August 30, 2021 • 56 mins
Talking and learning with passionate electrical industry individuals is the goal of Watt’s the Word and this week we are joined by Scott Crichton, the Assistant Business Manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 424. Scott explains his career path and an overview of the IBEW. He talks passionately about the future of the trade, alternative energy projects, the importance of training, maintaining integrity in the trade, and the benefits of the IBEW for the members.
Scott’s energy is obvious, he is a wealth of information, and a key part of the electrical trade. Join us as we learn the basis of how the union operates and the benefits it can bring to our industry.
Learn more about the IBEW by visiting www.ibew424.net
Connect with us on Instagram or Facebook - @wattsthewordpodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zack Hartle (00:00):
Welcome to episode number four of watt's the word?
We're really excited about ourguest that we are going to have
on the show today. Of course,I'm Zack Hartle, and I'm here
with my co host, Jason Cox. Ourguest today is going to be from
the IBEW, and he's going toshare with us a ton of
information about theInternational Brotherhood of
(00:22):
Electrical Workers. And also alittle bit of information about
the local union four to fourhere in Alberta. Both Jason and
myself really didn't know toomuch about the IBEW going into
it. And as you can hear from ourepisode, there's lots of stuff
to know about it. And our guestjust has a plethora of
(00:43):
information not only about theIBEW, but about the electrical
industry as a whole. So I'msuper excited to share the
episode with you today. If youliked the show, please remember,
like, subscribe download, leaveus a review on Apple podcasts if
you can get in touch with us.
And most importantly, just enjoythe show. So I'm going to hand
(01:04):
things off to Jason.
Jason Cox (01:08):
Today we're joined by Scott Crichton. He's the
assistant business manager ofthe IBEW, Vice President of the
IBEW Local four to fourexecutive board, Scott Welcome
to Watt's the Word.
Scott Crichton (01:21):
Welcome, Jay.
It's a pleasure to be here thismorning.
Zack Hartle (01:25):
We're glad to have you here today. Scott, before we
get more into the IBEW, and whatyou do there, we want to learn a
little bit more about yourbackground and how you got to
being the assistant businessmanager and the vice president
of the executive board. How'dyou get from we know you're an
electrician based on talking,how'd you get from electrician
to that position and tell us alittle bit about your career
(01:48):
journey. And we might stop youto dig a little bit more if we
need to. But
Scott Crichton (01:53):
sure, um, so in 2001, I was looking for a way to
jumpstart my life. Like a lot ofpeople in Saskatchewan, I had
jobs but there, there wasn't alot of careers. I wanted to
become a skilled trades person.
And a lot of my friends weremoving to Alberta to see some of
the opportunities that were hereat the time. I came to Calgary
(02:16):
in February and within a coupleof days, I was able to land a
job for a smaller company doingresidential construction.
There's a lot of residentialthat was happening at that time,
where houses from saddleridge toSpringbank area and everywhere
(02:39):
in between and it was a greattime to learn a skill trade in
our province. From there around2005 kind of got bored of the
residential construction, I waslooking for a new challenge. So
that changed companies learned alittle bit of commercial and
(02:59):
light industrial and traveledthe oilfield oilfield wired a
lot of compressor stations andoil batteries and seen a lot of
the province when a lot ofplaces that people don't
normally go is these remotelocations are challenging to get
to in a Toyota Corolla. So theygotta I don't know, be creative
(03:22):
with how they get you into thesesome of these sites. And around
2011, I joined the IBEW. AndI've worked up in the oil sands,
like a lot of people. And thatwas a pleasant experience.
Around 2017. I came into theIBEW business office as an
(03:47):
assistant business manager. Andthen two years ago, I ran for
election on the executive boardand serve as the vice president
of the local union executiveboard. But I still retain my
position as an assistantbusiness manager working in the
business office under businessmanager, Financial Secretary
(04:09):
Michael a Reinhardt. So that'skind of the Coles Notes version
of my career. And it's been ait's been an awesome journey and
a pleasant experience. And Ijust, I love what I do every
day. And I think it was, youknow, being coming to Alberta
(04:29):
and becoming an electrician wasone of the best decisions I
think I've ever made.
Jason Cox (04:37):
I think so many electricians have that same.
That same story, right?
Everyone's very happy and proudof of the accomplishment and the
credential and we all havestories similar to yours. I kind
of chuckled when you talkedabout driving around up north. I
too had that adventure mine wasin a Pontiac sunbird. I think it
was called. And yeah, you seesome Just beautiful locations in
(04:59):
the middle of nowhere but yeah,it was an adventure right to go
I mean in Calgary now like thehousing never stopped building
right? There's still buildinghouses everywhere. But yeah,
just your story there. I just Ilaughed because I could see the
(05:21):
two by four I could see the thewood frames and then all of a
sudden you took me right up tome driving down some back road
and Whitecourt or Athabasca. AndI mean, obviously you went even
further north than I did so. Soyeah, the the trades really good
for getting people experience.
Scott Crichton (05:43):
I you know, I saw a lot of different sides of
the residential living inCalgary, everything from your
small starter homes andsaddleridge up to some great big
beautiful, multimillion dollarhomes down in elbow Valley. And
it was just such an amazingexperience to see how vast the
industry is just in theresidential portion of our
(06:06):
craft. But then, when I starteddoing the light, industrial and
commercial, I thought while I'mlearning something new every day
and every day is a newexperience and every day is a
new challenge. And what a greatcareer path. I think it's been.
Zack Hartle (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing take away
from your story for me isaddress the variety of things
that you got to do and how didyou What are your skill set that
led you to be the assistantbusiness manager? What is what
is an assistant business managerat the IBEW do like what's your
kind of role entail in thatposition?
Scott Crichton (06:46):
If you're alright, Zack, maybe I can just
start with what the IBEW is,yeah, the role into the ABM
position that I have, for sure.
And then we can give people awhole understanding of what the
union is and what its functionis. So IBEW starts stands for
International Brotherhood ofElectrical Workers, we are what
(07:07):
you would call a craft union. Acraft union is a union that
specializes in a particularskill set or trade hours,
obviously, being the electricaltrade, what we do is we
represent electrical workers.
90% of our membership areelectricians, the other 10% are
(07:32):
everything from ADT Security, toyour sign technicians, to your
data fiber communication techs,because we found over the years
that those people, they want aunion and they want
representation as well. Andwe're here to get them a
collective agreement andrepresent them. So we are an
(07:57):
international union. We are allacross North America. And I
guess there's a little smallportion of work in Guam, so
maybe the Asia Pacific if youcount that I that's kind of
stretching a little bit. Andwe're the largest electrical
worker union in the world,700,000 members, all across
(08:22):
North America and thegeographical geographical area
that I described in Canada. Wehave just under 70,000 members
across the entire country. AndAlberta, our local union, local
union, four to four has betweenfive and 6000 members.
Zack Hartle (08:41):
And 44 is just the province of Alberta,
Scott Crichton (08:44):
just the province of Alberta, and and the
Northwest Territories as well.
Yeah. So to give you an idea ofthe structure, you have an
international president that isin Washington, DC, is Lonnie
Stephenson, and then under him,you would have international
(09:04):
vice president who's Tom Reid,who's in Mississauga, Ontario.
And then for our local union,it's the business manager,
Financial Secretary Michael, aReinhardt, who's here in
Edmonton. And then under him,you have assistant business
managers. We kind of set ourorganization up that we have
(09:25):
contract contractors that docommercial construction,
residential construction. Wehave also companies that do the
data fiber and sign technician.
And we also have industrialconstruction. So an assistant
business manager will kind oflook after whatever type of work
(09:50):
the contractors are doing.
Right, and they'll report backto the business manager. And
that's kind of the way that itworks. We have union meetings
every month. It's been a littlebit challenging lately due to
COVID 19. So once a month, thebusiness manager will give his
report to the Executive Board,which is made up of a president,
(10:14):
vice vice president, and then acouple of unit chairs, also a
treasurer, and I find and therecording secretary after he
gives his report to theexecutive board, he goes across
the province, and meets with themembers. He has a meeting here
in Edmonton. He has a meeting inCalgary in a meeting in Fort
(10:35):
McMurray, and he puts thefinancials up there, and he
gives his report as a way totell the members what the union
spending their union dues on andwhat they can expect for
upcoming work and maybe getfeedback from the membership on
how we might be able to have abetter union. And that's kind of
how it works.
Jason Cox (10:58):
What does it mean to be that IBEW employee? I mean,
obviously, you're you there's abenefit package. But like can
you just yet talk a little bitabout the I mean, obviously with
yourself to like, what was thedifference between being with a
non union employer and nowworking with the union? So just
(11:21):
for someone that really doesn'tknow?
Scott Crichton (11:27):
Well, you know, working in a union, you're
working under collectiveagreement, right? Like this,
this is our collectiveagreement. So every four years,
we release a bargaining surveyto our members and ask them,
what do they want for wages?
What do they want for workingconditions? What do they want
for health and welfare? What dothey want for pension? Right.
(11:49):
And then we kind of tally up alist, we call it a bargaining
proposal. And on the other sideis the Electrical Contractors
Association of Alberta, right?
They have a union arm and a nonunion arm, by the way, so we
deal with the union arm,obviously. And they have their
(12:11):
demands. And between the two ofus, we kind of hammer out a
collective agreement. So youknow, being a union member, I
have a collective agreement thatis the same for all of us. In
the open shop world, you'rebargaining basically, as an
individual, right, you'redealing with the employer, one
(12:33):
on one. And in some cases thatmight work to your benefit. In
some cases, it might not great,because you're, the employer has
the freedom to hire you fire youcut your wages, increase your
wages, whenever they want. Butwhen you have a collective
agreement in place, both sides,both sides, the employer and the
(12:57):
union have to adhere to theterms and conditions of the
collective agreement. You askhow it changed my life, Jay, I
would say you know, a couple ofdifferent things. It's offered
me a defined benefit pensionplan. So after 20 years in the
local union, I can get, youknow, I'm eligible for a pension
(13:19):
that's going to pay you anywhereon average from $1,000 Every two
weeks to maybe as much as 2500every two weeks. It depends how
many hours I've worked over thelast 20 to 30 years. The other
thing, I guess, would be thetraining. Great. You know, the
(13:41):
electrical trade is alwayschanging. And we have our own
training center that offersskills training, that the
various poli technical schoolsdon't offer great. The
Politecnico schools across theprovince st needs, you know,
other schools, they offer, youknow, your curriculum that you
(14:05):
need to become an electricianand a few other courses on top
of that. We talk to ourcontractors every three weeks
and we talked to our membershipand go, What do you guys need?
You know, do you want pipebending? Do you want solar? Do
you want motor controllers? Whatcourses would you guys need to
increase your skill set and Mikibe a better electrician? And
(14:28):
that's one of the things that Ifelt helped me. I went and
talked to the training director,I talked to him about what some
of my strengths were, what someof my weaknesses were. And they
put together some courses thatthey felt were needed to help
increase my skill set and makingme a better electrician. So a
(14:50):
little bit of a long answersorry about that. But that's
kind of what what what it's doneto help me with my career and so
One of the benefits I foundbeing in the union? Well, I
Jason Cox (15:04):
mean, what an opportunity. I mean, how often,
I mean, the three of us, we knowseveral electricians, and you
would go to school and you wouldlearn, like motor controls,
right? I mean, you learn threewire to wire motor control, and
basically first year, andstudents, some of electricians,
(15:28):
when it comes to the schematicsand just the operation. totally
forget how all that works. So Imean, you spend all that time in
an apprenticeship, learningstuff, and then eventually, you
don't know how to do it. Yeah,that's great that you guys have
the opportunity to refreshyourself on on specific courses,
(15:51):
and then also get to suggest andmodernize but do courses, select
that. I mean, that's a perk. AndI mean, let's not forget the
defined benefit, pension. Imean, that's just a rarity. Now
in this day and age, and andeventually there's going to be a
time where when you're going tohave to retire. And having that
(16:15):
peace of mind. And security'sincredible
Scott Crichton (16:20):
always been at the philosophy that every
electrical worker should havethe opportunity to retire with
dignity, right? You know, theyshouldn't be struggling after
they've done 20 or 30 years inthe trade, they should be able
to retire and do what they want.
They've worked hard their wholelife. Now, in their golden
years, let them do what theywant for the rest of their life.
(16:45):
I mean, it's some people want tokeep working. And that's great.
They can do that, too. But somepeople, you know, there's,
there's things that they want todo. And that's what the defined
benefit pension plan does. Itgives them this income that they
can count on every two weeks andplan their life around. So
you're right, Jay, that's,that's one of the best things I
(17:07):
think we have going for us.
Well, another
Jason Cox (17:11):
thing too. And it was brought up in another
conversation Zach and I've hadrecently is, is safety. And not
only are you training forspecific courses, but I'm under
the understanding that you guysdo have quite an extensive
safety safety program, as wellas Is that true?
Scott Crichton (17:31):
Yeah, we a lot of the safety training that we
do is through the trainingcenter. But also, some of the
oil sands facilities are pushingsafety as a required
prerequisite before you go andget onto their site. So what we
do is we try to get thattraining put into place ahead of
(17:53):
time. And what we found is, aswe were doing this training
through the training center, thecommercial contractors and some
of the other guys thought, well,this might not be a bad idea for
us to start offering orrequiring that our employees do
this training as well. And goodexample is for LRT construction.
(18:15):
You know, we have this arc flashawareness training that we offer
for the larger oil sands sitesand facilities. But as the line
was becoming energized, on thevalley, line LRT here, we
thought this is a goodopportunity for some of the
people doing LRT construction totake the arc flash awareness
training, right, and let themknow about some of the hazards
(18:40):
that they're going to beencountering, as these lines
become energized and turned overto epcor.
Jason Cox (18:45):
Well, that's I mean, one of the things with safety
and with education is sometimesit's not no one's fault, they
just simply don't know. And Imean, your timeline in the trade
and mine, for sure. Maybe Zacklike arc flash is something that
is a newer topic to us like itdidn't exist when I was on
(19:08):
tools, we we just isolatedequipment. We're trying not to
make an electrical connection.
We had no idea about thepotential hazards from an arc
flash incident. But it soundslike that's something that your
membership would hear aboutthrough the communications is I
mean, there'd be some somebulletins going out there. This
(19:31):
is information that maybe asmaller company might I mean,
they might just simply not knowof these hazards.
Scott Crichton (19:40):
Yeah, every three months or so we meet with
our contractors, and we have ameeting, right? And we talk
about some of the hazards thatwe're encountering in some of
the workplaces and some of thejobs that they're doing and we
talk about, you know, latelyit's been COVID-19 that we've
been talking about how How canwe improve workplace safety? So
(20:02):
that, you know, we don't have toworry about transmission? Arc
Flash is a topic that's come up,right due to a lot of the LRT
construction that's beenhappening lately. And that's
where we talk about, look, we'rehearing back from the membership
that there's some unsafeconditions out there. And here's
(20:26):
some of the courses that we havethat are available. Are these
sufficient to have a safe workenvironment? Or should we talk
to the training director here,and try to develop some more,
right, tailor something specificto some of the workplace hazards
that are happening out there?
And it's very, very helpful tohave these meetings with the
contractors every three monthsor so, is some of them have been
(20:48):
in industry for, you know, 2030years. And they can share some
of their experience with us ascontractors about what might
work or what might not work, andour members at the union
meetings, they can give us theirfeedback as well. And we kind of
come somewhere up the middle. Sothat we're, you know, we're
(21:08):
providing safe training. But atthe same time, we're not hurting
our contractors competitiveness.
Zack Hartle (21:18):
I guess I have two questions. So going back a
little bit to just to thestructure of the IBEW sure the
contractors work directly withthe IBEW and they would have
basically agreed to hire allIBEW members as their workforce.
Is that kind of how thatstructure works. Are the members
working for the IBEW? Are theyworking for the contractor?
Scott Crichton (21:41):
That's a really good question. Okay. So see,
somebody like myself wants tolet's just talk about my
experience, I walked in thefront door, and I said, I want
to join the IBEW I want to be aunion member, fill out an
application. There was jobsavailable on the job line. So I
(22:03):
pulled the slip, and went towork up in the oil sense. And
that was a great experience,right. So that's basically the
way that it works, right? If youwant to join the IBEW, you walk
in the front door, you fill outan application, you're what you
call a permit for the firstthree months. And after that,
you get sworn in, and thenyou're a full member. Now on the
(22:25):
contractor side is a contractoryou're required to hire through
the local union hiring home.
What that means is you have tosay you picked up a job like, I
don't know a shopping mall, andyou need 10 electricians, right,
because you got 10 guys workingfor you, but you need 10 more.
Now you talk to the dispatchdepartment. And you go look, I
(22:46):
need 10 Guys, journey personwith, you know, recent
commercial experience, we postthat on our website, contractor
XYZ electric, looking for a 10journey person electrician with
recent commercial experience,right? Now, we can just put the
(23:08):
call on there, or maybe theywant to do something like a
three for interview or eight.
That's an option for some ofthem, they can they can put a
three for interview. Maybethere's somebody that the had
working for them. And then theyhad a lack of work. And they had
to lay them off. You know, theywant to recall the guy. That's
(23:33):
another option. So as acontractor, you're required to
talk to dispatch, tell them whoyou need, like how many guys you
need. And then we post the job,and then electricians bid on the
job. And then they go to work.
Zack Hartle (23:47):
One thing you said there you apply to the Union.
And then you go to the jobboard. Is there any jobs right
now like if we are anybody'slistening in, they're looking
for work, but they haven'tthought about joining the union
and looking for work? Is thereopportunities right now to get
into the Union and find work?
Scott Crichton (24:04):
So there's always opportunities to get into
the Union? Like well, we'll takepeople in at any time. When we
talk about upcoming work.
There's a lot of calls goingopen right now due to the
shutdown season happening,right. Definitely in the
Edmonton area, and some for theWood Buffalo region. So that's
(24:27):
some opportunities to put somepeople to work, I would expect
that there'll be moreopportunities in the fall due to
LRT construction. Yeah, sothat's kind of what's going on.
But a lot of that work would beyour light industrial, heavy
industrial construction.
Jason Cox (24:48):
You said that you would look on the job line and
then bid for a job. How I'mguessing I could be outbid by
someone else. How does thatwork?
Scott Crichton (25:01):
So you're going to see come in, you join the
union, you get something calledan out of work number, right?
And then you look at jobs thatare on the job line, and then
you bid on a job. Now, when thatjob is completed, you might get
laid off. Right? So you comeback to the union hall, you ask
(25:22):
for a new out of work number,and you get a new out of work
number and then you startbidding on jobs on the job line.
If somebody has a lower numberthan you, then they could
potentially be in front of youfor that job. Let's not forget,
though, sometimes thecontractors are looking for
people with a certain type ofskill set, like recent
(25:44):
commercial experience, orheatrae, splicing or fiber optic
splicing. So that might become afactor and who gets the job and
even regardless of where thenumber is, but yeah, you're
right, Jay, that's basically theway it works. Whoever's got the
lowest number, they're the nextin line to get the job.
Jason Cox (26:04):
And then, like you said, then maybe if I was
lacking, I'm guessing I couldcall Colin and someone say,
well, Jay, yeah, you were reallyclose on that you just, you were
outbid, because contractor, xhad heat trace experience
through your training center, isthat something that I can I can
(26:27):
take your course on heat traceor some other skill set?
Scott Crichton (26:31):
Yeah, I mean, and that's what we try to
encourage people to do. Right?
Okay. So I had, I had a member,that contractor that did call on
the job line and did three forinterview. They were looking for
a recent commercial experience,and the needed some fire alarm
training. So they interviewed aguy and he just didn't quite
(26:56):
have the amount of fire alarmexperience the contractor
needed. So the guy came back tous and said, You know, I didn't
get the job. There are somecourses that we suggested that
he take for his fire alarmtraining, so that when he goes
to bid on the next call, he'sgoing to be more successful,
right? Be the Same thing forheat trace. If a contractor is
(27:20):
asking for that the memberdoesn't have it. We encourage
him to get in touch with thetraining center, take the
courses that he needs, so thathe's successful the next time.
Zack Hartle (27:32):
And who pays for the courses? And would it be the
electrician looking for thework? Would you know there'd be
a fee? I mean, assumingsubsidized a little bit because
they are an IBEW member. Arethey free, typically, to
members?
Scott Crichton (27:44):
They're free to members, because under the
collective agreement, 40 centsan hour of your salary goes
towards the training fund.
Zack Hartle (27:55):
And that's, that's huge, right? I mean, we're all
for keeping that knowledgeflowing in the trade, right?
Where lifelong learners, right,I'm a huge fan of that. So
that's something that isbeneficial, especially if you
take advantage of it. I'm surelots of guys don't. But
Scott Crichton (28:10):
absolutely. And that, you know, that's there's
many different things that thatcan help pay for great tuition
reimbursements. Also anotherthing, right, so you've gone to
school and you want to get yourtuition reimbursed. We expect
that you'll contact thistraining center ahead of time,
(28:30):
let them know, Hey, I'm goingfor third year, I want my
tuition reimbursed, right, haveall the paperwork done ahead of
time so that when you're done,you can get your tuition
reimbursed, right. And that's abig thing. being off work for
two months, getting that moneythat's going to help you pay
some bills.
Jason Cox (28:50):
This sounds expensive. I'm as a
tradesperson. I'm paying duesfor a for a pension. I'm paying
dues for a training center. Iprobably have medical benefits.
These are all wonderful things,but how are you staying
competitive with the non unioncontractor?
Scott Crichton (29:16):
So the collective agreement has
different wages for the type ofconstruction that they're doing
rates. If you're doingindustrial construction, there's
going to be a higher wage ratefor that. For commercial,
there'll be a lower wage rates,right. And I believe it's around
(29:38):
36 an hour. Right? And thathelps the contractor with their
competitiveness, right. Andthat's also one of the reasons
why we have the meetings everythree months because we talk
about upcoming work, and we talkabout are they being competitive
(29:59):
are they picking up more work?
What's the situation like outthere? Right? But, you know, the
reality is at the end of theday, you know, some of these
contractors been with us 50years, 70 years. If we didn't
work with them to find some wayto to have them be competitive,
(30:22):
they wouldn't be in businessanymore. Right. I think it's
just having that open dialoguewith the contractors and and
letting the, you know, hearingwhat their concerns are. But at
the same time, making sure thatthe people working for them are
getting a living wage rate,having enough money put in their
(30:47):
pocket that they can make theirmortgage payment and look after
their family and finding thatbalance between the two. Right.
Jason Cox (30:55):
Yeah, and I mean, I 100% do not want to, like I want
to make sure that I'm notsitting here downplaying the
union as being too expensive.
That's actually to the contrary.
One thing when you're dealing,obviously, if you're dealing
with a union contractor,everyone is certified. Everyone
(31:15):
is pulling permits. Everyone isthere's there's no shortcuts,
right. I mean, that's right now,there's there's many people out
there that are working and notfollowing the rules, and they're
undercutting both Union and nonunion contractors. And I mean,
it's, it's not good for ourindustry. No, it's
Scott Crichton (31:39):
not. And you know, we've we've had some
conversations with all levels ofgovernment when we talk about
procurement, right? When we talkabout building a school or
hospital or a rec center, youknow, various buildings that are
in our communities usingtaxpayers money. What are you
(32:05):
doing to ensure that thecontractor doing the work has
two things, they have theexperience and the wherewithal
to be able to build thisproject, get it done on time and
under budget and meet therequirements of the Canadian
electrical code, but also thepeople that are working for that
company are qualified skilledtradespeople. One of the
(32:29):
programs that DCA has is the thePTC program, professional
electrical contractor. I've beenpushing for years now to say, if
this is a government project,and it's going out for tender,
why not make it a requirementthat the contractor be a member
of the ECA and be a PTCcontractor? Right, as we know,
(32:53):
the the PTC has its own peerreview committee. So if a
contractor does poor work, allthe owner has to do is file a
complaint with the ECA. And ECAwill do an investigation, and
maybe that contractor will nolonger be eligible to be a
member of the PTC program.
Right. So these are things wecan do when we talk about
(33:16):
procurement, to make sure thatthe contractors union and non
union are doing good work. Butalso paying workers a good wage
and making sure the people doingthe work are qualified.
Jason Cox (33:33):
Well, you just mentioned a huge thing there.
Like if your union, obviouslyyou guys have a little bit of
clout, you can actually speakwith the government about issues
of concern. I mean, you'rerepresenting 1000s of people
just here in Alberta alone. ButI mean, obviously, this could be
even on a national level. InCanada, I don't think obviously
(33:57):
you're an international but it'snice that you guys are able to
speak up and at least representour our trade with the
government. So I mean, that's ahuge, I mean, that would help
all electricians honestly.
Scott Crichton (34:13):
When been you know, it's interesting, as I
started pushing for thesethings, Jay, the contractors
said to me, is there anything wecan do to help? So it was nice
to have the association at timeswant to join with me and say,
look, as a business owner, I'mconcerned about this. I'm
concerned about the race to thebottom when we talk about wages.
(34:36):
I'm concerned about unqualifiedcontractors doing the work, you
know, the one man ladder in atruck jack of all trades, Stan
out there is going to put upyour siding installer receptacle
at the same time for I don'tknow the Walmart discount price
or whatever you want to call it.
That's hurting him as a businessowner. And I think what We work
(34:58):
together with the contractorsand go look, you know, as an
individual worker, this ishurting my livelihood. But also,
as a business owner, you'rehurting small business, and we
need to have these changes. Ithelps push the government to
form better policy.
Jason Cox (35:24):
Well, better policies is always a good thing, right?
Because so often we get wrappedup in policy trying to make
sense of the policy that I mean,we don't go anywhere. So so it's
good to hear that subject matterexperts in our industry are
helping shape policy.
Scott Crichton (35:43):
You know, one of the one of the good examples is,
we talked about the electricaltrade Regulation Act and solar.
One of the concerns I had was alot of incentive programs being
released, and unqualified tradespeople or unqualified people
being out there doing the work.
Right, that was a seriousconcern that I had. And I leaned
(36:04):
hard on the government to makesome changes. And one of the
things I like to do is show anexample of how somebody got
hurt, right? There's a case inSarnia, Ontario, where there's
an unqualified worker that gotinjured, he was there was a 600
volt arc flash that happened.
(36:25):
And this individual, you know,was not qualified, it was
working in unsafe conditions.
And unfortunately, mistaken ahospital, he survived. But it
was a good example of why weneed qualified electricians
doing the work. And thecontractors actually helped me
push this messaging togovernment and
Zack Hartle (36:49):
the media made
Scott Crichton (36:50):
appropriate changes to the electrical trade
Regulation Act. And to be clearto do solar work in Alberta, you
must be either a journey person,electrician, or an apprentice
working under the supervision ofa journey person. So it was
good, it was, you know, amistake was made in Ontario, but
in Alberta, you know, we madesure to learn from the mistakes
(37:14):
made in a different jurisdictionand make sure that the people
working here were safe, when theincentive programs came out.
Zack Hartle (37:23):
And that that conversation there, that's
something we discussed a lot inactually, episode two of this
podcast was with talking aboutsolar. And you know, where is
that line, and we are lucky inAlberta, that the line is, it's
pretty, I guess, high and thatwe need electricians to do
anything to do with connectionsand grounding and bonding. And
(37:44):
it's it's unfortunate that thereis, you know, different parties
out there trying to push it toallow more unskilled laborers to
be involved. But I mean, at theend of the day, you're even
grounding and bonding. It'sthat's an electrical connection
that needs to be done byqualified certified
electricians, right. Well,
Scott Crichton (38:01):
what had happened in the case in Sarnia,
Ontario was, you know, thecompany at the time said, it's
very easy. It's plug in andplay, plug in and play. And what
happened was, you know, they'remaking a bunch of serious
connections, you know, and atthe end, the person didn't know
(38:23):
the difference between thepositive and negative. And
that's when the 600 volt arcflash should happen and the
worker became injured. So therewas some industry pushback when
I was sending this message togovernment saying, Well, no,
anybody can do it. It's plug inand play us. There's no plug in
and play. It's positive andnegative. Great. I said the
(38:44):
module when it's exposed to thesun is a power producing advice
device. Great. This iselectrical work. And when you're
putting it on somebody's home,right, where they're going to be
living with their family, or ona school in some instances where
we have children, right? We wantto make sure that qualified
people are doing that work.
Great. Safety is not just aconcern of the electrician, it
(39:07):
should be everybody's concern.
Last thing we want to see issomebody get hurt because we cut
a corner somewhere and we haveunqualified people doing the
install.
Zack Hartle (39:21):
Yeah, no, it's I mean, everything in our trade is
you put a wire under a screw,you connect a wire, you put
together a conduit, right? It'sall I guess, by that argument,
plug and play, but there's yougot to know what you're plugging
into what and what's going tohappen afterwards.
Scott Crichton (39:37):
Absolutely.
Jason Cox (39:40):
Scott, can you tell us about some of the
International options for workfor your members?
Scott Crichton (39:46):
Sure. So as an international union, what we
find sometimes is, you know,there's a lot of employment
opportunities in Alberta forabout 15 years or so. So People
came from across Canada to helpus fill these jobs that were
available in the oil sense. Andwhen a lot of that construction
(40:11):
ended, and people still needed ajob, other locals in other parts
of Canada or in the UnitedStates, the needed some extra
journeyperson electricians,extra labor. So now there's an
opportunity for us to be able togo other places. Like there's an
LNG plant that's in Kitimat BC,or sent a dozen people working
(40:35):
right now. Pennsylvania, there'sthe hydrocracker plant where we
have 133 members working out inOntario, there's a couple of
projects that are happening downin Sarnia, where we sent two
dozen members. So being aninternational union, the
(40:59):
employment opportunities don'tnecessarily stop just here in
Alberta, there's going to beopportunities for people to be
able to go other places.
Jason Cox (41:09):
I mean, it's definitely an option and you
have some administration thereto help you. Right guide you
through the process. I mean,everyone. When when people talk
to Zack and I about getting intoan apprenticeship, we say Yeah,
well, sure it's No, it's greatjob, do it just go find go find
an employer. And that's like thehitting a brick wall right away.
(41:34):
But it sounds like there wouldbe at least some, obviously some
support or I mean, you havepeople that know, know the
process. So that's, that's niceas well.
Zack Hartle (41:44):
Obviously, Scott in the electrical industry is not
alone in this. But in everyindustry, we're seeing this big
transition from, you know,carbon based energy into these
renewable energies. And what isthe, I guess, position of the
Union on that? I mean,obviously, you've been heavily
into oil and gas here inAlberta. But you already
(42:06):
mentioned in this show aboutsolar energy, what's the
position on the IBEW on thattransition?
Scott Crichton (42:13):
Well, I'm just, I don't think that solar and
wind are going to save us aselectricians. You know, while
since construction, when we talkabout IBEW 44, it's created a
lot of employment opportunitiesand a lot of wealth for the
(42:34):
Union and for our members. Andwe're grateful for, for
everything that's come alongwith that, that as we move
towards the future, and we seeless and less oil sands
facilities being built. I'mguessing that our industry in
Alberta is probably going tomove more towards the small
(42:57):
modular reactors that have beentalked, a lot of people been
talking about, I could see moreof those getting built. And
putting a lot more people towork. Energy storage projects,
like the Canyon Creek energystorage project being built out
in Hinton by turning pointgeneration. Trans lt has got a
(43:17):
proposed energy storage projectthat's being built. It's
something related to brazo downmy I can't remember the exact
name. And hydrogen Air Productsis building a $2 billion
hydrogen production facility. Sowhen we talk about industrial
construction, and putting peopleto work, I see more that the
(43:41):
small modular reactor thathydrogen energy storage
projects, let's not forget a fewweeks ago, I believe it was the
Alberta energy. J, you're gonnahave to help me with the
acronym. I always get it wrong.
But Alberta energy systemoperator?
Zack Hartle (44:00):
Yeah, yeah. The ISO Alberta electric system
operator,
Scott Crichton (44:04):
right, they hit a, you know, the head of Level
Two alert across the province,right. And the reason being,
with all the smoke that washappening, solar wasn't
producing, you know, the amountof power that they were hoping
it would, right. And now therewas wind at the time.
Zack Hartle (44:23):
And at the same time, we were 37 degrees here,
everyone's running airconditioners. And
Scott Crichton (44:29):
exactly. So you know, you can only put so much
solar up before you're going tothat's it. There's nowhere else
to put solar. So we need energystorage projects to be able to
store that power and release itback into the grid. Right? at
whatever time it's needed. Andthat's where these energy
storage projects are going tocome into play. And they're
going to put a lot of people towork and they are renewable
(44:52):
energy projects. If you go tothe turning point generation
website, they do a very goodpresentation on how it all
works. It New technology. And Ibelieve that's where the
industry is headed.
Jason Cox (45:04):
I think that that's, I mean, that's the conversation
we need to have. Not withelectricians. But with
Canadians, we can't just turnour backs on carbon energy,
we're gonna need it as wetransition into other types of
energy. And yeah, just likeyou're saying, we need solar
(45:27):
energy is great, but it's onlygood for 12 hours of the day,
less than that, I mean, as asfall comes, we need to start
investing in some way to capturethis energy and be able to use
it when we need to use it.
Zack Hartle (45:43):
And the big word there being diversification,
right, just getting a little bitof eggs and a bunch of little
baskets to help us meet ourpower needs. And, you know,
especially as EVs become morepopular, and the demand on the
grid is going to increasewithout question. So,
Scott Crichton (46:00):
you know, let's not forget about the hydrogen
either Air Products. Back in2015, I was working on a large
project out at Scotford at AirProducts was building there, the
company that's going to bebuilding this hydrogen plant,
right? It's industrial work,it's good paying work, it's
going to be good paying jobs,which is what we need. When we
(46:23):
talk about doing any type oftransition to the workforce, we
got to make sure that wages andworking conditions aren't left
behind. Great. You know, I'm allfor creating new jobs, but I
don't want to see people's wagesbeing cut.
Jason Cox (46:40):
Yeah, you're, you're totally correct with that. And I
mean, there's, there's so manypeople in, in, I'm gonna say, in
white collar industries, thatfor years, were making far more
money than, than a lot of thecon, the electricians are gonna
say the trade person, not theabout the actual business owner
of the electrical company. Butthen we've seen a huge change in
(47:05):
the white collar salaries. It'seasy for them to pop back up
again, when the when the economychanges, but it sure takes a
long time to get the journeymanjourney person rates back up.
It's important that we, we haveto have like you were saying
(47:25):
earlier, we have to have fair,reasonable salaries for for all
of our workers.
Scott Crichton (47:32):
I mean, one of the things that I've been
pushing for is to have somethingsimilar to what they have in
Manitoba, or it's, it's aconstruction industry wages act,
right. And, you know, basicallywhat they've done, there's
They've set a minimum wage foreverybody. But they also set a
minimum wage for your carpenterpipe fitter, an electrician, and
(47:52):
basically said that this is theminimum wage union and non
union, this is what you're gonnaget paid, nobody's gonna get
paid less than that. At onepoint in time, the government
was looking at possiblyrepealing it in industry. And
the unions came together andsaid, Don't do that, because
(48:13):
it'll start a race to thebottom. And if you do a race to
the bottom, then we're going tohave a skilled labor shortage.
We we want a minimum wage forelectricians and pipe fitters,
and carpenters. Right. So thatthat race to the bottom doesn't
happen. Right?
Jason Cox (48:31):
Well, I mean, it's, it's a really big topic. And I
mean, just thinking about it,and with this race to the
bottom, and if we do lose thoseskilled trades, eventually
government intervenes. And thenthat means they have to
incentivize people to get intothe trades. They're going to
spend all that money later on.
So it's not it. I mean, there'sa lot of moving pieces here.
Scott Crichton (48:55):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, as a
labor union, we don't we don'tget behind one political party.
We support good policy. Youknow, and we like to think we
like to push for things like afair wages act. Great. We had
that federally, right. Thatbasically said, union or non
(49:18):
union, this is the wage, this isthe wage that you're going to be
paying the workers. Federally,when this passport office or
RCMP station goes out fortender. This is what everybody's
gonna get paid and not a dimeless. Right. So non union
contractors can bid on it, butthey gotta pee, you know, the
same wages that the union guysare bidding that bid on the job.
(49:42):
And let's stop that race to thebottom right. Let's make sure
that everybody doing the work isgetting paid a good respectable
wage.
Jason Cox (49:51):
Yeah, I really like this race to the bottom term
you're using because I'm veryconcerned about it. I think it's
so important that We, that we'reall on the same, same level,
we're all pulling permits, we'reall qualified, we're all doing
the work the way it's supposedto be done.
Scott Crichton (50:10):
I'm all for creating jobs at the same time,
right? We like to push for largeprojects to be created. in
Calgary, when the arena wasgoing out for tender, I wrote a
few letters to the mayor'soffice, pushing for the Calgary
arena to go to get approvedbecause I wanted to see people
(50:32):
go to work. The Canada pucksplant, you know, we're, they're
basically going to take bitumenand they're going to form these
pucks that are going to be usedfor different purposes. I wrote
a letter to the government andpushed for and lobbied for
incentives to build these plantshere in Alberta with a new type
of technology, because I thoughtit would put Albertans to work.
(50:55):
The tech resources, they weregoing to build a $20 billion oil
sands mine in northern Alberta.
Not only did I write letters togovernment, I testified at the
hearing. And so did the ironworker and the carpenter and the
boiler maker. We all showed upthere to basically say that we
want these jobs want to quitAlbertans to work. Right.
Jason Cox (51:18):
I think it's very interesting and timely right now
that you mentioned that theunion doesn't support one
political party. Wheat, Zach andI were speaking with a gentleman
from Ontario last week. And Imean, we really haven't even
talked about COVID here today.
But COVID coupled with thedownturn in the economy in
(51:38):
Alberta, I mean, it is, this isa tough time for Albertans. This
is a tough time forelectricians. I mean, any thing
or any one that can do somethingto promote investment in in, in
construction and jobopportunities on Alberta. I
(51:59):
mean, you're a superhero.
Scott Crichton (52:04):
A union is essentially a reflection of
society, right? We have membersthat vote for every political
party, because it lines up withwhat their belief system is. So
as a labor union, it's ourresponsibility to represent all
of them. Right? So how do we dothat we support good policies
like fair wages, good workingconditions, right, and proper
(52:30):
changes to industry to make surethat people are working safely.
Right. And as long as we takethat position, and we keep
trying to push. I think thateverybody's going to benefit at
the end of the day.
Jason Cox (52:45):
Well, I looked through one of your collective
agreements online this morning,and even yesterday, and some of
the information listed on justthe the standard of the job
site, right, some of the thingsthat construction workers, I
mean, we work in some prettyrough environments, but just the
minimum standards required. Imean, it was it was nice and
(53:07):
reassuring to, to read that yourworkers are given like a
standard to make their job alittle easier, right? I mean,
nobody wants to be out in aplastic box using the facilities
at 40. Below. Just looking atsome of the considerations that
were in your collectiveagreement. It was it was
(53:27):
refreshing to see.
Scott Crichton (53:30):
We try to drive changes in industry that way,
right. So if we get the changesin the collective agreement,
hopefully it's not long beforethe open shop starts to follow
in behind, right.
Jason Cox (53:41):
Vaccinations has been kind of a polarizing topic in
the workplace. How are you guysapproaching vaccination for your
members?
Scott Crichton (53:52):
I want as many of our members to get vaccinated
as possible. And the last thingI want is somebody to get the
vaccine and rushed back to workbecause they're, they don't want
to get their pay, you know whatI mean? They're they're worried
about their pay cut, or they'renot making an income. So you
(54:13):
know, there's adverse effects,some people doesn't affect them
at all. Some people, they get aheadache, and they can't think
right, and they got to be athome. So I said, as an employer,
if somebody's getting thevaccine that day, would you
agree to pay them till the endof the day? Right, so that
they're not rushing back towork, and then there are no
left, and they're getting sideeffects from this vaccine. And
(54:34):
the people around them areunsafe, in the employers said to
me, we would be more than happyto pay them until the end of the
day if they're getting thevaccine that day because it's to
our benefit to have as manypeople as possible get
vaccinated. So instead, ifthat's, if that's the concern
(54:55):
that they're going to rush backto work, we will. All they need
to do is provide us a Thedoctor's note, you know, saying
that they are getting thevaccine that they will gladly
pay them to the end of the day.
And it pushed the AlbertaFederation of Labor to push more
employers to do the same. Ifsomebody's getting the vaccine,
don't make them rush back towork, agree to pay them till the
(55:15):
end of the day and more of yourworkforce will be vaccinated and
everybody will be healthier andhappier.
Zack Hartle (55:22):
You know, Scott, this has been a an awesome,
probably hour and a bit thatwe've been talking here. And I
think we could go on for severalmore hours. But I think we kind
of want to wrap up a little bittoday. But just with the maybe
put the thought in your mind,would you ever be willing to
come back and do another show? Iknow, there was lots of other
things that we had kind of linedup to talk about today.
Scott Crichton (55:42):
Absolutely. I'd love to come back. Thank you for
having me today.
Zack Hartle (55:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's been really informative. Imean, I mentioned before, I
personally didn't know anythingabout the IBEW and I learned a
huge amount and there's so muchmore to learn, especially about
their collaboration with othercounterparts and other
provinces. And even with theother countries, the
collaboration between them ishuge. Kind of on that note, if
people are listening and theywant to learn a little bit more
(56:09):
about the IBEW, what they do,how they operate, or, you know,
reach out get a job or anythinglike that, where should they go
to find out more information
Scott Crichton (56:18):
so they can come to our office in Edmonton or
Calgary or they can check outour website at WWW dot IBEW 424
dot net.
Jason Cox (56:29):
Zach and I would like to thank Scott for chatting with
us today. Check out the linkbelow for the IBEW if you'd like
more information. And of courseif you'd like our show, please
subscribe to get the latestdownloads. We can be found
wherever you're downloadingpodcasts. Connect with us and
let us know what you would liketo hear in the future on Watt's
(56:49):
the Word. Keep yourself safe outthere, and if he can someone
else to
Welcome to episode number four of watt's the word?
We're really excited about ourguest that we are going to have
on the show today. Of course,I'm Zack Hartle, and I'm here
with my co host, Jason Cox. Ourguest today is going to be from
the IBEW, and he's going toshare with us a ton of
information about theInternational Brotherhood of
(00:22):
Electrical Workers. And also alittle bit of information about
the local union four to fourhere in Alberta. Both Jason and
myself really didn't know toomuch about the IBEW going into
it. And as you can hear from ourepisode, there's lots of stuff
to know about it. And our guestjust has a plethora of
(00:43):
information not only about theIBEW, but about the electrical
industry as a whole. So I'msuper excited to share the
episode with you today. If youliked the show, please remember,
like, subscribe download, leaveus a review on Apple podcasts if
you can get in touch with us.
And most importantly, just enjoythe show. So I'm going to hand
(01:04):
things off to Jason.
Jason Cox (01:08):
Today we're joined by Scott Crichton. He's the
assistant business manager ofthe IBEW, Vice President of the
IBEW Local four to fourexecutive board, Scott Welcome
to Watt's the Word.
Scott Crichton (01:21):
Welcome, Jay.
It's a pleasure to be here thismorning.
Zack Hartle (01:25):
We're glad to have you here today. Scott, before we
get more into the IBEW, and whatyou do there, we want to learn a
little bit more about yourbackground and how you got to
being the assistant businessmanager and the vice president
of the executive board. How'dyou get from we know you're an
electrician based on talking,how'd you get from electrician
to that position and tell us alittle bit about your career
(01:48):
journey. And we might stop youto dig a little bit more if we
need to. But
Scott Crichton (01:53):
sure, um, so in 2001, I was looking for a way to
jumpstart my life. Like a lot ofpeople in Saskatchewan, I had
jobs but there, there wasn't alot of careers. I wanted to
become a skilled trades person.
And a lot of my friends weremoving to Alberta to see some of
the opportunities that were hereat the time. I came to Calgary
(02:16):
in February and within a coupleof days, I was able to land a
job for a smaller company doingresidential construction.
There's a lot of residentialthat was happening at that time,
where houses from saddleridge toSpringbank area and everywhere
(02:39):
in between and it was a greattime to learn a skill trade in
our province. From there around2005 kind of got bored of the
residential construction, I waslooking for a new challenge. So
that changed companies learned alittle bit of commercial and
(02:59):
light industrial and traveledthe oilfield oilfield wired a
lot of compressor stations andoil batteries and seen a lot of
the province when a lot ofplaces that people don't
normally go is these remotelocations are challenging to get
to in a Toyota Corolla. So theygotta I don't know, be creative
(03:22):
with how they get you into thesesome of these sites. And around
2011, I joined the IBEW. AndI've worked up in the oil sands,
like a lot of people. And thatwas a pleasant experience.
Around 2017. I came into theIBEW business office as an
(03:47):
assistant business manager. Andthen two years ago, I ran for
election on the executive boardand serve as the vice president
of the local union executiveboard. But I still retain my
position as an assistantbusiness manager working in the
business office under businessmanager, Financial Secretary
(04:09):
Michael a Reinhardt. So that'skind of the Coles Notes version
of my career. And it's been ait's been an awesome journey and
a pleasant experience. And Ijust, I love what I do every
day. And I think it was, youknow, being coming to Alberta
(04:29):
and becoming an electrician wasone of the best decisions I
think I've ever made.
Jason Cox (04:37):
I think so many electricians have that same.
That same story, right?
Everyone's very happy and proudof of the accomplishment and the
credential and we all havestories similar to yours. I kind
of chuckled when you talkedabout driving around up north. I
too had that adventure mine wasin a Pontiac sunbird. I think it
was called. And yeah, you seesome Just beautiful locations in
(04:59):
the middle of nowhere but yeah,it was an adventure right to go
I mean in Calgary now like thehousing never stopped building
right? There's still buildinghouses everywhere. But yeah,
just your story there. I just Ilaughed because I could see the
(05:21):
two by four I could see the thewood frames and then all of a
sudden you took me right up tome driving down some back road
and Whitecourt or Athabasca. AndI mean, obviously you went even
further north than I did so. Soyeah, the the trades really good
for getting people experience.
Scott Crichton (05:43):
I you know, I saw a lot of different sides of
the residential living inCalgary, everything from your
small starter homes andsaddleridge up to some great big
beautiful, multimillion dollarhomes down in elbow Valley. And
it was just such an amazingexperience to see how vast the
industry is just in theresidential portion of our
(06:06):
craft. But then, when I starteddoing the light, industrial and
commercial, I thought while I'mlearning something new every day
and every day is a newexperience and every day is a
new challenge. And what a greatcareer path. I think it's been.
Zack Hartle (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing take away
from your story for me isaddress the variety of things
that you got to do and how didyou What are your skill set that
led you to be the assistantbusiness manager? What is what
is an assistant business managerat the IBEW do like what's your
kind of role entail in thatposition?
Scott Crichton (06:46):
If you're alright, Zack, maybe I can just
start with what the IBEW is,yeah, the role into the ABM
position that I have, for sure.
And then we can give people awhole understanding of what the
union is and what its functionis. So IBEW starts stands for
International Brotherhood ofElectrical Workers, we are what
(07:07):
you would call a craft union. Acraft union is a union that
specializes in a particularskill set or trade hours,
obviously, being the electricaltrade, what we do is we
represent electrical workers.
90% of our membership areelectricians, the other 10% are
(07:32):
everything from ADT Security, toyour sign technicians, to your
data fiber communication techs,because we found over the years
that those people, they want aunion and they want
representation as well. Andwe're here to get them a
collective agreement andrepresent them. So we are an
(07:57):
international union. We are allacross North America. And I
guess there's a little smallportion of work in Guam, so
maybe the Asia Pacific if youcount that I that's kind of
stretching a little bit. Andwe're the largest electrical
worker union in the world,700,000 members, all across
(08:22):
North America and thegeographical geographical area
that I described in Canada. Wehave just under 70,000 members
across the entire country. AndAlberta, our local union, local
union, four to four has betweenfive and 6000 members.
Zack Hartle (08:41):
And 44 is just the province of Alberta,
Scott Crichton (08:44):
just the province of Alberta, and and the
Northwest Territories as well.
Yeah. So to give you an idea ofthe structure, you have an
international president that isin Washington, DC, is Lonnie
Stephenson, and then under him,you would have international
(09:04):
vice president who's Tom Reid,who's in Mississauga, Ontario.
And then for our local union,it's the business manager,
Financial Secretary Michael, aReinhardt, who's here in
Edmonton. And then under him,you have assistant business
managers. We kind of set ourorganization up that we have
(09:25):
contract contractors that docommercial construction,
residential construction. Wehave also companies that do the
data fiber and sign technician.
And we also have industrialconstruction. So an assistant
business manager will kind oflook after whatever type of work
(09:50):
the contractors are doing.
Right, and they'll report backto the business manager. And
that's kind of the way that itworks. We have union meetings
every month. It's been a littlebit challenging lately due to
COVID 19. So once a month, thebusiness manager will give his
report to the Executive Board,which is made up of a president,
(10:14):
vice vice president, and then acouple of unit chairs, also a
treasurer, and I find and therecording secretary after he
gives his report to theexecutive board, he goes across
the province, and meets with themembers. He has a meeting here
in Edmonton. He has a meeting inCalgary in a meeting in Fort
(10:35):
McMurray, and he puts thefinancials up there, and he
gives his report as a way totell the members what the union
spending their union dues on andwhat they can expect for
upcoming work and maybe getfeedback from the membership on
how we might be able to have abetter union. And that's kind of
how it works.
Jason Cox (10:58):
What does it mean to be that IBEW employee? I mean,
obviously, you're you there's abenefit package. But like can
you just yet talk a little bitabout the I mean, obviously with
yourself to like, what was thedifference between being with a
non union employer and nowworking with the union? So just
(11:21):
for someone that really doesn'tknow?
Scott Crichton (11:27):
Well, you know, working in a union, you're
working under collectiveagreement, right? Like this,
this is our collectiveagreement. So every four years,
we release a bargaining surveyto our members and ask them,
what do they want for wages?
What do they want for workingconditions? What do they want
for health and welfare? What dothey want for pension? Right.
(11:49):
And then we kind of tally up alist, we call it a bargaining
proposal. And on the other sideis the Electrical Contractors
Association of Alberta, right?
They have a union arm and a nonunion arm, by the way, so we
deal with the union arm,obviously. And they have their
(12:11):
demands. And between the two ofus, we kind of hammer out a
collective agreement. So youknow, being a union member, I
have a collective agreement thatis the same for all of us. In
the open shop world, you'rebargaining basically, as an
individual, right, you'redealing with the employer, one
(12:33):
on one. And in some cases thatmight work to your benefit. In
some cases, it might not great,because you're, the employer has
the freedom to hire you fire youcut your wages, increase your
wages, whenever they want. Butwhen you have a collective
agreement in place, both sides,both sides, the employer and the
(12:57):
union have to adhere to theterms and conditions of the
collective agreement. You askhow it changed my life, Jay, I
would say you know, a couple ofdifferent things. It's offered
me a defined benefit pensionplan. So after 20 years in the
local union, I can get, youknow, I'm eligible for a pension
(13:19):
that's going to pay you anywhereon average from $1,000 Every two
weeks to maybe as much as 2500every two weeks. It depends how
many hours I've worked over thelast 20 to 30 years. The other
thing, I guess, would be thetraining. Great. You know, the
(13:41):
electrical trade is alwayschanging. And we have our own
training center that offersskills training, that the
various poli technical schoolsdon't offer great. The
Politecnico schools across theprovince st needs, you know,
other schools, they offer, youknow, your curriculum that you
(14:05):
need to become an electricianand a few other courses on top
of that. We talk to ourcontractors every three weeks
and we talked to our membershipand go, What do you guys need?
You know, do you want pipebending? Do you want solar? Do
you want motor controllers? Whatcourses would you guys need to
increase your skill set and Mikibe a better electrician? And
(14:28):
that's one of the things that Ifelt helped me. I went and
talked to the training director,I talked to him about what some
of my strengths were, what someof my weaknesses were. And they
put together some courses thatthey felt were needed to help
increase my skill set and makingme a better electrician. So a
(14:50):
little bit of a long answersorry about that. But that's
kind of what what what it's doneto help me with my career and so
One of the benefits I foundbeing in the union? Well, I
Jason Cox (15:04):
mean, what an opportunity. I mean, how often,
I mean, the three of us, we knowseveral electricians, and you
would go to school and you wouldlearn, like motor controls,
right? I mean, you learn threewire to wire motor control, and
basically first year, andstudents, some of electricians,
(15:28):
when it comes to the schematicsand just the operation. totally
forget how all that works. So Imean, you spend all that time in
an apprenticeship, learningstuff, and then eventually, you
don't know how to do it. Yeah,that's great that you guys have
the opportunity to refreshyourself on on specific courses,
(15:51):
and then also get to suggest andmodernize but do courses, select
that. I mean, that's a perk. AndI mean, let's not forget the
defined benefit, pension. Imean, that's just a rarity. Now
in this day and age, and andeventually there's going to be a
time where when you're going tohave to retire. And having that
(16:15):
peace of mind. And security'sincredible
Scott Crichton (16:20):
always been at the philosophy that every
electrical worker should havethe opportunity to retire with
dignity, right? You know, theyshouldn't be struggling after
they've done 20 or 30 years inthe trade, they should be able
to retire and do what they want.
They've worked hard their wholelife. Now, in their golden
years, let them do what theywant for the rest of their life.
(16:45):
I mean, it's some people want tokeep working. And that's great.
They can do that, too. But somepeople, you know, there's,
there's things that they want todo. And that's what the defined
benefit pension plan does. Itgives them this income that they
can count on every two weeks andplan their life around. So
you're right, Jay, that's,that's one of the best things I
(17:07):
think we have going for us.
Well, another
Jason Cox (17:11):
thing too. And it was brought up in another
conversation Zach and I've hadrecently is, is safety. And not
only are you training forspecific courses, but I'm under
the understanding that you guysdo have quite an extensive
safety safety program, as wellas Is that true?
Scott Crichton (17:31):
Yeah, we a lot of the safety training that we
do is through the trainingcenter. But also, some of the
oil sands facilities are pushingsafety as a required
prerequisite before you go andget onto their site. So what we
do is we try to get thattraining put into place ahead of
(17:53):
time. And what we found is, aswe were doing this training
through the training center, thecommercial contractors and some
of the other guys thought, well,this might not be a bad idea for
us to start offering orrequiring that our employees do
this training as well. And goodexample is for LRT construction.
(18:15):
You know, we have this arc flashawareness training that we offer
for the larger oil sands sitesand facilities. But as the line
was becoming energized, on thevalley, line LRT here, we
thought this is a goodopportunity for some of the
people doing LRT construction totake the arc flash awareness
training, right, and let themknow about some of the hazards
(18:40):
that they're going to beencountering, as these lines
become energized and turned overto epcor.
Jason Cox (18:45):
Well, that's I mean, one of the things with safety
and with education is sometimesit's not no one's fault, they
just simply don't know. And Imean, your timeline in the trade
and mine, for sure. Maybe Zacklike arc flash is something that
is a newer topic to us like itdidn't exist when I was on
(19:08):
tools, we we just isolatedequipment. We're trying not to
make an electrical connection.
We had no idea about thepotential hazards from an arc
flash incident. But it soundslike that's something that your
membership would hear aboutthrough the communications is I
mean, there'd be some somebulletins going out there. This
(19:31):
is information that maybe asmaller company might I mean,
they might just simply not knowof these hazards.
Scott Crichton (19:40):
Yeah, every three months or so we meet with
our contractors, and we have ameeting, right? And we talk
about some of the hazards thatwe're encountering in some of
the workplaces and some of thejobs that they're doing and we
talk about, you know, latelyit's been COVID-19 that we've
been talking about how How canwe improve workplace safety? So
(20:02):
that, you know, we don't have toworry about transmission? Arc
Flash is a topic that's come up,right due to a lot of the LRT
construction that's beenhappening lately. And that's
where we talk about, look, we'rehearing back from the membership
that there's some unsafeconditions out there. And here's
(20:26):
some of the courses that we havethat are available. Are these
sufficient to have a safe workenvironment? Or should we talk
to the training director here,and try to develop some more,
right, tailor something specificto some of the workplace hazards
that are happening out there?
And it's very, very helpful tohave these meetings with the
contractors every three monthsor so, is some of them have been
(20:48):
in industry for, you know, 2030years. And they can share some
of their experience with us ascontractors about what might
work or what might not work, andour members at the union
meetings, they can give us theirfeedback as well. And we kind of
come somewhere up the middle. Sothat we're, you know, we're
(21:08):
providing safe training. But atthe same time, we're not hurting
our contractors competitiveness.
Zack Hartle (21:18):
I guess I have two questions. So going back a
little bit to just to thestructure of the IBEW sure the
contractors work directly withthe IBEW and they would have
basically agreed to hire allIBEW members as their workforce.
Is that kind of how thatstructure works. Are the members
working for the IBEW? Are theyworking for the contractor?
Scott Crichton (21:41):
That's a really good question. Okay. So see,
somebody like myself wants tolet's just talk about my
experience, I walked in thefront door, and I said, I want
to join the IBEW I want to be aunion member, fill out an
application. There was jobsavailable on the job line. So I
(22:03):
pulled the slip, and went towork up in the oil sense. And
that was a great experience,right. So that's basically the
way that it works, right? If youwant to join the IBEW, you walk
in the front door, you fill outan application, you're what you
call a permit for the firstthree months. And after that,
you get sworn in, and thenyou're a full member. Now on the
(22:25):
contractor side is a contractoryou're required to hire through
the local union hiring home.
What that means is you have tosay you picked up a job like, I
don't know a shopping mall, andyou need 10 electricians, right,
because you got 10 guys workingfor you, but you need 10 more.
Now you talk to the dispatchdepartment. And you go look, I
(22:46):
need 10 Guys, journey personwith, you know, recent
commercial experience, we postthat on our website, contractor
XYZ electric, looking for a 10journey person electrician with
recent commercial experience,right? Now, we can just put the
(23:08):
call on there, or maybe theywant to do something like a
three for interview or eight.
That's an option for some ofthem, they can they can put a
three for interview. Maybethere's somebody that the had
working for them. And then theyhad a lack of work. And they had
to lay them off. You know, theywant to recall the guy. That's
(23:33):
another option. So as acontractor, you're required to
talk to dispatch, tell them whoyou need, like how many guys you
need. And then we post the job,and then electricians bid on the
job. And then they go to work.
Zack Hartle (23:47):
One thing you said there you apply to the Union.
And then you go to the jobboard. Is there any jobs right
now like if we are anybody'slistening in, they're looking
for work, but they haven'tthought about joining the union
and looking for work? Is thereopportunities right now to get
into the Union and find work?
Scott Crichton (24:04):
So there's always opportunities to get into
the Union? Like well, we'll takepeople in at any time. When we
talk about upcoming work.
There's a lot of calls goingopen right now due to the
shutdown season happening,right. Definitely in the
Edmonton area, and some for theWood Buffalo region. So that's
(24:27):
some opportunities to put somepeople to work, I would expect
that there'll be moreopportunities in the fall due to
LRT construction. Yeah, sothat's kind of what's going on.
But a lot of that work would beyour light industrial, heavy
industrial construction.
Jason Cox (24:48):
You said that you would look on the job line and
then bid for a job. How I'mguessing I could be outbid by
someone else. How does thatwork?
Scott Crichton (25:01):
So you're going to see come in, you join the
union, you get something calledan out of work number, right?
And then you look at jobs thatare on the job line, and then
you bid on a job. Now, when thatjob is completed, you might get
laid off. Right? So you comeback to the union hall, you ask
(25:22):
for a new out of work number,and you get a new out of work
number and then you startbidding on jobs on the job line.
If somebody has a lower numberthan you, then they could
potentially be in front of youfor that job. Let's not forget,
though, sometimes thecontractors are looking for
people with a certain type ofskill set, like recent
(25:44):
commercial experience, orheatrae, splicing or fiber optic
splicing. So that might become afactor and who gets the job and
even regardless of where thenumber is, but yeah, you're
right, Jay, that's basically theway it works. Whoever's got the
lowest number, they're the nextin line to get the job.
Jason Cox (26:04):
And then, like you said, then maybe if I was
lacking, I'm guessing I couldcall Colin and someone say,
well, Jay, yeah, you were reallyclose on that you just, you were
outbid, because contractor, xhad heat trace experience
through your training center, isthat something that I can I can
(26:27):
take your course on heat traceor some other skill set?
Scott Crichton (26:31):
Yeah, I mean, and that's what we try to
encourage people to do. Right?
Okay. So I had, I had a member,that contractor that did call on
the job line and did three forinterview. They were looking for
a recent commercial experience,and the needed some fire alarm
training. So they interviewed aguy and he just didn't quite
(26:56):
have the amount of fire alarmexperience the contractor
needed. So the guy came back tous and said, You know, I didn't
get the job. There are somecourses that we suggested that
he take for his fire alarmtraining, so that when he goes
to bid on the next call, he'sgoing to be more successful,
right? Be the Same thing forheat trace. If a contractor is
(27:20):
asking for that the memberdoesn't have it. We encourage
him to get in touch with thetraining center, take the
courses that he needs, so thathe's successful the next time.
Zack Hartle (27:32):
And who pays for the courses? And would it be the
electrician looking for thework? Would you know there'd be
a fee? I mean, assumingsubsidized a little bit because
they are an IBEW member. Arethey free, typically, to
members?
Scott Crichton (27:44):
They're free to members, because under the
collective agreement, 40 centsan hour of your salary goes
towards the training fund.
Zack Hartle (27:55):
And that's, that's huge, right? I mean, we're all
for keeping that knowledgeflowing in the trade, right?
Where lifelong learners, right,I'm a huge fan of that. So
that's something that isbeneficial, especially if you
take advantage of it. I'm surelots of guys don't. But
Scott Crichton (28:10):
absolutely. And that, you know, that's there's
many different things that thatcan help pay for great tuition
reimbursements. Also anotherthing, right, so you've gone to
school and you want to get yourtuition reimbursed. We expect
that you'll contact thistraining center ahead of time,
(28:30):
let them know, Hey, I'm goingfor third year, I want my
tuition reimbursed, right, haveall the paperwork done ahead of
time so that when you're done,you can get your tuition
reimbursed, right. And that's abig thing. being off work for
two months, getting that moneythat's going to help you pay
some bills.
Jason Cox (28:50):
This sounds expensive. I'm as a
tradesperson. I'm paying duesfor a for a pension. I'm paying
dues for a training center. Iprobably have medical benefits.
These are all wonderful things,but how are you staying
competitive with the non unioncontractor?
Scott Crichton (29:16):
So the collective agreement has
different wages for the type ofconstruction that they're doing
rates. If you're doingindustrial construction, there's
going to be a higher wage ratefor that. For commercial,
there'll be a lower wage rates,right. And I believe it's around
(29:38):
36 an hour. Right? And thathelps the contractor with their
competitiveness, right. Andthat's also one of the reasons
why we have the meetings everythree months because we talk
about upcoming work, and we talkabout are they being competitive
(29:59):
are they picking up more work?
What's the situation like outthere? Right? But, you know, the
reality is at the end of theday, you know, some of these
contractors been with us 50years, 70 years. If we didn't
work with them to find some wayto to have them be competitive,
(30:22):
they wouldn't be in businessanymore. Right. I think it's
just having that open dialoguewith the contractors and and
letting the, you know, hearingwhat their concerns are. But at
the same time, making sure thatthe people working for them are
getting a living wage rate,having enough money put in their
(30:47):
pocket that they can make theirmortgage payment and look after
their family and finding thatbalance between the two. Right.
Jason Cox (30:55):
Yeah, and I mean, I 100% do not want to, like I want
to make sure that I'm notsitting here downplaying the
union as being too expensive.
That's actually to the contrary.
One thing when you're dealing,obviously, if you're dealing
with a union contractor,everyone is certified. Everyone
(31:15):
is pulling permits. Everyone isthere's there's no shortcuts,
right. I mean, that's right now,there's there's many people out
there that are working and notfollowing the rules, and they're
undercutting both Union and nonunion contractors. And I mean,
it's, it's not good for ourindustry. No, it's
Scott Crichton (31:39):
not. And you know, we've we've had some
conversations with all levels ofgovernment when we talk about
procurement, right? When we talkabout building a school or
hospital or a rec center, youknow, various buildings that are
in our communities usingtaxpayers money. What are you
(32:05):
doing to ensure that thecontractor doing the work has
two things, they have theexperience and the wherewithal
to be able to build thisproject, get it done on time and
under budget and meet therequirements of the Canadian
electrical code, but also thepeople that are working for that
company are qualified skilledtradespeople. One of the
(32:29):
programs that DCA has is the thePTC program, professional
electrical contractor. I've beenpushing for years now to say, if
this is a government project,and it's going out for tender,
why not make it a requirementthat the contractor be a member
of the ECA and be a PTCcontractor? Right, as we know,
(32:53):
the the PTC has its own peerreview committee. So if a
contractor does poor work, allthe owner has to do is file a
complaint with the ECA. And ECAwill do an investigation, and
maybe that contractor will nolonger be eligible to be a
member of the PTC program.
Right. So these are things wecan do when we talk about
(33:16):
procurement, to make sure thatthe contractors union and non
union are doing good work. Butalso paying workers a good wage
and making sure the people doingthe work are qualified.
Jason Cox (33:33):
Well, you just mentioned a huge thing there.
Like if your union, obviouslyyou guys have a little bit of
clout, you can actually speakwith the government about issues
of concern. I mean, you'rerepresenting 1000s of people
just here in Alberta alone. ButI mean, obviously, this could be
even on a national level. InCanada, I don't think obviously
(33:57):
you're an international but it'snice that you guys are able to
speak up and at least representour our trade with the
government. So I mean, that's ahuge, I mean, that would help
all electricians honestly.
Scott Crichton (34:13):
When been you know, it's interesting, as I
started pushing for thesethings, Jay, the contractors
said to me, is there anything wecan do to help? So it was nice
to have the association at timeswant to join with me and say,
look, as a business owner, I'mconcerned about this. I'm
concerned about the race to thebottom when we talk about wages.
(34:36):
I'm concerned about unqualifiedcontractors doing the work, you
know, the one man ladder in atruck jack of all trades, Stan
out there is going to put upyour siding installer receptacle
at the same time for I don'tknow the Walmart discount price
or whatever you want to call it.
That's hurting him as a businessowner. And I think what We work
(34:58):
together with the contractorsand go look, you know, as an
individual worker, this ishurting my livelihood. But also,
as a business owner, you'rehurting small business, and we
need to have these changes. Ithelps push the government to
form better policy.
Jason Cox (35:24):
Well, better policies is always a good thing, right?
Because so often we get wrappedup in policy trying to make
sense of the policy that I mean,we don't go anywhere. So so it's
good to hear that subject matterexperts in our industry are
helping shape policy.
Scott Crichton (35:43):
You know, one of the one of the good examples is,
we talked about the electricaltrade Regulation Act and solar.
One of the concerns I had was alot of incentive programs being
released, and unqualified tradespeople or unqualified people
being out there doing the work.
Right, that was a seriousconcern that I had. And I leaned
(36:04):
hard on the government to makesome changes. And one of the
things I like to do is show anexample of how somebody got
hurt, right? There's a case inSarnia, Ontario, where there's
an unqualified worker that gotinjured, he was there was a 600
volt arc flash that happened.
(36:25):
And this individual, you know,was not qualified, it was
working in unsafe conditions.
And unfortunately, mistaken ahospital, he survived. But it
was a good example of why weneed qualified electricians
doing the work. And thecontractors actually helped me
push this messaging togovernment and
Zack Hartle (36:49):
the media made
Scott Crichton (36:50):
appropriate changes to the electrical trade
Regulation Act. And to be clearto do solar work in Alberta, you
must be either a journey person,electrician, or an apprentice
working under the supervision ofa journey person. So it was
good, it was, you know, amistake was made in Ontario, but
in Alberta, you know, we madesure to learn from the mistakes
(37:14):
made in a different jurisdictionand make sure that the people
working here were safe, when theincentive programs came out.
Zack Hartle (37:23):
And that that conversation there, that's
something we discussed a lot inactually, episode two of this
podcast was with talking aboutsolar. And you know, where is
that line, and we are lucky inAlberta, that the line is, it's
pretty, I guess, high and thatwe need electricians to do
anything to do with connectionsand grounding and bonding. And
(37:44):
it's it's unfortunate that thereis, you know, different parties
out there trying to push it toallow more unskilled laborers to
be involved. But I mean, at theend of the day, you're even
grounding and bonding. It'sthat's an electrical connection
that needs to be done byqualified certified
electricians, right. Well,
Scott Crichton (38:01):
what had happened in the case in Sarnia,
Ontario was, you know, thecompany at the time said, it's
very easy. It's plug in andplay, plug in and play. And what
happened was, you know, they'remaking a bunch of serious
connections, you know, and atthe end, the person didn't know
(38:23):
the difference between thepositive and negative. And
that's when the 600 volt arcflash should happen and the
worker became injured. So therewas some industry pushback when
I was sending this message togovernment saying, Well, no,
anybody can do it. It's plug inand play us. There's no plug in
and play. It's positive andnegative. Great. I said the
(38:44):
module when it's exposed to thesun is a power producing advice
device. Great. This iselectrical work. And when you're
putting it on somebody's home,right, where they're going to be
living with their family, or ona school in some instances where
we have children, right? We wantto make sure that qualified
people are doing that work.
Great. Safety is not just aconcern of the electrician, it
(39:07):
should be everybody's concern.
Last thing we want to see issomebody get hurt because we cut
a corner somewhere and we haveunqualified people doing the
install.
Zack Hartle (39:21):
Yeah, no, it's I mean, everything in our trade is
you put a wire under a screw,you connect a wire, you put
together a conduit, right? It'sall I guess, by that argument,
plug and play, but there's yougot to know what you're plugging
into what and what's going tohappen afterwards.
Scott Crichton (39:37):
Absolutely.
Jason Cox (39:40):
Scott, can you tell us about some of the
International options for workfor your members?
Scott Crichton (39:46):
Sure. So as an international union, what we
find sometimes is, you know,there's a lot of employment
opportunities in Alberta forabout 15 years or so. So People
came from across Canada to helpus fill these jobs that were
available in the oil sense. Andwhen a lot of that construction
(40:11):
ended, and people still needed ajob, other locals in other parts
of Canada or in the UnitedStates, the needed some extra
journeyperson electricians,extra labor. So now there's an
opportunity for us to be able togo other places. Like there's an
LNG plant that's in Kitimat BC,or sent a dozen people working
(40:35):
right now. Pennsylvania, there'sthe hydrocracker plant where we
have 133 members working out inOntario, there's a couple of
projects that are happening downin Sarnia, where we sent two
dozen members. So being aninternational union, the
(40:59):
employment opportunities don'tnecessarily stop just here in
Alberta, there's going to beopportunities for people to be
able to go other places.
Jason Cox (41:09):
I mean, it's definitely an option and you
have some administration thereto help you. Right guide you
through the process. I mean,everyone. When when people talk
to Zack and I about getting intoan apprenticeship, we say Yeah,
well, sure it's No, it's greatjob, do it just go find go find
an employer. And that's like thehitting a brick wall right away.
(41:34):
But it sounds like there wouldbe at least some, obviously some
support or I mean, you havepeople that know, know the
process. So that's, that's niceas well.
Zack Hartle (41:44):
Obviously, Scott in the electrical industry is not
alone in this. But in everyindustry, we're seeing this big
transition from, you know,carbon based energy into these
renewable energies. And what isthe, I guess, position of the
Union on that? I mean,obviously, you've been heavily
into oil and gas here inAlberta. But you already
(42:06):
mentioned in this show aboutsolar energy, what's the
position on the IBEW on thattransition?
Scott Crichton (42:13):
Well, I'm just, I don't think that solar and
wind are going to save us aselectricians. You know, while
since construction, when we talkabout IBEW 44, it's created a
lot of employment opportunitiesand a lot of wealth for the
(42:34):
Union and for our members. Andwe're grateful for, for
everything that's come alongwith that, that as we move
towards the future, and we seeless and less oil sands
facilities being built. I'mguessing that our industry in
Alberta is probably going tomove more towards the small
(42:57):
modular reactors that have beentalked, a lot of people been
talking about, I could see moreof those getting built. And
putting a lot more people towork. Energy storage projects,
like the Canyon Creek energystorage project being built out
in Hinton by turning pointgeneration. Trans lt has got a
(43:17):
proposed energy storage projectthat's being built. It's
something related to brazo downmy I can't remember the exact
name. And hydrogen Air Productsis building a $2 billion
hydrogen production facility. Sowhen we talk about industrial
construction, and putting peopleto work, I see more that the
(43:41):
small modular reactor thathydrogen energy storage
projects, let's not forget a fewweeks ago, I believe it was the
Alberta energy. J, you're gonnahave to help me with the
acronym. I always get it wrong.
But Alberta energy systemoperator?
Zack Hartle (44:00):
Yeah, yeah. The ISO Alberta electric system
operator,
Scott Crichton (44:04):
right, they hit a, you know, the head of Level
Two alert across the province,right. And the reason being,
with all the smoke that washappening, solar wasn't
producing, you know, the amountof power that they were hoping
it would, right. And now therewas wind at the time.
Zack Hartle (44:23):
And at the same time, we were 37 degrees here,
everyone's running airconditioners. And
Scott Crichton (44:29):
exactly. So you know, you can only put so much
solar up before you're going tothat's it. There's nowhere else
to put solar. So we need energystorage projects to be able to
store that power and release itback into the grid. Right? at
whatever time it's needed. Andthat's where these energy
storage projects are going tocome into play. And they're
going to put a lot of people towork and they are renewable
(44:52):
energy projects. If you go tothe turning point generation
website, they do a very goodpresentation on how it all
works. It New technology. And Ibelieve that's where the
industry is headed.
Jason Cox (45:04):
I think that that's, I mean, that's the conversation
we need to have. Not withelectricians. But with
Canadians, we can't just turnour backs on carbon energy,
we're gonna need it as wetransition into other types of
energy. And yeah, just likeyou're saying, we need solar
(45:27):
energy is great, but it's onlygood for 12 hours of the day,
less than that, I mean, as asfall comes, we need to start
investing in some way to capturethis energy and be able to use
it when we need to use it.
Zack Hartle (45:43):
And the big word there being diversification,
right, just getting a little bitof eggs and a bunch of little
baskets to help us meet ourpower needs. And, you know,
especially as EVs become morepopular, and the demand on the
grid is going to increasewithout question. So,
Scott Crichton (46:00):
you know, let's not forget about the hydrogen
either Air Products. Back in2015, I was working on a large
project out at Scotford at AirProducts was building there, the
company that's going to bebuilding this hydrogen plant,
right? It's industrial work,it's good paying work, it's
going to be good paying jobs,which is what we need. When we
(46:23):
talk about doing any type oftransition to the workforce, we
got to make sure that wages andworking conditions aren't left
behind. Great. You know, I'm allfor creating new jobs, but I
don't want to see people's wagesbeing cut.
Jason Cox (46:40):
Yeah, you're, you're totally correct with that. And I
mean, there's, there's so manypeople in, in, I'm gonna say, in
white collar industries, thatfor years, were making far more
money than, than a lot of thecon, the electricians are gonna
say the trade person, not theabout the actual business owner
of the electrical company. Butthen we've seen a huge change in
(47:05):
the white collar salaries. It'seasy for them to pop back up
again, when the when the economychanges, but it sure takes a
long time to get the journeymanjourney person rates back up.
It's important that we, we haveto have like you were saying
(47:25):
earlier, we have to have fair,reasonable salaries for for all
of our workers.
Scott Crichton (47:32):
I mean, one of the things that I've been
pushing for is to have somethingsimilar to what they have in
Manitoba, or it's, it's aconstruction industry wages act,
right. And, you know, basicallywhat they've done, there's
They've set a minimum wage foreverybody. But they also set a
minimum wage for your carpenterpipe fitter, an electrician, and
(47:52):
basically said that this is theminimum wage union and non
union, this is what you're gonnaget paid, nobody's gonna get
paid less than that. At onepoint in time, the government
was looking at possiblyrepealing it in industry. And
the unions came together andsaid, Don't do that, because
(48:13):
it'll start a race to thebottom. And if you do a race to
the bottom, then we're going tohave a skilled labor shortage.
We we want a minimum wage forelectricians and pipe fitters,
and carpenters. Right. So thatthat race to the bottom doesn't
happen. Right?
Jason Cox (48:31):
Well, I mean, it's, it's a really big topic. And I
mean, just thinking about it,and with this race to the
bottom, and if we do lose thoseskilled trades, eventually
government intervenes. And thenthat means they have to
incentivize people to get intothe trades. They're going to
spend all that money later on.
So it's not it. I mean, there'sa lot of moving pieces here.
Scott Crichton (48:55):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, as a
labor union, we don't we don'tget behind one political party.
We support good policy. Youknow, and we like to think we
like to push for things like afair wages act. Great. We had
that federally, right. Thatbasically said, union or non
(49:18):
union, this is the wage, this isthe wage that you're going to be
paying the workers. Federally,when this passport office or
RCMP station goes out fortender. This is what everybody's
gonna get paid and not a dimeless. Right. So non union
contractors can bid on it, butthey gotta pee, you know, the
same wages that the union guysare bidding that bid on the job.
(49:42):
And let's stop that race to thebottom right. Let's make sure
that everybody doing the work isgetting paid a good respectable
wage.
Jason Cox (49:51):
Yeah, I really like this race to the bottom term
you're using because I'm veryconcerned about it. I think it's
so important that We, that we'reall on the same, same level,
we're all pulling permits, we'reall qualified, we're all doing
the work the way it's supposedto be done.
Scott Crichton (50:10):
I'm all for creating jobs at the same time,
right? We like to push for largeprojects to be created. in
Calgary, when the arena wasgoing out for tender, I wrote a
few letters to the mayor'soffice, pushing for the Calgary
arena to go to get approvedbecause I wanted to see people
(50:32):
go to work. The Canada pucksplant, you know, we're, they're
basically going to take bitumenand they're going to form these
pucks that are going to be usedfor different purposes. I wrote
a letter to the government andpushed for and lobbied for
incentives to build these plantshere in Alberta with a new type
of technology, because I thoughtit would put Albertans to work.
(50:55):
The tech resources, they weregoing to build a $20 billion oil
sands mine in northern Alberta.
Not only did I write letters togovernment, I testified at the
hearing. And so did the ironworker and the carpenter and the
boiler maker. We all showed upthere to basically say that we
want these jobs want to quitAlbertans to work. Right.
Jason Cox (51:18):
I think it's very interesting and timely right now
that you mentioned that theunion doesn't support one
political party. Wheat, Zach andI were speaking with a gentleman
from Ontario last week. And Imean, we really haven't even
talked about COVID here today.
But COVID coupled with thedownturn in the economy in
(51:38):
Alberta, I mean, it is, this isa tough time for Albertans. This
is a tough time forelectricians. I mean, any thing
or any one that can do somethingto promote investment in in, in
construction and jobopportunities on Alberta. I
(51:59):
mean, you're a superhero.
Scott Crichton (52:04):
A union is essentially a reflection of
society, right? We have membersthat vote for every political
party, because it lines up withwhat their belief system is. So
as a labor union, it's ourresponsibility to represent all
of them. Right? So how do we dothat we support good policies
like fair wages, good workingconditions, right, and proper
(52:30):
changes to industry to make surethat people are working safely.
Right. And as long as we takethat position, and we keep
trying to push. I think thateverybody's going to benefit at
the end of the day.
Jason Cox (52:45):
Well, I looked through one of your collective
agreements online this morning,and even yesterday, and some of
the information listed on justthe the standard of the job
site, right, some of the thingsthat construction workers, I
mean, we work in some prettyrough environments, but just the
minimum standards required. Imean, it was it was nice and
(53:07):
reassuring to, to read that yourworkers are given like a
standard to make their job alittle easier, right? I mean,
nobody wants to be out in aplastic box using the facilities
at 40. Below. Just looking atsome of the considerations that
were in your collectiveagreement. It was it was
(53:27):
refreshing to see.
Scott Crichton (53:30):
We try to drive changes in industry that way,
right. So if we get the changesin the collective agreement,
hopefully it's not long beforethe open shop starts to follow
in behind, right.
Jason Cox (53:41):
Vaccinations has been kind of a polarizing topic in
the workplace. How are you guysapproaching vaccination for your
members?
Scott Crichton (53:52):
I want as many of our members to get vaccinated
as possible. And the last thingI want is somebody to get the
vaccine and rushed back to workbecause they're, they don't want
to get their pay, you know whatI mean? They're they're worried
about their pay cut, or they'renot making an income. So you
(54:13):
know, there's adverse effects,some people doesn't affect them
at all. Some people, they get aheadache, and they can't think
right, and they got to be athome. So I said, as an employer,
if somebody's getting thevaccine that day, would you
agree to pay them till the endof the day? Right, so that
they're not rushing back towork, and then there are no
left, and they're getting sideeffects from this vaccine. And
(54:34):
the people around them areunsafe, in the employers said to
me, we would be more than happyto pay them until the end of the
day if they're getting thevaccine that day because it's to
our benefit to have as manypeople as possible get
vaccinated. So instead, ifthat's, if that's the concern
(54:55):
that they're going to rush backto work, we will. All they need
to do is provide us a Thedoctor's note, you know, saying
that they are getting thevaccine that they will gladly
pay them to the end of the day.
And it pushed the AlbertaFederation of Labor to push more
employers to do the same. Ifsomebody's getting the vaccine,
don't make them rush back towork, agree to pay them till the
(55:15):
end of the day and more of yourworkforce will be vaccinated and
everybody will be healthier andhappier.
Zack Hartle (55:22):
You know, Scott, this has been a an awesome,
probably hour and a bit thatwe've been talking here. And I
think we could go on for severalmore hours. But I think we kind
of want to wrap up a little bittoday. But just with the maybe
put the thought in your mind,would you ever be willing to
come back and do another show? Iknow, there was lots of other
things that we had kind of linedup to talk about today.
Scott Crichton (55:42):
Absolutely. I'd love to come back. Thank you for
having me today.
Zack Hartle (55:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's been really informative. Imean, I mentioned before, I
personally didn't know anythingabout the IBEW and I learned a
huge amount and there's so muchmore to learn, especially about
their collaboration with othercounterparts and other
provinces. And even with theother countries, the
collaboration between them ishuge. Kind of on that note, if
people are listening and theywant to learn a little bit more
(56:09):
about the IBEW, what they do,how they operate, or, you know,
reach out get a job or anythinglike that, where should they go
to find out more information
Scott Crichton (56:18):
so they can come to our office in Edmonton or
Calgary or they can check outour website at WWW dot IBEW 424
dot net.
Jason Cox (56:29):
Zach and I would like to thank Scott for chatting with
us today. Check out the linkbelow for the IBEW if you'd like
more information. And of courseif you'd like our show, please
subscribe to get the latestdownloads. We can be found
wherever you're downloadingpodcasts. Connect with us and
let us know what you would liketo hear in the future on Watt's
(56:49):
the Word. Keep yourself safe outthere, and if he can someone
else to
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