Lives in Limbo

FOR ALEX MCMANUS, LANDING A JOB working on the largest public infrastructure project in the history of British Columbia came at the perfect time.

“I was laid off from my previous job and my EI was about to run out,” says Alex, a long-time Local 68 member, steward, and one of the first to arrive for work on BC Hydro’s Clean Energy Project, more commonly known as the Site C dam. “CLAC phoned me up and asked if I wanted to go up north and work on the dam. I jumped at the chance! I knew a lot of people who were out of work, so this project couldn’t have come at a better time for us.”

But the promise of a secure, high-paying job for many years is now in jeopardy following the May 9, 2017, BC provincial election. The Site C dam was one of the major campaign issues in the election, with battle lines drawn between the governing Liberal Party, who pledged to finish the project on time and on budget, and the NDP and Green Party, who wanted to cancel the project.

At the time of publication, all eyes were on the NDP and Green Party who formed a coalition government—the first in the province in 65 years. If the coalition succeeds, and the parties go ahead with their plan to quash the project, it will also quash the hopes and dreams of CLAC members who have made life-changing decisions and financial commitments based on their employment on the project. Not only is the future of Site C in limbo, but so are the lives of over 1,000 Local 68 members.

THE SITE C HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT, located on the Peace River in northeastern BC, seven kilometres from Fort St. John, is already well underway. The project broke ground in the summer of 2015 and is expected to take nine years to complete and employ over 2,000 union and nonunion workers.

Local 68 members working on the project are employed by Peace River Hydro Partners (PRHP), which is responsible for the $1.8 billion main civil works portion of the project, the largest component of the $8.8 billion Site C dam project. The dam is the third hydroelectric dam to be built on the Peace River.

The massive W. A. C. Bennett Dam—one of the largest earth-filled dams in the world—was opened in 1968 upriver from Fort St. John. In 1980, the Peace Canyon Dam was opened downriver from the Bennett dam.

The two dams account for 29 percent of BC Hydro’s total generating capacity in the province. As early as the late 1980s, studies were undertaken to assess the feasibility of constructing a third dam along the Peace River. That project was shelved for decades until serious discussions began in 2008, when BC Hydro began to reconsider expanding its dam capacity on the river to meet future demand for electricity.

In October 2014, Site C was given environmental approval by the federal and provincial governments, and the decision to go ahead with constructing the project was announced later that year. Construction is expected to be completed by 2024.

Once completed, the Site C dam will generate 1,100 megawatts of electricity—enough to power the equivalent of 450,000 homes. Because Site C will use water that is already stored behind the W. A. C. Bennett Dam in the Williston Reservoir, the environmental impact of the project is relatively minimal. Only about 3,800 hectares of agricultural land will be affected due to flooding. Site C will generate approximately 35 percent of the power of the Bennett dam with only 5 percent of the reservoir area.

Despite these facts, the Site C project is not without controversy. From the very beginning, certain environmental groups and politicians were opposed to building the dam. They argued that alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power could be used instead of building an $8.8 billion dam. The cost of wind and solar power has dropped significantly in recent years, they said. As well, concern was raised over the impact on land used by local farmers and Indigenous peoples.

Others promoted the need for clean, cheap energy for the future. They argued that the Site C dam will help Canada and British Columbia meet the carbon emission standards agreed to in the Paris Climate Agreement. As society moves away from fossil fuels, specifically in the transportation sector with electric vehicles gaining popularity, the increase in demand for electricity will be huge. BC Hydro estimates that electricity demand will grow by 40 percent in the next 20 years.

SINCE PRHP BEGAN MOVING SOIL in March 2016, Local 68 members have been streaming to Site C from all over BC. Jorge Francis, a CLAC member since 2007, recently began work on the project as a skilled labourer.

“I am grateful for this job and what CLAC has done for me over the years,” says Jorge, who is from Vancouver. “It’s tough to be away from home and my family, but my wife is very happy with the cheques I bring home.”

Jorge was one of many workers from BC who worked up in the oilsands in Fort McMurray, Alberta, before the price of oil dipped significantly and work dried up in the region. Like most members employed by PRHP, he stays in the 1,600-bed camp right on site. He works 14 days straight and then flies back to Vancouver for 7 days off before repeating the cycle.

“We used to work 21 days in a row and then be off for 7,” says Spencer Lee, a fuel truck driver from Kelowna. “But that was killing the guys. I can handle the 14 days in a row. It does get tough to stay up though when I’m on night shift. You have to keep your wits about you.”

CLAC negotiated with the company to amend the shift, arguing that 21 days on was too long to work in one stretch. Eventually, the company agreed with the union and amended the shift to the current 14 days on, 7 days off, for the betterment of workers.

While the shift schedule was foremost in workers’ minds early on, today it’s the uncertainty over the very future of the project that weighs most heavily on CLAC members at the Site C dam.

“I work alongside members who have made plans to purchase homes and take out mortgages,” says Helder Martins, a steward and equipment operator from Port Moody, BC. “But they don’t feel that they can now because of the uncertainty that the NDP and Green Party have created around the project.”

Danielle Musil is one of those members.

“Before Site C, I was certain that I would need to leave Fort St. John—the community where I grew up—to find work,” says Danielle, an equipment operator who lives in Chetwynd, BC. “The project gave me stability and peace of mind. It’s upsetting to think that I may need to go through the process of uprooting myself, leaving my family and friends again.”

Alex, an equipment operator who’s from Pitt Meadows, BC, in the Lower Mainland and travels up to Fort St. John each turnaround, also feels the anxiety that’s become prevalent on the site.

“People are on pins and needles about the government wavering,” he says. “They’re scared they’ll lose their homes.”

The uncertainty has created a lot of distraction on site and a lot of questions for stewards to handle from worried members.

“Every single day I get inundated with questions from members about what’s going on,” says Forrest Berry, a steward and equipment operator from Aldergrove, BC. “They ask me, ‘Should I buy a house? Should I take a loan out for a car?’ These are major financial decisions people are having to make, and they don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s frustrating for everyone.”

CLAC HAS LOBBIED HARD on behalf of the Local 68 members and other workers at Site C. The union sent letters to the leaders of the NDP and the Green Party requesting a meeting to discuss members’ concerns and to lobby the incoming government. CLAC BC Director David Prentice and BC Government Relations Director Ryan Bruce met with Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver and his caucus on June 21 in Fort St. John.

“We voiced the concerns of our members,” says David. “They’re able to support their families and their communities because of Site C and the expectation of long term work. The uncertainty is creating huge amounts of stress in their lives.”

It seems almost unthinkable that the government would shut the Site C project down. Nearly $2 billion has already been spent so far, and over $2 billion more has been committed in signed contracts and agreements going forward. Plus, even if the site was closed down immediately, the cost of environmental restoration could easily top another billion dollars.

If the project is shut down, the reverberations will be felt not just by those working on it but throughout the BC economy. For years, BC has been trying to lure investors to the province to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, the cost of which is in the tens of billions of dollars. What kind of message would shutting down a massive infrastructure project like Site C send to investors?

“As Horgan and Weaver signal the possible cancellation of this project, investors are watching,” says Ryan. “My guess is they are drawing a big red circle around BC. We cannot afford to be sending signals of instability and flip-flopping on major projects. The jobs and taxes that these projects generate to support our communities is significant and should not be squandered.”

CLAC sponsored a petition that was circulated at Site C to further lobby the government to move forward with the project. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and the government will make a clear-headed, rational decision. The future of the province—and the future of thousands of Local 68 members whose lives are in limbo—is hanging on it.  

Raid!

Just as the number of CLAC members on the Site C project was ramping up to close to 1,000 at the beginning of 2017, a group of unions—the Teamsters, Operating Engineers, and Labourers, collectively known as the TEL group—attempted a raid of Local 68 members to try and convince them to join their unions.

“TEL thought to themselves, hey, we’re here, we’ve won,” says Forrest Berry, a steward who has been through a few of these types of raids in his over 20 years as a CLAC member. “But quite quickly their attitude changed. Their raid simply didn’t get any traction. Instead, it brought out the best in the CLAC members on site. We had to decide, who is the better union for us? We overwhelmingly chose CLAC.”

“We watched the TEL group throw everything they had into this raid,” says CLAC BC Construction Coordinator Kevin Kohut. “It was frustrating for our members to have to endure their pressure tactics. Time and time again, our members told us they were solidly behind what we as a union are doing on site.”

After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars pestering Local 68 members on site and at every major airport across the province for months, TEL fell well short in their raid attempt. In a BC Labour Relations Board hearing in May 2017, their application was dismissed by the board.