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Ballooning costs for some of B.C.'s biggest infrastructure projects reignite debate over union requirements

Known as the community benefits agreement, it requires workers on certain projects to join one of 19 unions under the umbrella of the Allied Infrastructure and Related Construction Council

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An NDP program to improve training for construction workers and expand opportunities for women and Indigenous Peoples has led to exploding costs and delays for major public projects, some industry groups say.

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Announced in 2018 by then premier John Horgan, the program, known as the community benefits agreement, requires workers on certain projects to join one of 19 unions under the umbrella of the Allied Infrastructure and Related Construction Council.

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It also includes rules about the percentage of apprentices, women and Indigenous workers that need to work on the project.

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Chris Atchison, the president of the B.C. Construction Association, says the requirements have been a key reason for cost overruns of between $350 million and $500 million on major projects like the Pattullo Bridge replacement and the Broadway subway.

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The NDP disagrees, saying the reasons for cost overruns are inflation and labour shortages, not its rules about unions.

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Atchison said he hopes that the NDP might be backing away from the program, as such requirements have not been placed on the replacement of the Massey Tunnel and the construction of the Steveston interchange.

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“We’re encouraged by the direction that the province seems to be taking. But we’re not holding our breath that community benefits are not going to be applied to future projects,” Atchison said.

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Chris Gardner, president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., said the province is merely shifting to other forms of labour agreements.

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He said the difference between community benefits and typical project labour agreements is that the first excludes 85 per cent of workers not affiliated with one of the registered unions, while the second simply give workers a choice of what union to join.

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“They’re moving from what I would say is an offensive model — the CBA model — because it discriminates against 85 per cent of contractors and workers, decreasing the equality of opportunity, to a very bad model,” said Gardner.

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“It doesn’t make any sense why a government would require a contractor to force their employees to join one of these unions to perform the work. They can perform the work without doing that.”

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The Ministry of Infrastructure would not say whether it is moving away from the model, simply stating that “B.C. is using a variety of labour models … to deliver projects that are achieving benefits for the communities they are being built in.”

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Former NDP minister Andrew Mercier defended community benefits program, saying it has created numerous benefits for workers, with on-site training to help an apprentice get their Red Seal certifications in one job.

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A labour lawyer, Mercier says the requirements also include stipulations that there will be no strikes or disruptions during construction. He said these and other types of project labour agreements aren’t new.

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“Project labour agreements were brought into British Columbia in the 1960s by W.A.C. Bennett, actually a very conservative concept,” he said.

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“They solve labour supply issues for large projects, because through the requirements you become an employer of choice who are employing through a collective agreement that has pension benefits, welfare benefits, competitive wages, apprenticeships.”

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Administered by B.C. Infrastructure Benefits, a Crown corporation created for the program, community benefits agreements have been imposed on projects such as the Nanaimo District Hospital replacement, the Pattullo Bridge replacement and the new Broadway subway.

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All three projects have been beset by delays or cost overruns, and in some cases both, that some have blamed on community benefit agreements.

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B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon has called them “community ripoff agreements.”

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For example, the cost of the Pattullo Bridge has increased by 20 per cent, to $1.637 billion from $1.37 billion, and its completion date was pushed from to fall 2025 from 2023.

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The Broadway subway has faced a budget increase of $127 million and is facing a two-year delay. It is not expected to be complete until 2027.

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Mercier says community benefit agreements are not to blame. He blames continuing problems with supply chains that are driving up the price of materials and labour shortages due to an aging workforce.

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“I’d say that’s just factually incorrect,” said Mercier. “Cost overruns right now are a fact of capital project procurement across North America. You can look at projects in Ontario. You can look at projects down south and see the same factors at play.”

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Besides cost increases, critics also say the NDP program excludes workers who don’t want to unionize and prevents non-union contractors from bidding for projects.

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Cowichan Tribes member Jon Coleman went public in 2022 with complaints that his company, Jon-co Contracting, had been prevented from working on the Cowichan District Hospital project because neither he nor his workers were unionized.

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Coleman said he had been assured by the province that Cowichan Tribes members would be given an exemption from the union requirement, but that never happened.

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Now he wants an independent audit of the hospital project that has ballooned to $1.446 billion from $887 million, and is now expected to be completed in 2027, a year behind schedule.

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“It doesn’t matter which union you belong to, when you have to start pulling people from out of town, paying them to do a project here, how does that not run into cost overruns?” asked Coleman.

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Conservative finance critic Peter Milobar said that for all the talk about increasing opportunities within the construction sector, he hasn’t seen a notable uptick in the number of women or Indigenous workers on job sites.

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However, figures from B.C. Infrastructure Benefits show 14 per cent of workers on projects it oversaw were Indigenous in 2023-24, compared with the industry average of six per cent, while eight per cent were women, compared with an industry average of five per cent.

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Milobar said all his party wants is for publicly funded projects to go through a proper bidding process open to both union and non-union contractors.

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“I know the NDP tries to frame this up as an anti-union sentiment, but it’s really not what it is,” said Milobar. “Let’s get the best value for the taxpayer and get these projects delivered on-budget and on time.”

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Geoff Higginson, business manager for the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, believes that regardless of the criticisms of the community benefits agreements, they are beneficial for the industry as a whole by keeping labour peace and levelling the playing field for small contractors.

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He said he would love to sit down with critics to explain the program better.

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“We know politics are really polarized, and it comes down to differing opinions, and sometimes it’s just rhetoric,” he said. “But as far as the different contractor associations that are speaking against this, it’s funny, but I think it actually is advantageous to these contractors to be able to bid on a level playing field.”

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