Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Past, Present, and Future

A 50-year connection shows the long-lasting impact of a labour relations model based on dignity, trust, and respect

By Henk de Zoete, National Board President

In 2000, our family finally decided to have air conditioning put into our late 1960s-era home. During this past summer’s weeks of humid 40-degree weather in Ontario, that 25-year-old air conditioning unit conked out. So, I contacted the company that had installed it, one that CLAC Local 6 had organized around the time our house was built.

As a Local 6 representative, I became involved with this company when it was undergoing a major review of “right sizing” and “right revenue production.” With assistance from an outside consultant, I led our union bargaining committee team of installation mechanics and maintenance and repair technicians through the months’ long examination and reconfiguration. The company ultimately survived and thrived through many ownership changes, Local 6 being a dependable constant.

Within a few hours of calling the company to have a look at our AC unit, a technician texted that he was on his way. He was young, well qualified, and enthusiastic about diagnosing what had gone wrong with it. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the unit had lost its coolant.

Could the leak be traced and repaired? He replied that might be possible, but it would take many hours and dollars, and we’d still have a 25-year-old unit with coolant that was either unavailable or no longer legal. With this helpful information, we decided to replace it.

During our interaction, I asked the technician how he liked his work and the company. “Great!” he said. “Best company I’ve ever worked for. We’ve got a union, and it does a good job for us. We just got a great new contract!”

A few days later, we finalized details for a replacement system. Within days, a two-member installation crew arrived to remove the old AC unit along with the 25-year-old furnace, which had lost much of its “high efficiency.” We decided to make the switch to a heat pump, which runs on electricity instead of fossil fuel.

Since I had also been pleased with the crew back in 2000, I shared about my past involvement with the company as the union representative for its employees. As it turned out, the present crew leader knew the person who had been involved with the original installation crew 25 years ago!

We got to chatting about the company, the work, and the union. He acknowledged that at one point in the recent past, the workforce had been talking about switching to a union that was specific to their trade.

When I asked why they were still with Local 6, he responded that it was all about the topnotch representation they’d received over the years and the terrific job their current representative had done to help them negotiate their new, excellent collective agreement.

As I reflected on this rather common equipment replacement, and my involvement with these two crews 25 years apart, I couldn’t help but think that the past came forward into the present—capped off with new, forward-looking technology. All the while, these two installation crews and I had been linked through our common bond to Local 6, the union that has faithfully represented this company’s employees through thick and thin for more than 50 years.

Past, Present, and Future

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