Category: Breaking News

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New Masks In from IU and Local 2 for Members

We have 4 new masks based on member surveys last month. These local 2 custom masks are three layers thick with a pocket to squeeze in an N-95 or P-100 mask. We are collecting a list of member preference and mailing these masks out with the newsletter in May. If you haven’t already listed your preference on the face book page for TTTA please send an email to ghigginson@bac2bc.org or info@bac2bc.org with your preference. One each until all members have them.

We also have available the International face masks and neck gaiters which we will give out while supplies last, one of each for every member interested. See the photos below for the masks and their “number”.

In solidarity, Geoff Higginson

  • BAC Local 2 Mask 1
  • BAC Local 2 Mask 2
  • BAC Local 2 Mask 3
  • BAC Local 2 Mask 4
  • IU Logo Mask 5
  • Photos of Masks and Gaiter
    IU Logo Gaiter Mask 6
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Covid 19 Positive in an Alberta Camp?

If you have symptoms and/or have tested positive for COVID 19 in an Alberta Camp job and are forced to self isolate you may be eligible for WorkSafe Alberta claim for lost wages if the infection occurred on the job. Local 1 AB, Business Manager and financial Secretary Alan Ramsay should be contacted. Local 1AB has a workplace advocate, Mr. Bob Iskiw, who will be taking up the case for COVID 19 wage loss claims for members working under the 1AB collective agreement. Local 1AB can be contacted at 1-780-426-7545.

In BC if at an industrial camp the contractor has to provide daily wages if you are self isolating. Contact Geoff Higginson at 778-847-2472 or the Hall at 1-855-584-2021.

If you are returning from Alberta and intend to accept work on a BC job, please, monitor yourself for symptoms and use the BC Government online symptom checker (click here) to determine whether or not you should get a covid 19 test. Don’t take a chance at bringing the virus to a shutdown in BC…everyone will suffer if we get a job shut down.

Please get to your hospital emergency room if you start having difficulty breathing. Don’t take any chances brothers and sisters.

In Solidarity, Geoff Higginson

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COVID 19 and Travel

2021-05-01 Travel for work is allowed. You can travel back and forth through the health regions for work. If you go through a traffic stop all they can ask for is the driver’s id and home address and where he is going. That’s it, they cannot make a record of your travel and location etc., unless they suspect you of trying to make non-essential travel. Call the hall or Geoff Higginson if you have any problems.

2021-04-27 Current rules and orders allow you to travel in and between health regions in BC. You should not require anything other than telling law enforcement that you are travelling to work, if you do want a clearance slip we will send one. Contact info@bac2bc.org or outside regular hours ghigginson@bac2bc.org. Or Call 778-847-2472.

Currently our work is considered essential and travelling between health authorities is allowed if it is your work. We have contacted the government today and were advised that if there are any changes to the rules for travel when you are going to work the government will announce these changes on Friday probably just after noon.

The union will draft a “clearance letter” that we can issue to prove you have been dispatched to work and will work with the contractors to ensure there are no problems with your transit to the jobs you are hired on. If you are travelling send an email to ghigginson@bac2bc.org to register so we can send you a personalized clearance letter if necessary.

We are hearing anecdotal accounts of exposures and quarantines in Alberta in the patch. Alberta does not have rules guaranteeing daily wages when quarantined. BC does for any of our industrial camps named in the Provincial health Officers Orders and Guidance. If you are in Alberta working contact Bricklayers Local 1 AB for official information.

BAC Local 1 Alberta 1-780-426-7545.

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New Health and Welfare Improvements

Coming this fall, direct pay for para medical like eyeglasses, chiropractic, pharma, dental. New plan card and a phone app for those who want to use it. Take a photo and send in the claim and get payment by direct deposit. More info soon.

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Site Specific Indoc at Home

May 23, 2020 Update…CIMS Project Manager at Domtar says doing the indocs at home are optional (We say NO period). If you ended up doing one at home record the day and time you started and the finish time if longer than 4 hours. If your pay detail doesn’t show the hours for the indoc notify the union hall.

The statement below was sent to the CLRA and Contractors via email this evening. (May 21, 2020) re: On Site Indoc Only

Doing site indoctrinations from home is not contemplated in our collective agreements and thereby has to be negotiated or enabled.

Our position is that no member can be required to provide a computer or laptop just to do an indoctrination.

Indoctrinations are work for the employer and therefore have to be paid.  They are subject to a minimum of 4 hours pay or time worked if over 4 hours.  They are subject to overtime rates as per collective agreement for work outside of the normal work week which amounts to double time.

Members cannot be compelled to do these indoctrinations at home because they have not been negotiated and have to be mutually agreed to under enabling.

In the past BAC Local 2 BC has enabled online indoctrinations for members who were capable as long as they were paid 4 hours minimum.  Since the contractors have now insisted that [they] do not have to pay four hours minimum, we do not … therefore withdraw the enabling of this, to the extent any such enabling has existed. 

Indoctrinations can be done on site only unless some other enabling agreement is reached with the Union.

This union and some other trades are willing to sit down and discuss negotiating some sort of enabling specific to an upcoming job or jobs and perhaps to other jobs generally.

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BC Building Trades Unions Go After Construction Site Sanitation Conditions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2020

Building Trades Council calls for public inquiry into construction site sanitation

Pandemic has exposed a “culture of non-compliance”

The BC Building Trades Council is calling for a public inquiry into health and safety in the construction sector.

The inquiry is one of the council’s recommendations to the Premier’s Economic Recovery Task Force, which brings together leaders from labour, business, First Nations and the non-profit sector to inform the province’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The pandemic has exposed a culture of non-compliance in certain segments of our industry,” said Andrew Mercier, BCBT executive director. “Construction site sanitation only improved after WorkSafeBC launched an aggressive inspection initiative in response to the concerns we raised.”

Mercier warns that without continued enforcement, sanitation practices will return to their poor pre-pandemic state.

“The legacy of COVID-19 should be safe and healthy construction sites where sanitation and hygiene practices abide WorkSafeBC’s occupational health and safety regulations, and the orders of the public health officer,” said Mercier. “Construction sites that fail to do so should not be tolerated.”

BCBT, which represents 35,000 unionized construction workers, has been advocating on behalf of construction workers from across the sector (members and non-members) on site sanitation since the start of the pandemic. Workers called and emailed the Building Trades to report inadequate washroom facilities, a lack of running water, no soap or hand sanitizer, workers sharing tools and working too close to each other, and workers coming to their sites visibly sick.

“We have had no hand sanitizer, no provisions for hand-washing, and no safety talks about hygiene and the pandemic,” wrote one worker. “People are sneezing and coughing and obviously sick and are not being asked to go home.”

Another worker reported the only hand-washing station on a site with over 50 people being a hand-crank garden hose attached to a piece of wood offering only cold water.

WorkSafeBC introduced a new “inspectional initiative” to address sanitation on construction sites, which was a positive first step, said Mercier. While acknowledging those contractors who prioritize worker health and safety and ensured their sites were compliant with regulations and public health orders, Mercier says industry regulators must remain vigilant to prevent a backslide.

“We must do everything we can to ensure people are working safely,” said Mercier. “The construction sector is essential to our economic recovery – ensuring construction workers are safe and healthy isn’t optional.”

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During the Work Slowdown

Now is a good time for health and safety training and apprenticeship training. Our apprenticeship training will soon be available with an online component to handle the classroom work and testing and scheduled practical sessions using proper physical distancing to protect your health. Let’s make lemon-aid out of this COVID19 lemon we have to chew on right now. Contact Sharon at the office 604-584-2021 or Geoff at 778-847-2472 to get you name on the list for apprenticeship training. Check back on this site for links to online health and safety training including the new Regional Safety Training Course. for now, enform/ossa (the new Energy Safety canada group) has extended the expiry date of all tickets that expire in the first half of 2020 to September.