IUOE News Spring 2014

Our economy
depends on ongoing
development
Craig McIntosh,
Member Representative
2014 is going to be an important year for the Operating
Engineers and the B.C. economy—if we get the green light for
construction on some of the long talked about and studied
major projects across our province.
The Site C Dam in Fort St. John, the
Northern Gateway Pipeline, and an LNG
plant in Kitimat or Prince Rupert are all
multi-billion dollar projects that will
provide many years of work for Operating Engineers. The
projected construction time for Site C alone is seven years.
These projects, and in fact all projects that get proposed
these days, go through intense scrutiny from environmentalists,
special interest groups, and affected people and their
communities—it takes longer to approve the project than it
does to construct it!
An example of this is the Jumbo Glacier Resort in southeast
B.C. which has been talked about and studied for 20 years
now. In 2012 approval was given by the B.C. government to
build a $450 million year-round ski resort; a local First Nation
is now challenging the approval of the resort in B.C.’s Supreme
Court.
In B.C. we depend on our natural resources to generate
wealth. The mining, oil and gas sectors provide good paying
District One
construction jobs, along with security and training opportunities
for our members. Their improved income and buying
power is returned as an investment into the local and provincial
economy. These companies they work for pay taxes and
royalties to our government for the natural resources they
profit from, and many are publicly traded on the stock market.
Stock in these companies is held by pension funds, such as the
Canada Pension Plan, which working Canadians are part of
and will one day benefit from.
When we look at this economic circle, it’s self-defeating to
challenge every development proposal. Our economy will
suffer when investors cancel projects not only because of the
costs of the project itself, but the ongoing, never-ending costs
they have to incur during legal proceedings,
consultation efforts, and study after
These days, it takes
longer to approve a study after study.
project than construct it! On January 7th every year the Building
Trades meet at the Bentall Memorial Plaque
to remember the Bentall Tower IV construction tragedy,
which took the lives of four carpenters on January 7th, 1981.
The fly form they were working on (which was years later
found to be defective) broke away from the building and these
workers fell 36 storeys to their tragic death.
This year a video produced by WorkSafeBC and the Labour
Heritage Centre was shown to the public for the first time.
This 10 minute video can also now be seen on the Local 115
website, and talks about the tragedy through the eyes of
surviving family members, and the inquest that followed.
It is a moving documentary well worth watching. Remembering
this tragedy reminds us that workers’ safety must
always be our first priority when balanced against pressures to
rush completion or beat budget projections.
Work safe.
On January 7, 2014, the 33rd anniversary of the Bentall 4 tragedy
memorial service hosted representatives from industry
and government to speak on workplace safety challenges. A
moving video was also shown, commemorating the lives lost,
which can be viewed at www.iuoe115.com
Brother Dave Krauter working on the Evergreen Line.
News March 2014 5