Good day Union Family
As we all know there are only a few issues that are more polarizing in this Local than name hires and more specifically Foreman name hires.
Currently, under the Provincial Construction Collective Agreement there is the ability for a contractor to hire by name any person who will be engaged as a Foreman. There is no maximum number of Foreman a contractor can have on a project, and there is no specified length of time a member has to be a Foreman after a name hire. The only stipulation on the crew size is, there will be one Foreman for the first three Employees and can supervise up to fifteen, and one Forman for every fifteen employees thereafter. This was put into place to stop companies from having jobs with no Foreman or having massive crews with only one member being a Foreman. However, we know times have changed, in most cases a large crew for a Foreman would be ten people.
The Local is well aware that we have contractors that abuse the Foreman name hire process. As a Union we follow up on the Foreman name hires to ensure that they are paid Foreman rate and not put down to Journeyman once they complete orientation. In most cases the contractors make sure it is not obvious that they never intended to have the member as a Foreman, but when they do grievances are filed and are usually resolved by the member being made a Foreman. This has also been a huge issue at bargaining for the next Provincial Construction Collective Agreement.
No matter what side of the conversation you fall on everyone understands what some contractors are doing isn’t “right”, but it is not a violation of the Collective Agreement. So, in the end the people that have the power to stop the contractors that are abusing the Foreman name hire is our members. If our members don’t accept Foreman name hires when they know it is questionable that they will be Foreman. If members stop calling soliciting name hires. Then the contractors will be forced to change their process.
In solidarity
Kevin Lecht
Business Manager