Gaining Ground Fall 2014
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<strong>Gaining</strong> <strong>Ground</strong><br />
Together with Your Local Union<br />
GROWTH • STABILITY • ENGAGEMENT • ACTION<br />
BUSINESS MANAGER BRIAN COCHRANE REPORTS<br />
OUR KEY ISSUES<br />
General Meeting hears<br />
updates on pipeline projects,<br />
coal mines, Temporary<br />
Foreign Workers and more<br />
“IF THAT PIPELINE<br />
GOES AHEAD<br />
IT WILL MEAN<br />
A LOT OF JOBS<br />
FOR OPERATING<br />
ENGINEERS.”<br />
IUOE LOCAL 115<br />
BUSINESS MANAGER<br />
BRIAN COCHRANE<br />
Pipelines, coal mines and the ongoing problems<br />
with Temporary Foreign Workers were key topics<br />
at the IUOE Local 115 General Membership Meeting<br />
held September 20, in addition to the office reopening<br />
events.<br />
Business Manager Brian Cochrane told several<br />
hundred members and guests in attendance that<br />
while the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway<br />
pipelines is the centre of opposition from environmental<br />
groups, it could provide years of employment<br />
for members.<br />
“If that pipeline goes ahead it will mean a lot of<br />
jobs for Operating Engineers,” Cochrane said.<br />
And Cochrane added that seeing Burnaby City<br />
Council – a traditional ally – oppose the proposed<br />
Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion is “very frustrating”.<br />
IUOE Canadian Regional Director Lionel Railton<br />
strongly agreed, saying that it is important to convey<br />
the message that the construction sector represents<br />
14% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product and<br />
that pipelines are critical to the economy.<br />
Cochrane also noted that IUOE Local 115 is working<br />
with other unions to defend BC’s coal sector<br />
from opposition by environmental groups and city<br />
councils in the Metro Vancouver area, pointing out<br />
the importance of the industry to the economy.<br />
The coal industry employs 26,000 people directly<br />
and indirectly, creates $3.2 billion in economic activity<br />
and generates $715 million in tax revenues for<br />
the province and BC cities and towns every year.<br />
The General Membership Meeting also heard updates<br />
on continuing problems with the federal Temporary<br />
Foreign Worker Program, despite the significant<br />
changes forced on the government after IUOE<br />
Local 115 went to court to fight HD Mining in Tumbler<br />
Ridge bringing in 200 coal miners from China.<br />
The recent announcement that Peace River Coal<br />
will go through a phased shutdown has devastated<br />
Tumbler Ridge, Cochrane said, which also has seen<br />
the recent closure of Walter Energy’s two mines in<br />
the area.<br />
Cochrane pledged that IUOE Local 115 will do<br />
everything it can to find other jobs for members at<br />
Peace River Coal but noted the irony caused by the<br />
Temporary Foreign Worker Program.<br />
“The only jobs left in coal in Tumbler Ridge will be<br />
those of the Temporary Foreign Workers from China,”<br />
Cochrane said, adding that the union has publicly<br />
called on HD Mining to hire some of the IUOE<br />
Local 115 members losing their jobs.<br />
The General Meeting also heard district reports<br />
from all Business Representatives, saw training<br />
certificates presented to several members and applauded<br />
those joining the 60-year IUOE membership<br />
club, as well as those reaching 50-year, 40-year<br />
and 30-year milestones – congratulations!<br />
Business Manager Brian Cochrane addresses members and guests at the General<br />
Membership Meeting on September 20th held at the OE Auditorium in Burnaby.<br />
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS • GAINING GROUND • NOVEMBER <strong>2014</strong>
ALL SET FOR THE<br />
NEXT 40 YEARS<br />
A big crowd joins IUOE General President Callahan<br />
to celebrate the September re-opening of Local<br />
115 headquarters after a major renovation<br />
Abig crowd joined IUOE General President<br />
James T. Callahan to celebrate the<br />
re-opening of the Local 115 headquarters<br />
after a major renovation turned the 43-year-old<br />
building inside out.<br />
The gathering on September 20 marked a milestone<br />
for the Local, which made a challenging decision<br />
to construct a new building and move from Vancouver<br />
to Burnaby in 1971.<br />
Business Manager Brian Cochrane welcomed<br />
General President Callahan, hundreds of members,<br />
“WE’VE COMBINED<br />
AN AMAZING<br />
HISTORY WITH THE<br />
FOUNDATION FOR A<br />
GREAT FUTURE!”<br />
IUOE LOCAL 115<br />
BUSINESS MANAGER<br />
BRIAN COCHRANE<br />
IUOE Local 115 Table Officers with<br />
General President lowering a time capsule at the<br />
September 20 General Membership Meeting. From<br />
Left to Right: Recording Secretary Brian Lefebvre;<br />
President Wayne Mills; Business Manager Brian<br />
Cochrane; General President James T. Callahan; Vice<br />
President Brad Randall; Treasurer Frank Carr;<br />
and Financial Secretary Don Swerdan.
The updated IUOE Local 115<br />
headquarters underlines our<br />
union’s confidence as we<br />
move forward<br />
guests and especially some of the Local’s former<br />
officers who made the decision to construct a new<br />
office on the site of a plant nursery in 1971, a then<br />
sparsely-populated Burnaby.<br />
“We were moving from Vancouver to the sticks,<br />
as Burnaby was seen then. 43 years later we got<br />
some prime real estate as a result,” Cochrane told the<br />
crowd.<br />
“We took a building with a 43-year history and updated<br />
it for the next 40 years,” Cochrane said.<br />
Cochrane said with the renovations complete,<br />
the union is ready to make more history as British<br />
Columbia gears up for several major construction<br />
projects that will depend on the skills of the Local’s<br />
membership.<br />
“Now we’re ready for another big step forward<br />
in our Local’s long record of success – with a new,<br />
modern and very functional office we can serve the<br />
members better than ever as we plan for growth,” he<br />
explained.<br />
Callahan spoke highly of the accomplishments of<br />
the Local and the foresight members had to create<br />
the then-new headquarters in 1971.<br />
“This building underscores the success of Local<br />
115; it gives everyone a sense of home and history,”<br />
Callahan said. “It’s great to see the tribute to the older<br />
members who put their skin on the line for the local.”<br />
“This is where a member comes at the best of<br />
times and the worst of times, Callahan added, pointing<br />
out that members access health and welfare and<br />
other services through the union office.<br />
Cochrane and Callahan paid tribute to past Business<br />
Managers Mike Parr and the late Fred Randall,<br />
who were among those responsible for the decision<br />
in 1971 to purchase a large plot of land for just<br />
$35,000 to build the office, on land now worth millions.<br />
Brad Randall, IUOE Local 115 Vice-President, said of<br />
his father: “Fred Randall brought the land purchase<br />
to the members for approval at a general meeting -<br />
and there was lots of debate!”<br />
And former Business Manager Gary Kroeker<br />
agreed, saying things were more challenging in the<br />
1970s.<br />
“THIS BUILDING<br />
UNDERSCORES<br />
THE SUCCESS OF<br />
LOCAL 115. IT GIVES<br />
EVERYONE A SENSE<br />
OF HOME AND<br />
HISTORY.”<br />
IUOE GENERAL<br />
PRESIDENT JAMES T.<br />
CALLAHAN<br />
“People have a lot of confidence in the way things<br />
are done now,” Kroeker said by comparison.<br />
Former Local 115 President Tony Tennessy, a 50-<br />
year member, pointed out the enormous value in<br />
buying the land for the office in 1971: “The Burnaby<br />
Lake Greenhouses ran up to Canada Way and we<br />
bought the nursery for $35,000. We sold the corner<br />
lot for $180,000 a few years later!”<br />
Tennessy said of the building, which replaced the<br />
IUOE office at 58th and Fraser in Vancouver: “There’s<br />
a lot of history here. And this building was used by a<br />
lot of labour organizations for their meetings.”<br />
Kroeker agreed, saying: “This has been the hub of<br />
the wheel of the Operating Engineers. This was the<br />
magnet.”<br />
After the General Membership Meeting, Callahan,<br />
Cochrane and other officers participated in lowering<br />
a time capsule into the ground in front of the newlyrenovated<br />
building with a miniature crane.<br />
A SPECIAL SWEARING IN FOR NEW IUOE MEMBERS<br />
IUOE Local 115 new members take their oath and are sworn in by General<br />
President James T. Callahan on September 20th at the General Membership<br />
Meeting.
A few scenes<br />
from our GMM<br />
Hundreds of IUOE members attended the<br />
September General Membership Meeting<br />
which featured the union’s General President,<br />
James T. Callahan and the reopening<br />
of our newly renovated building.<br />
.<br />
UNION ATTACK BILL BACK<br />
Federal Conservatives reintroduce discriminatory bill<br />
in Senate. C-377 would require unions to report all<br />
transactions worth more than $5000<br />
Like a vampire rising from the grave, the federal<br />
Conservative government’s anti-union<br />
Bill C-377 has returned to the Senate, creating<br />
a second challenge for Canada’s labour<br />
movement.<br />
“Bill C-377 is intended to unfairly penalize<br />
workers and their unions by imposing<br />
extensive financial reporting rules no other<br />
professional organizations face - not lawyers,<br />
architects or doctors - just unions,” says IUOE<br />
Local 115 Business Manager Brian Cochrane.<br />
“We have to stop Bill C-377 once and for<br />
all by working with the Building Trades, the<br />
Canadian Labour Congress, provinces and<br />
employers to give the Conservatives a clear<br />
message - no way,” said Cochrane. “This is a<br />
thinly-disguised attempt to punish unions<br />
and their members rather than working with<br />
us to improve the economy.”<br />
IUOE General President James T. Callahan,<br />
speaking at Local 115’s General Membership<br />
Meeting in September, pledged the International’s<br />
support.<br />
“My commitment is to help our Canadian<br />
brothers, to fight right to work and<br />
Bill C-377,” Callahan said to loud applause.<br />
“When it comes to Operating Engineers,<br />
there’s no border. If there’s a fight for Operating<br />
Engineers in Banff, there’s a fight for<br />
Operating Engineers in Florida.”<br />
Bill C-377 has been heavily promoted by<br />
the anti-union contractors association Merit<br />
Canada, the Independent Contractors and<br />
Businesses Association [ICBA] in BC, Labour-<br />
Watch and other organizations intent on<br />
hurting labour for their own profit.<br />
Former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal<br />
led the charge against Bill C-377 in 2013,<br />
succeeding in persuading other Conservative<br />
Senators to amend the legislation so severely<br />
that it’s Tory sponsor said it had been<br />
“gutted”.<br />
Senator Segal said last year: “This bill before<br />
us.... is really — through drafting sins of<br />
omission and commission — an expression<br />
of statutory contempt for the working men<br />
and women in our trade unions and for the<br />
trade unions themselves and their right under<br />
federal and provincial law to organize. It<br />
is divisive and unproductive.”<br />
But after Segal retired, the Conservatives<br />
brought back C-377 for another try.<br />
Bill C-377 would require unions to report<br />
on a Canada Revenue Agency website any<br />
financial transaction over $5,000 and file<br />
onerously detailed financial statements.<br />
The Canadian and Quebec bar associations<br />
have questioned its constitutionality and the<br />
Globe and Mail newspaper denounced the<br />
bill as a “witch hunt.”<br />
IUOE Local 115 will continue opposing Bill<br />
C-377 – check our website for updates – at<br />
www.iuoe115.com<br />
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF<br />
OPERATING ENGINEERS<br />
4333 Ledger Ave.<br />
Burnaby BC V5G 3T3<br />
If you have any questions, comments or input, please contact us.<br />
Call 604.291.8831 or 1.888.486.3115. Email us media@iuoe115.com.<br />
Visit our website at www.iuoe115.com<br />
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40011378<br />
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS • GAINING GROUND • NOVEMBER <strong>2014</strong>