwork among its employees, building great client and employee relationships and standout, multimillion-dollar projects.

FINALIST: Chandos Construction President Tom Redl Chandos collaborates with all its clients on their ideas, and takes an environmentally conscious approach to construction, specializing in green buildings and energy retrofitting. The firm has turned a profit every year of its operation so far, and prides itself on a human approach to contracting. Being an employee-owned company, Chandos strives to improve operations by encouraging feedback, from both within and outside the company.

EverLine Coatings and Services

trade contractor Under $15 million WINNER: EverLine Coatings and Services CEO John Evans, Calgary When John Evans started EverLine Coatings out of his Calgary backyard in 2012, his main goal was to revitalize the industry and do what bigger companies did but more efficiently and on a smaller scale.

Starting out painting streets and parking lots, Evans stays a step ahead of other businesses by innovating new technology and techniques to create better value for clients. One such innovation is the provision of more durable paints, designed to last much longer than what the competition can offer. “What we did was produce efficiently and prove ourselves in the city,” Evans says. “We’re proud to be recognized by the City of Calgary, and have prime contractor status with them, as they move to install material for their crosswalks and bike lanes.”

Evans says it’s been an exciting time, as the company has taken on multiple high-profile projects such as the renumbering of the OPENMIND SPRING 2015

37

This Year’s Key Players

Calgary International Airport, the restriping of the Bow Tower’s six-level parkade, and the rehabilitation of the Calgary Stampede after the 2013 flood.

Evans looks forward to making EverLine a full franchise, opening a branch in Edmonton, and building upon policies and technology in place to continue growth.

FINALIST: Action Electrical CEO Don Bunting With departments that are individually managed and specifically trained to specialize in the many technical aspects of a project, Action Electrical has all its bases covered. The company has a strong dedication to safety, particularly through its testing department. Those things, along with a tradition of employee retention, have helped it adapt to a gamut of specific demands in its sector.

FINALIST: B&B Demolition CEO Bill Knight Starting in 1999 with four trucks and four team members, B&B has seen tremendous growth, offering disaster recovery, abatement and waste diversion. In its growth, it has acquired significant technology to expand and provide cost-effective services. The company pays specific attention to the needs of customers, employees, and the community, listening to input and offering valued service.

service contracting business. Over a period of six months, the company developed a list of best practices to streamline work, figure out which business risks were worth taking, and improve workflow. “We also asked ourselves, ‘Why do we exist?’ ” Muth says.

“The answer we came up with was to empower the future. We want to build an enduring organization.”

The company develops its own employees with internal mentorship and external training. Over the past year, it promoted five of its workers to upper management positions, building careers and solidifying its team.

When solving tough problems, Muth emphasizes the importance of the company making decisions together.

“Contracting is the riskiest business you can do,” Muth says.

“Whatever decision we make, whatever we do, we want it to take one step more than what’s traditionally done.”

FINALIST: AltaPro Electric CEO Hubert DeBruin Innovation, collaboration, cost optimization, a focus on safety and technology embracement have helped AltaPro make a name for itself. These factors come together in the planning stages, when A lta Pro models projects from dra fting to completion using Building Information Modeling, a system that allows employees on all levels to collaborate effectively. A strong technical training regimen equips AltaPro’s employees to fully use the technology at their disposal in order to create the best product possible.

FINALIST: Arnett and Burgess Pipeliners CEO Tom Arnett Arnett and Burgess has weathered eight economic cycles over five decades in the oil and gas industry. Between 2012 and 2014, the company has seen unprecedented growth, with record revenues in 2014 and 226 projects done on time and on budget. With entire families spanning generations working as employees and high quality and safety standards, the company excels in the setup, maintenance, repair, and even shutdown of pipelines.

Muth Electrical Management

Trade ConTraCTor over $15 Million WINNER: Muth Electrical Management Founder and president Don Muth, Edmonton Muth Electrical is focused on building and maintaining a strong team that works together at all levels to create top-quality results.

Founder and president Don Muth says the company’s teamwork and urge to do the right thing give it a competitive edge.

Muth Electrical’s culture extends back to its beginnings in Muth’s basement in 1997, when he and his wife started a full38

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

Taurus Projects Group

Heavy Civil WINNER: Taurus Projects Group Owner/president Fab Loranger, Fort Saskatchewan “You can do things the same way they’ve been done for 20 years, or you can think outside the box,” says Taurus Projects Group’s owner and president Fab Loranger.

Adding to innovative thinking, Loranger leads Taurus with a policy of transparency. “If we’re not going to meet a deadline, we let them know why,” he says. “We discuss the impact.” The attitude has won the company two major extensions to the province’s power grid, the Eastern and Western Alberta Transmission Lines.

The transmission lines were a new challenge. In the western line, multiple landowners meant the company had to “bounce around,” rather than build in a linear fashion. The eastern line was an opportunity to shine in materials handling, working with ATCO. Loranger says it was a watershed moment: Taurus was invited to be part of the bidding process by Bechtel, the largest construction and civil engineering company in the U.S. Taurus recently undertook work in Sturgeon County on the first Canadian refinery in 30 years, providing site clearing and earthworks to equipment rental and handling. Loranger wants to win the refinery maintenance contract. “Who better to maintain the plant,” he says, “than the ones who built it?”

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2015

On behalf of Alberta Venture, our program partner Merit Contractors Association and sponsors Amour Jewellers, Canadian Western Bank, Electrical Contractors Association of Alberta, Insight Insurance and Supply Chain Management Association Alberta, thank you to everyone who attended the Contractor of the Year Awards Gala!

AWARDS

Alberta Venture would also like to thank its sponsors for their generous support in making this year’s program such a success! Your contributions make it possible for us to recognize and celebrate the achievements of Alberta's top contractors.

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This Year’s Key Players

ConstruCtion Person of the Year: Brent Fillmore, president, Fillmore Construction 2014 REVENUE: $100 million • EMPLOYEES: 48 in the office and shop, 100-200 in the field

DOING THE RIGHT THING Brent Fillmore is a stickler for details.

It doesn’t always make things easy

W he n Bre nt Fi l l more t a l k s a bout con st r u c t ion – which he’ll do anytime, anywhere, for as long as you’d like – he’s like a kid in the candy aisle. His face brightens, his arms start waving and the words flow forth. “I love building,” he says when asked why he – the president of a company with annual revenue in the $100-million range – is acting as project manager on a small apartment building in Wabasca. “I’m getting the building I want,” he says, “getting it perfect.”

“I’m an ideas guy,” he says a little while later, discussing changes to an architect’s drawings. “I’ve been doing it for 37 years and I’ve seen it all, and I have a lot of ideas about how to do things.

When I go to a site, I walk around for two hours and look at how things are connected, how they go together.”

His son (and company vice-president) Chris describes him as a perfectionist. “Many contractors will just build what the drawings say, regardless of whether it’s the right thing or not,” he says. “Dad works with the consultant and the owner to build the best building possible. Sometimes that adds a lot of work to the job, but he wants the building to be the best possible.”

That word – “perfectionist” – can raise red flags. Is it really code for pushy, demanding and unwilling to compromise? Sharon Downs, a health care consultant who worked with Fillmore on a new elder-care home in Fort Chipewyan, has seen his drive firsthand. “We had an interesting time,” she says. “We didn’t always see eye to eye.”

40

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

PHOTO BY: BLUEFISH STUDIOS

BY PETER BURROWS

Fillmore grew up in tiny Sackville, New Brunswick. His mother dealt in antiques and his father ran the bigger of the two grocery stores in town. “It was an absolute dump,” he says. “He gave credit to everyone and never collected. Everyone loved him and he made enough money to keep the lights on and keep us fed, but not much more. When I was in Grade 12, I said, ‘I want to be in business, but not in the grocery business.’”

Through his mother, Fillmore had met a couple of engineers who ran businesses, one a window manufacturer and the other selling steel pipe. “They weren’t practicing engineering, but they had the degree and they started doing something. So I said ‘I’m going to be an engineer.’”

But he says he didn’t want to go to the local university, Mount Allison, and be known as the grocer’s kid. So he headed down the road to Fredericton and the University of New Brunswick. He paid his way through an engineering degree by working in construction in the evenings, on weekends and during the summers. He also started his first business, a lawn-mowing company. He met his wife, Terry, while in school, and proposed to her during his final year, “but it was conditional on one thing,” he says. “We had to live at least 1,000 miles away from my mother. I said, ‘Our marriage will not last my mother, because if we’re living in Halifax and want to go to St. Stephen we’ll have to stop and take my mother to the yard sales before we can go. And when we’re coming back we’ll have to pick up something in Fredericton on the way, and that’s an hour out of our way, to bring home to her. It won’t work.’”

Soon after graduating, Fillmore applied to do his MBA at the University of Alberta. The school offered him $5,000 to do some tutoring, so the young couple headed west in 1977. After his first year, he got a summer job with construction giant Stuart Olson. “I loved it and wanted to keep working,” he says. “I did a few more part-time courses, but ultimately wanted to work.” So with 13 of the required 19 MBA courses completed, he joined Stuart Olson full time.

Fillmore rose to be vice-president of business development at the company over the following 13 years, but developed the itch to be his own boss. So in 1991, he founded Fillmore Construction.

Led by Fillmore’s drive and hard-work ethic, the company has grown steadily over the years. He’s now helped by his two sons, Chris, also an engineer, and Jeff, who holds a bachelor of commerce degree.

“They’re aggressive and want to grow the company,” Fillmore says.

“Before, I looked after everything but I could only do so much.”

Fillmore Construction is active all over the northern half of the province, and has developed a particularly strong relationship with the remote community of Fort Chipewyan, on the shores of Lake Athabasca. Over the past few years the company put an addition on the town rink for an ice plant, built canopies for the fire hall, rebuilt part of a mixed-use facility and renovated the community centre.

“We’re on our eighth project there,” Fillmore says. “Our latest contract is $3.5 million in town beautification. We’re building walkways and fancy planters and landscaping.”

When Fillmore won the job to build a new elder care centre in Fort Chipewyan, in December 2012, he first met Sharon Downs. She’s a former hospital CEO and now a consultant on health care matters, including the building of new facilities. “Brent is very hands on,” she says. “He’s involved in the details of the project, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my many years.” She says there were times when he wasn’t happy with some aspect of the construction, and he would pull his guys aside and tell them to do it over again. “Getting things right is important to Brent.”

Fillmore concedes that there was some conflict between himself, Downs and others working on the job, but he says he was just living up to his conviction that things should be done right, and done right the first time. “The mechanical systems were not designed very well, so we were trying to fix them,” he says. “Sharon thought I was trying to cheapen it, build it easier. I said that’s not how I operate. I’m all about quality, and I don’t want to build it wrong.”

Downs tells the story of the building’s front door, which in the design was to be made of wood. But Fillmore felt the cold and extreme temperature f luctuations in Fort Chipewyan would cause it to shrink. “That was argued about at the site meetings for months,” she says. “I ultimately did my own research and he was right. It would have shrunk and we would have had problems down the road.” She says his passion helped the project become the pride of the community. “He is a perfectionist, and I am a bit as well, and that’s probably why we had our battles to begin with,” she says. “But the mark of having a good contractor is that I wouldn’t hesitate to use him again.”

Limited Downtime Brent Fillmore, 60, is not much for hobbies. “I don’t golf.

I don’t fish. I don’t hunt,” he says. “I should run but I don’t – it would kill me. I should be more fit, but I’m not. I’m probably working 75-80 hours per week.” His son and company vice-president, Chris, says he gardens sometimes, but it’s far from his passion. “One of his favourite things to do in life is to go to the auction and buy equipment,” he says.

And Fillmore and his wife, Terry, like to travel. In recent years, their travel time has increased to three months a year, usually in two-week bursts. “We go to see places, to see cities,” he says. “Last winter we went through the Baltic states – Latvia and Lithuania – and to Copenhagen, Oslo and St. Petersburg.”

Merit and Alberta Venture magazine thank the adjudication panel for assisting with the Contractor of the Year Awards.

This year’s judges include Bruce Moisey, former partner of Alberco Construction and a past chairman of the ARHCA, Carl Knowler, Canadian Western Bank, and Aminah Robinson, University of Alberta.

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

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BY TERRANCE OAKEY

2014 WAS ANOTHER BANNER YEAR FOR OPEN SHOP CONSTRUCTION IN CANADA

This last year was an exciting and

productive time for Merit Canada, and we’ve made significant progress on most of our key issues. Thanks to our collective efforts, there is now a guaranteed secretballot vote for union certification by employees of contractors who are in federally regulated sectors, and job targeting funds are being investigated by the Competition Bureau. Bill C-377, regarding union financial disclosure, is back on the national agenda. Merit Canada also had its most successful lobby day to date in 2014.

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

43

Open for Business

Merit Canada president Terrance Oakey with the Honourable Candice Bergen, and the Honourable KerryLynne D. Findlay during our 2014 Lobby Day reception

LOBBY DAY

On May 13, 2014, Merit Canada hosted another successful Hill day at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. We had more than 40 meetings with political figures throughout the day – including with the Prime Minister’s Office; Jason Kenney, minister of employment and social development; a nd Ch r i s A le x a nder, m i n i ster of immigration. We truly appreciate all the time they devoted to their discussions with Merit Canada.

Some other notable meetings include discussions with the office of the minister of finance, the office of the minister of infrastructure, communities and intergovernmental affairs and the Treasury Board. After the meetings, approximately 300 people gathered at the Metropolitan Brasserie for the evening reception.

Attend ing the reception was the Honourable Jason Kenney, the Honourable Candice Bergen, the Honourable KerryLy n ne D. Find lay, the Honourable Kellie Leitch, the Honourable Senator Carigan, and the Honourable Senator Runciman, among many other members of parliament.

Our focus this year was job targeting funds, open tendering, Bill C-525 (regarding the secret-ballot vote) and Bill C-377, which deals with union financial disclosure.

UNION SECRET-BALLOT BILL PASSES PARLIAMENT

One of Merit Canada’s key lobby efforts throughout 2014 was to remove “card 44

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

check” from the federal labour code.

Merit Canada welcomed the passage of Bill C-525 in early December, 2014. The Employees’ Voting Rights Act brings basic standards of democracy to the union certification process in federally regulated sectors, including secret-ballot voting. A person’s decision on whether or not to support a union drive is a deeply personal one that should be free of any possible intimidation or impropriety from employer and union organizers. The best way to guarantee that is through a secret-ballot vote.

Under current practice, a workplace can be unionized if a union provides the Labour Board with cards that it claims have been signed by employees representing 50 per cent plus one of the target marketplace. Merit Canada believes this system is ripe for intimidation and manipulation. Bill C-525 will require organizers to get expressions of support from 40 per cent of workers in federally regulated sectors in order to force a vote on union certification. That vote would then be held by secret ballot. If a majority of those who vote support joining the union, then certification proceeds.

Merit Canada wishes to thank those MPs and senators who have supported this legislation since its introduction in June 2013, and particularly its sponsor, M P Bla i ne Ca l k i ns. Secret ba l lots are fundamental to our democratic process and need to be applied to union certification votes.

JOB TARGETING FUNDS

Another area of focus for Merit Canada in 2014 was to educate both the public and government officials on the harmful impact that job targeting funds, MERFs a nd ot her a nt i- compet it ive f u nd s used to harm open shop contractors.

Merit Canada representatives met with officials from the Competition Bureau this year a nd they have launched a preliminary investigation into these funds. We are hopeful that this will lead the elimination of these funds to ensure a level playing field between open and closed shop companies.

These funds are used by unions and unionized employers to undermine the competitive bid process on potential projects as they are paid out to other unionized employers who apply for a wage subsidy in order to be able to win a bid to work on a particular project – usually in cases where that employer is bidding against a unionized competitor.

I n ef fec t , t hese f u nd s a re u sed to cross-subsidize workers on jobs where unionized employers have to compete against non-unionized employers for work. This is unfair, and we hope the Competition Bureau will end this practice once and for all.

UNION FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE ACT (C-377)

Merit Canada has led the fight to bring union financial disclosure to Canada, and despite some setbacks, the legislation

The Hon. Jason Kenney (then-minister of employment)

is back before the Senate, with committee hearings likely in early 2015. National media outlets are noticing our collective lobbying efforts as well and this will continue until the legislation is implemented.

Bi l l C -37 7 wou ld re qu i re labour organizations to report the following information annually: their financial statements, salaries paid to officers and employees, c e r t a i n i n fo r m a t io n a b o u t expenditures over $5,000, and

the percentage of time spent on lobbying and political activities.

The reporting requirements under Bill C-377 are not onerous and will be easy to implement with even the most basic accounting practices. If you work in a unionized workplace or profession, you are obliged to pay union dues even if you choose not to become a union member.

These funds are funneled into a wide range of causes, many of which have nothing to do with

collective bargaining. This right to tax comes with a basic requirement of transparency. Without it, one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy is undermined.

THANK YOU, MEMBERS

The board of directors of Merit C a n a d a w i shes to t ha n k it s members from all across Canada for ma k ing 2014 successf u l, and looks forward to an equally triumphant 2015.

Senator Runciman (chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee), Honourable Kellie Leitch (minister of labour), the Honourable Senator Michael MacDonald, and Gord Brown, MP.

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

45

BY THE

NUMBERS New housing price index

Construction price index

($ thousands)

for apartment buildings:

Calgary

Edmonton

Calgary

Edmonton

% change Calgary

% change Edmonton

2013

102.2

91.1

2013

169.2

164.3

1.7

1.2

2014

109.4

91.2

2014

171.6

167.12

1.4

1.8

Yearly value of all building permits

Housing starts in Alberta 2012 33,396

in Alberta ($ millions)

2013 36,011

2014 40,590

2013

17,358.0

2014

18,256.3

Value of building permits in Alberta (in $ millions)

Residential: Non-residential:

(SOURCE: Merit Contractors Association)

Alberta total:

Total person hours worked under the Merit Hour

Bank Benefit Plan: 2013 2014

Jan. 2014

Jan. 2015

1,183

915

554

354

1,737

1,268

Average number of employees covered under the

Merit Hour Bank Benefit Plan:

103,774,392 113, 277, 126

2013

2014

51,169

59, 597

Wholesale merchants’ sales by industry unadjusted ($ millions) across Canada 2013 83,110.5

91,126.2

Electrical, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning equipment and supplies

25,794.0

28,762.2

Metal service centres

18,259.5

20,284.1

Lumber, millwork, hardware and other building supplies

39,056.9

42,079.9

127,567.4

133,062.7

Machinery and equipment 46

2014

Building material and supplies

OPENMIND SPRING 2015

(SOURCE: Statistics Canada)

444 5TH AVE SW LOBBY AND +15 RENOVATION

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