BC election should address forced union membership

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By Renze Nauta

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British Columbia voters need to make fairness for all workers a major issue in the current provincial election campaign. While they’re at it, they could also tell their leaders they’re fed up with paying too much for provincial government infrastructure projects.

Blame for costly unfairness falls squarely on the BC government’s Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which favors a select group of 19 labor unions. My recently published study for the non-partisan think-tank Cardus shows that the CBA is unfair to BC construction workers, violates some of the best practices for implementing CBAs, and leads to higher costs and construction delays for taxpayers.

CBAs are usually supposed to increase employment and training opportunities for workers underrepresented in the construction industry. But the fundamental problem with British Columbia’s CBA is that it gives a monopoly to a select group of labor unions over certain government-funded infrastructure projects. Instead of allowing all British Columbia construction workers to work on such projects, the CBA requires employees to be (or to become) members of one of the favored unions. In this way, it excludes the 85 per cent of BC construction workers who would be ineligible for this work unless they sign one of the government’s preferred union cards.

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Forced union membership is deeply unfair to workers, who have a constitutional right to freedom of association, including the right to be represented by a union of their choice or by no union at all. Governments should not play favorites or support one kind of union to the exclusion of others. But that’s exactly what the CBA does.

As a result, it also increases costs. When the Cowichan District Hospital Replacement Project, which is subject to the CBA, reported a cost overrun of $559 million, then-finance minister Selina Robinson blamed labor shortages. It’s true there were shortages in the construction sector at the time, but the government contributed to them by restricting the project only to members of the favored unions. In a tight labor market, it should have done precisely the opposite and opened up the work to all qualified workers in the province.

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The CBA also clearly discourages firms from competing for government procurement projects. If a company’s workers are members of a non-favored union or not unionized at all, then it’s unlikely to bid on a contract. Reducing the number of bidders on government contracts means less competition, which leads to higher prices.

In fact, only two companies bid on the Cowichan District Hospital Replacement Project. We can’t know what the cost would have been with more competition, but it is reasonable to expect it would have been lower than today’s whopping $1.45 billion. The new hospital has run the largest cost overrun ever in dollar terms among large Infrastructure BC projects. It’s virtually certain British Columbians would have benefited significantly from healthier competition in this project.

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The CBA’s requirement that all workers join one of a preferred set of labor unions conflicts with other important priorities of the BC government, in particular its desire to hire Indigenous workers and local residents. This effect was on full display when the government denied Jon Coleman, a local Indigenous contractor from Cowichan Tribes, permission to work on the Cowichan hospital, despite his having previously been approved for it. Coleman was denied because his workers weren’t members of one of the 19 favored unions. In this way did policies supposedly designed to increase diversity and local employment actually lead to a local Indigenous contractor being kicked off the project. Eventually, the government did not relent. But if the CBA can promote fairness only by granting exceptions to its rules, that suggests the rules need to be changed.

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Whoever forms BC’s government after Oct. 19 will have to fix or replace the CBA. Fortunately, there are other models that follow best practices for CBAs so they don’t punish workers for choosing the “wrong” union or restrict contract bidding. The government should design a CBA that respects workers’ right to organize as they wish.

A proper CBA will encourage more competition among construction companies for government contracts, saving taxpayer dollars. It will also be fairer to all construction workers in BC But it’s up to BC voters to make this an election issue.

Renze Nauta directs work and economics programs at Cardus.

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