June 19, 2006

Labour

Monopoly will cost Hamilton millions

City caught off guard when union obtained its certification

DON PROCTER

correspondent

HAMILTON

A union monopoly on carpentry work at the City of Hamilton — created at the blink of an eye — caught the city by surprise, leaving its bean counters to estimate that taxpayers could be on the hook for an extra $5 to $10 million to cover annual bills for carpentry-related contracts.

At issue is the certification of the Carpenters Union Local 18 which happened last fall. Several members of the Local, who had worked for the municipality for more than 20 years, were facing a new fair-wage agreement with the municipality that would leave them with fewer benefits and lower pay than Local 18 members working elsewhere.

As a result, the Local sent a notice of certification to the city. The city, which legally had to acknowledge the certification drive within five days to avoid automatic certification, didn’t.

“The notice never got into the right hands and the certification went through,” says Mark Baseggio, executive director of the Open Shop Contractors Association (OSCA), a group which is now shut out of bidding on construction contracts tendered by the municipality.

“We put the certification through because we wanted a legal process for bargaining and representing our members,” says Barry Walker, business manager of Local 18.

Baseggio says that Local 18’s certification is just the tip of the unionization iceberg. He fears Hamilton is headed down the same road as Toronto, where nine collective agreements are in place, making it impossible for open shop contractors to bid on any construction-related work.

The municipality is mounting a legal challenge, that some councilors suggest is futile, to bring down the certification. The Ontario Labour Relations Board has already denied one appeal by the city, ruling that the union followed due process in its certification move.

Councillor David Mitchell says while it is unfair to shut out “the many hard-working non-unionized contractors” from bidding on city contracts, there will be an uproar by unions “in this union town” in the city’s attempt to decertify.

At the crux of the issue is that a section in the Ontario Labour Relations Act allows cities to act as construction employers — whence they can be certified by labour unions.

“They got blindsided,” explains Baseggio. “The city has hired a lawyer to do a judicial review and launch an application for the municipality to be given non-construction employer status to prevent this from happening again.”

Hamilton will be the first municipality in Ontario applying for non-construction employer status. It will be a tough one to win, Baseggio says.

“The labour board is traditionally pretty strict and tough to get a ruling from.”

Walker says it is offensive that taxpayer dollars are being spent on a legal battle to fight this issue.

“No city should fight it and everything provincially and federally should be done with legitimate unionized companies that aren’t here one day and opened up the next day under a different name.”

Baseggio says the municipality’s stats indicating it could cost an additional $5 to $10 million for contracts should be reason enough to do battle.

Walker says those numbers are a “bunch of ...”

The union has seen the city face cost overruns on contracts in the past, points out Walker.

“I know the city is a big corporation — with too many fingers in the pie sometimes — but our contractors are at a disadvantage in pricing jobs even at a stipulated fair wage.

“Who monitors the fair wage to ensure things are paid properly? When you get a sub to a sub to a sub, you know what happens,” Walker adds.

Baseggio argues there will be situations where the city has to bring in labour from other cities “at great expense” because of a capacity shortage in Hamilton.

Councillor Dave Braden suggests the fact that the certification caught the municipality by surprise is a sign of municipal mismanagement.

He says the municipality is underfunding the maintenance of its properties by about $100 million annually while spending $90 million a year beyond its revenues.

“We’re probably the highest taxed municipality in southern Ontario and we have the most people living below the poverty level.”

Local 18’s certification “is a small thorn in our side. We are a porcupine with a whole lot of thorns (quills) already,” says Braden.

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