Transport Committee on April 30th, 2013

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

My question to you is, the unions in my city have done an incredible job participating in the building of the city, but we have an untendered project in Toronto and I simply want to get your thoughts on this air-rail link between the airport and Union Station that was largely done--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Cash, your time is up. We now move to Mr. Holder, for five minutes.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'd like to talk about infrastructure today. I don't want to hear about the Rand formula or whether we love unions or not, or my father is stronger than yours, and so on. Is it possible to have a good discussion on the future of infrastructure? I don't have any problem talking about open or closed bids, but for God's sake can we be serious today, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's what we're here for, Mr. Coderre. I hope we hear some of that as well.

Mr. Holder.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I share Mr. Coderre's thoughts. It's unfortunate that certain replacements on the committee haven't really raised the level of debate.

One thing struck me when I heard the questions Mr. Coderre talked about. I want to make a point: collusion is collusion; bad behaviour is bad behaviour. If it's bad, you call it out. I don't care who does it. I don't care where it comes from. I don't care whether it comes from people who are associated with closed shops or people who are associated with open shops. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour and you call it out. I don't think that is the issue here. I don't think it's a matter of union is bad and non-union is good. That is not the intention of this study. I want it to be clear that from my perspective, that has to be said.

I want to get back to what the topic is actually supposed to be about, which is a study on how competition can make infrastructure dollars go further.

I'll start with you, Mr. Oakey. You mentioned in your testimony—I apologize, it was either you or Mr. Pamic, and you'll correct me—that some 900,000 out of 1,260,000 Canadian workers are in the open-shop sector. That's roughly 72%. I'm trying to understand the percentage. Have you done any study to know whether the open shops get about 72% of the overall work in Canada? Do you have any sense of where your percentage falls in terms of the work done?

[Terrance Oakey]

Sure. StatsCan keeps that information, and the latest report was in 2008, I think. It shows roughly 70% of construction is done by the open shop.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

You get about the percentage that reflects your membership, in terms of the overall closed versus open shop. Is that fair to say?

[Terrance Oakey]

Yes.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Right. That's helpful to know.

You made several references to reputable studies and you made a comment about U.S. studies as well. I haven't seen any of that. If you have any documentation that supports inefficiencies associated with that, could I ask you, perhaps through our chair, to bring that forward? That would be helpful for us to know.

[Terrance Oakey]

Sure.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Coming back to this issue of how you compete, you've certainly given us the impression that you can compete effectively if you have an opportunity. Presumably that's against other non-union shops as well as closed shops.

[Terrance Oakey]

Of course.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

All right. Do you compete with closed-shop organizations now?

[Terrance Oakey]

Not as much. Most of construction, apart from certain large-scale industrial projects, is done by the open shop. So, we compete among—

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

When you do compete against closed shops, do you win every bid? Do open shops win every bid?

[Terrance Oakey]

No.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Does that necessarily mean that you're more efficient or less?

[Terrance Oakey]

It means that depending on.... Every bid is somewhat different. There may not be a contractor who has the staff and the resources. So, for whatever reason they bid higher or lower. There's no way to make a blanket statement that every time we compete against a closed shop or another open-shop operator, one of those companies would win. It's very bid specific.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

It's interesting. You made reference in testimony earlier today that in some cases you haven't been able to quote in government infrastructure because it only supports closed-shop tenders.

Have you ever had a circumstance where the opposite is true, where they will only accept open-shop tenders and not closed-shop tenders?

[Terrance Oakey]

No.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Anywhere in Ontario—

[Terrance Oakey]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

—or Canada?

[Terrance Oakey]

We would never ask the government to favour our members in terms of what you can and cannot do in terms of bidding. All we want is a level playing field. Quite frankly, there are members of ours who operate with the union wing in certain areas because their employees have chosen that.

Open shop doesn't necessarily mean non-union. It simply means we're agnostic towards whether you're a union member or not. You can work side by side with our open-shop colleagues who are unionized or who are not unionized.

A closed shop refers to, “If you come on our work site, you pay us, you join us, or you leave”.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I want to come back to a point that is important, and that is this issue of supporting with any documentation you have that suggests it drives up the costs.

You say that it sounds like it's an anti-union rhetoric, and I'm trying to move it the other way to the numbers. Follow the money is really what we're trying to get a sense of, in terms of trying to know to what extent it is to be....

You're talking, Mr. Dumais, just from a fairness standpoint that, if closed shops can compete with you, why can you not compete with them on government infrastructure? Is that fair to say?