“Because we have this wall-to-wall approac
people can be trained in a multiple number of
time.” Dick Heinen, Executive Director
primarily because there was so much dis-
ruption within the construction industry,”
said Heinen. CLAC became an alternative
for a lot of people who were dissatisfied
with the mainline unions.
In the 2000s, CLAC became a significant
supplier of labour in the oil sands in Fort
McMurray. Prentice attributes the organi-
zation’s heavy presence in the oil sands to
its wall-to-wall construction model. CLAC
includes all construction trades under one
collective agreement rather than repre-
senting select trades groups separately.
Combined with the union’s emphasis on
building a partnership relationship with the
employer, this approach leads to increased
productivity and greater success in com-
pleting projects on time and on budget.
Before entering the oil sands, CLAC tested
this model on a number of projects, which
turned out to be huge successes. “And that
opened up the opportunity for an alterna-
18 business elite canada
H
MARCH 2017
