Good day Union Family Members

Over the last few days I have been contacted by Members, Contractors, Clients and the GPMC regarding a possible walk off at maintenance sites in the Fort McMurray area.

I will start with, do NOT walk off the job, do NOT call in sick, do NOT take any job action. Our Local, the same as every other Construction Union, are bound through the Maintenance Agreements that are currently in place. Having a contract in place requires the Union Membership to continue to perform their duties as assigned no matter what the situation is with bargaining the Construction Collective Agreement. As such the position of Local 110 is that we do not support any illegal work stoppage or strike by any trade or union. The Membership of our Local are expected to continue to work on all construction and maintenance sites, where we have a legal and binding Collective Agreement in place.

Bargaining is not an easy task at the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. However even in an economic down turn there are opportunities. Years ago our Union made the choice to focus our agreements and membership on working in Heavy Industrial in Fort McMurray and Edmonton, outside of that we have almost no presence. With this slow down our Local has the opportunity to move into markets we have long given up to the Nonunion and CLAC. However to do that we need to hold onto our current projects or Local 110 will not have the resources to expand in our industry.

In Solidarity

Kevin Lecht