Labour and 2010

LABOUR AND 2010 OLYMPICS

“The promised employment opportunities associated with Olympic construction, retail trade, and the tourist industry were often short-lived.”
(Inside the Olympic Industry, p. 105)

Organized Labour & 2010
Organized labour, including their political organizations and trade unions, have been largely absent from anti-2010 opposition. In 2006, nearly 300,000 government workers signed contracts that end in March 2010, thus ensuring an 'Olympic labour peace'. Other unions also signed contracts that end 1-2 years after the Games, such as the BC Ferry Workers & CUPE workers in Greater Vancouver (who conducted the 'Garbage STrike' of 2007 that lasted nearly 90 days).

Some recent labour struggles have threatened to disrupt the Olympics as part of their negotiating posture. The most notable include the Air Canada (an Olympic sponsor) mechanics in June 2009, and paramedics later that year.

Overall, labour has tended to collaborate with the Olympic industry. In fact, a coalition of trade unionists & NDP (New Democratic Party) members worked with local business elites in supporting a Yes vote in the Olympic referendum of 2003. Some were members of the Bid Committee itself. For organized labour bureaucrats, 2010 represents large-scale capital investment in construction and related industries.

The collaboration between labour & business in regards to Olympic construction can be seen in Concert Properties, a real estate & development company first established by labour bureaucrats in the late 1980s, largely through the efforts of then-president of the Telecommunications Worker’s Union, Bill Clark. He and others pooled together 20 union pension funds to create $30 million in start up money.

Around the same time, Gordon Campbell, then-mayor of Vancouver (and now BC Premier), made a deal with Vancouver Land Corporation (VLC), and turned over valuable public land to VLC in exchange for 2,000 units of low-income housing to be built. In the end, only 1,143 units were constructed, none of them affordable. At the time, VLC Ltd. was headed by Jack Poole. VLC eventually became Concert Properties, of which Poole sits today as chairman of the board. Poole, of course, is chairman of the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) board.

Although Poole failed to honour VLC’s commitment to build affordable housing, Concert Properties went on to build 80 % of all rental housing in Vancouver and to become the largest developer of rental housing in Western Canada.

The board of Concert remains dominated by union bureaucrats; of 17 directors, twelve are current or former union bureaucrats, including President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Ken Georgetti (see “The P3 Files: Privatization, Profit and Porkchopping,” by Will Offley, Canadian Dimension, July-August 2004 issue, www.canadiandimension.com).

Both Georgetti and Poole were members of the Vancouver 2010 Bid Committee. Thus, it is not surprising that far from opposing 2010, organized labour actively supports the Olympics Industry and sees it as a tremendous source of profit.

In Atlanta, during the lead up to the 1996 Olympics, organized labour was initially part of the opposition to the Games. When the Olympic flag was brought back to Atlanta in September 1992, it was in part due to labour mobilization that over 5,000 protesters were there to greet it.

In December ’92, along with community activists, workers staged a ‘sit-in’ during a meeting of the Atlanta Organizing Committee (ACOG), demanding local hiring, training, and union wages. In June, 1993, just 2 weeks before an official ground-breaking ceremony for the main Olympic stadium, labour and community activists established a tent city. Less than 24 hours before the ground-breaking, ACOG concluded an agreement with organized labour for union construction of the main arena.

According to the BC & Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council,
“[T]he lasting legacy of the games in Atlanta has been greater union density and market share” (“Labour’s role in the Atlanta Olympics sets an example,” by Joe Barret, Trade Talk, Summer 2004).

In the same issue of Trade Talk, the newsletter of the Trades Council, executive director Wayne Peppard further outlined organized labour’s strategy in regards to 2010, in an article entitled “YES to collaboration, NO to confrontation,”:
“As we look forward to the next 10 years, we can expect to see up to $13 billion spent in BC alone on public infrastructure and Olympic venues.”
(“YES to collaboration, NO to confrontation,” Wayne Peppard, Trade Talk, Summer 2004)

For organized labour, the main benefits of Olympic events are major contracts for construction and services. Their goal is to be involved as much as possible, to secure work for union workers, negotiate wages & conditions, and to expand their own memberships through unionization.

In Sydney 2000, the Sydney Organizing Committee (SOCOG) began negotiating contracts with the Labor Council of New South Wales in 1997. That same year, two other industrial worker agreements were signed covering unionized and private sector workers. These established wages & some working conditions. One union, the Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) fought six-months for an Olympic contract. The LHMU was also in competition with volunteers for some 100,000 positions that needed to be filled by SOCOG. In the end, some 55,000 jobs were taken by volunteers, with 45,000 positions filled by paid workers (inc. LHMU members).

2006: Olympic 'Peace' Labour Contracts Bought by Government
In 2006, contracts for a number of unions, involving 90 percent of BC's 300,000 public sector workers, came up for re-negotiation. The provincial government allocated some $6 billion to settle these contracts, which included $1 billion in signing bonuses if done before April 1, 2006. This worked out to some $3,300 for each worker. In exchange, the government obtained labour 'peace' through the Olympics in February 2010, with most of these contracts ending in March 2010.

Unions, including the BC Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), BC Teacher's Federation, and the Hospital Employees Union (HEU, also part of CUPE, all signed these contracts. These came after years of labour struggle involving teachers, nurses, doctors, government workers, and support staff, fighting zero percent wage increases, pay cuts, back to work legislation, imposed contracts, court fines, and strikes.

In the Fall of 2005 teachers undertook 'illegal' strike action and shut down schools for 2 weeks. Although they were fined, public sympathy was largely with the teachers. In 2004, the HEU had carried out an 'illegal' strike after the government imposed a contract with a 15 percent cut in wages. The HEU was also fined by the courts.

With the economic recession, mass layoffs, and a huge debt, the provincial government will be unable/unwilling to provide so large a payoff for social peace. In fact, as seen in recent cuts to education, social services, etc., it is more likely the government will seek to impose less beneficial contracts on workers while subjecting them to ongoing cuts in wages, benefits, and jobs. The post-Olympic terrain may see more intense class struggle than that leading up to it. At the same time, the anti-Olympic resistance can influence and set the tone for this post-Games struggle (as it undoubtedly already has, as will the Olympic Police State).

Olympic Volunteers
Volunteers are huge sources of unpaid labour for the Olympic Industry. People volunteer largely out of a sense of wanting to be involved, part of the ‘Olympic Spirit’ hyped up by the IOC and corporate media. They appear largely unaware of the multi-billion dollar aspects of the Olympics occurring all around them.
During the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, some 55,000 people were mobilized as volunteers. They had to undergo criminal record checks and to attend orientation and training classes. Several thousand were drawn from voluntary organizations such as St. John’s Ambulance, Lions Clubs, etc. Volunteer recruitment was widely promoted by corporate media.
An estimated 25,000 volunteers will be needed for the 2010 Olympics (Winter Olympics are smaller than Summer ones).

Temporary Foreign Workers & Canada Line
In preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, some 20 workers died working on Olympic venues, with as many as 1,000 injured. Most of these were migrant workers, forced to work over-time as construction deadlines came and went and as Olympic organizers faced growing criticism for cost-overruns and failure to complete projects on time.
On June 1, 2006, the BC & Yukon Building & Construction Trades Council issued a statement regarding exploitation of temporary foreign workers on the Canada Line, a transit rail system being built from downtown Vancouver to the international airport in Richmond:
“BC’s construction unions say dozens of foreign workers at the Canada Line rapid transit tunnel are the victims of exploitation, receiving less than minimum wage. The BC & Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council says more than 50 workers from Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia are working long hours with no overtime—which works out to a wage of less than $5 an hour.”
(CBC News, June 1, 2006: www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2006/06/01/bc_canada-line200606...)

Wayne Peppard, the council’s executive director, stated:
‘We feel that it’s important enough that we put everybody on notice that this is absolutely unacceptable. This is scandalous. We were shocked and appalled to learn that these atrocious wages are being paid to foreign workers here on this RAV line. This is an exploitation of the temporary foreign-worker program.”
(CBC News, June 1, 2006: www.cbc.ca)

In November 2007, the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled that 30 foreign workers working on the Canada Line, from Costa Rica, Colombia & Ecuador, had been intimidated and coerced by the company, Seli Tecnologie. Specifically, they had been pressured into severing ties with the Construction & Specialized Worker’s Union Local 1611 by signing a petition put together by company managers.
Earlier in 2007, the BC Labour Relations Board had ruled that the foreign workers were in fact being paid the equivalent to domestic workers, considering that their food & shelter were provided by the company. At the same time, this also made them more dependent on the company and vulnerable to pressure.
Construction of the Canada Line is being carried out by an Italian corporation, Seli Tecnologie. The primary contractor is SNC Lavalin, one of Canada’s largest arms manufacturers. Workers, most from Central & South America, will be operating a specialized tunnel-boring machine 24 hours a day to complete the five-kilometer tunnel under downtown Vancouver in 2008. The Canada Line is scheduled to open in 2009.

Construction Task Force
The multi-billion dollar budget for 2010-related construction, paid for largely through public money, is controlled by VANOC, which has contracted Concert Properties to oversee. Concert, of which VANOC chairman Jack Poole also sits on the board, has contracted this work out to major construction firms, including: Aecon/Scott Canada, Bel Pacific, Dominion Construction, PCL Contractors, Stuart Olson, Ledcor, and Pacific Laicon.
These companies, along with others, comprise the 2010 Construction Leaders Taskforce, established in July 2003 to coordinate and advise on matters relating to construction. In addition to the previously listed companies, this includes: Bird Construction, Dominion Fairmile Construction, EllisCon Construction, Emil Anderson Construction, Graham Construction, Intertech Construction Group, JJM Construction, Kinetic Construction, Knappet Projects, Metro Canada Construction, Norson Construction, Peter Kiewit Sons’, RAM Construction, TASK Construction Management, Vanbots Construction, and the Business Association of BC.

Sources

Inside the Olympic Industry; Power, Politics and Activism, by Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, State University of New York Press, Albany NY 2000

Air Canada Workers Threaten Olympic Strike

July 3, 2009 - 09:19 — no2010

Air Canada workers target Vancouver Olympics for strike

Mechanics defy own union in rejecting offer

BRENT JANG

TRANSPORTATION REPORTER — From Thursday's Globe and Mail, Thursday, July 02, 2009

Anti-2010 Olympic Resistance

Foreign Workers on Canada Line Win Human Rights Case

December 5, 2008 - 02:37 — no2010

FYI.. Canada Line is part of Olympics project in terms of infrastructure and transport etc.

Foreign Canada Line workers win multi-million dollar human rights case

By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun, December 3, 2008

Anti-2010 Olympic Resistance

Fatal Plane Crash Carried Kiewit Crew

November 20, 2008 - 09:00 — no2010

A deadly plane crash on BC's southern coast on Nov 16, 2008, in which seven people died, was carrying 5 employees of the Peter Kiewit & Sons construction company, responsible for the Sea-to-Sky highway expansion.

Kiewit CEO Honors B.C. Plane Crash Victims

November 20, 2008