Saturday, February 15, 2020 – Concord, ON – The majority of represented employees working for The Belluz Group Ltd., Castlewall Marble & Tile Inc., Centa Construction Ltd. and York Marble Tile & Terrazzo Inc. attended a ratification meeting and unanimously voted in favour of their first Collective Agreement with the Building Union of Canada (BUC). These bargaining rights were attained through a successful raid from BACU Local 31 where over 87% of the workers voted to join the BUC during the most resent raid period in 2019. This first Agreement includes increases to hourly wages, vacation pay, pension fund, parking, shift premiums, signing bonus and an incentive program to bring in more hourly workers. The new monetary package equals a total monetary increase of over 10% over the next two years.
Also added to the new Collective Agreement is no more shortage of work lay-offs for the hourly employees. Over the last 10 years there has been a significant decrease of over 500 workers in the hourly workforce. These workers have been lost to the non-union companies. “The priority was to stop the bleeding of these hourly workers” says Stephen Bromell, Vice President/Secretary Treasurer of the BUC. “To their credit, the Employers also felt a need for this language and both parties worked together during negotiations to accomplish this goal.”
Over the past several years the Marble, Tile and Terrazzo workers have significantly fallen behind other trades in the construction industry in Ontario. “One of our other goals was to attempting to start bringing those wages up and increasing our market share.” says Tony Cordeiro, Field Representative of the BUC. “These negotiations were a great start and will be the foundation of BUC’s expansion into the hard surface industry.” “These workers are now the highest paid in the hard surface industry.”
Tony Cordeiro also went on to say “The Bargaining committee gave us great direction on what the priorities were and were a great asset to these negotiations.”
Stephen Bromell stated “It was encouraging to see the Employers step up to the plate and work with us. The negotiations went smoothly and the relationship between the parties is built on mutual respect.” “We, very much, look forward to building something unique and partnering with a professional team of Employers for everyone’s mutual benefit.”
