For CLAC, 2018 will be remembered as a year of extremes.\u00a0 In some parts of the country CLAC\u2019s membership reached all-time highs.\u00a0 In other parts of the country CLAC membership slipped to 10-year lows.\u00a0 Political events have resulted in some of the most dramatic legislative developments in a generation, with incredibly significant implications for CLAC.\u00a0 Through it all CLAC achieved some of our greatest accomplishments.\u00a0 Here are just a few of these extremes in more detail:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0New highs \u2013 CLAC membership in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia achieved record highs this year.\u00a0 Growth in these provinces was largely fueled by organizing new members and strong activity in the construction sector.\u00a0 We anticipate continued growth in all three provinces through the year 2019.<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0Remarkable lows \u2013 CLAC membership in Alberta and Saskatchewan, both resource-based economies, struggled in the face of continued stress in the resource sector.\u00a0 Canada has huge oil reserves, but the oil transportation system is limited and restricts us to selling to one customer only \u2013 the United States of America.\u00a0 Unfortunately basic economic principles have proven accurate, and as a result Canadian oil has been selling at an extreme discount.\u00a0 For example, in November, when the global price of oil was nearly $60\/barrel, Canadian oil was being sold to American customers for $12\/barrel.\u00a0 This had devastating impacts on the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and as a result many CLAC members suffered.<\/p>\n
3)\u00a0Bad political events \u2013 The provincial government in British Columbia made a shocking decision this past summer to inforce new rules that restrict access to publically funded infrastructure construction projects to unions that are supportive of the government.\u00a0 CLAC, being strictly non-political, was targeted by the government, and, as a result, our members have lost access to working on the very projects their tax dollars pay for.\u00a0 This government intervention is the most extreme abuse of government power that we have witnessed in a generation and has forced CLAC to take legal action against the government.\u00a0 The government\u2019s actions violate Canada\u2019s charter of rights and freedoms, the ILO\u2019s Convention on the Freedom of Association and many forms of natural justice.\u00a0 Our hope is that relief will come quickly so that our members, and all others who have been victimized by the British Columbia government, are able to continue providing for themselves and their families by working on these projects.<\/p>\n
4)\u00a0Good political events \u2013 Meanwhile, far to the east of British Columbia in the province of Ontario a new provincial government is taking quick action to correct some glaring wrongs.\u00a0 In particular, the Ontario government, led by Premier Doug Ford, recently introduced new legislation to restore fairness in the procurement of public infrastructure projects in municipalities.\u00a0 The legislation will have the effect of opening huge new construction markets to CLAC members, an initiative that CLAC has been lobbying government for many years.\u00a0 We are so thankful and optimistic about the impacts this will have for our construction members in Ontario.<\/p>\n
5)\u00a0Big accomplishments \u2013 In the first two weeks of December, CLAC achieved two of the largest successful representation votes in CLAC\u2019s history.\u00a0 In Alberta, CLAC organized nearly 800 security screeners at the Calgary International Airport.\u00a0 A week later, in Ontario, CLAC organized a very large healthcare centre with hundreds of new members.\u00a0 There are several more large organizing drives underway that may further grow CLAC\u2019s membership.\u00a0 We are so thankful for the support we have received from these new members, and look forward to serving them as members of the CLAC family.<\/p>\n
6)\u00a0Other big news \u2013 Several months ago, after years of preparation, LNG Canada, a large liquefied natural gas partnership, announced their final investment decision to build a new LNG facility on Canada\u2019s west coast.\u00a0 With a price tag of over $40 billion, this is the largest single private sector investment in Canadian history.\u00a0 CLAC members will build a large portion of this project, which will provide construction work for many years to come.
\nThese are but a few of the remarkable developments that have kept the staff and members of CLAC busy in Canada.\u00a0 We remain thankful for the support of all our members and the incredible dedication of our CLAC staff.\u00a0 Together we are achieving great things in the Canadian labour movement.\u00a0 We are proud to be the fastest growing union in Canada, and we look forward to many more successes in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For CLAC, 2018 will be remembered as a year of extremes.\u00a0 In some parts of the country CLAC\u2019s membership reached all-time highs.\u00a0 In other parts of the country CLAC membership…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wow-world.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}