Statement From the Manitoba Building Trades on the Return to Fair and Open Tendering
October 10, 2024
The Manitoba Building Trades Council applauds the government for their expediency in repealing the ban on Project Labour Agreements (PLAs). This move will reinstate fair and open tendering in the province. The ban was the only one of its kind in North America and has had devastating impacts on workforce development, labour cost certainty and employment standards enforcement on provincial infrastructure projects. PLAs are an enforcement tool for local hiring, training, and fair wage packages for skilled trade workers. These agreements provide taxpayer funded projects with labour cost certainty and access to highly trained Manitoban workers.
Manitoba has a long history of using PLAs successfully with projects including many of Manitoba Hydro’s largest dams and transmission lines, the Eastside Road, and the Floodway Expansion. These projects ensured local hiring, apprenticeship and training opportunities, and cost certainty for government. Workers on these jobs sites were paid collective agreement rates and industry leading benefits packages. The province, as the project owner, was guaranteed access to labour supply and standardized dispute resolution mechanisms so that no strikes, lockouts or shortage of skilled labour would prevent work from being completed on time and on budget.
PLAs support open and fair bidding, so that high quality contractors are not forced to work down to a lowest cost bid model. The lowest cost model puts our local construction industry at risk from bad industry actors moving in and being awarded publicly owned projects with sub-par workers from out of province. The evaluation of bids should be based on quality and expertise and not based on who can pay their skilled workforce the least.
Repealing the ban on PLAs is the first step to reversing the damage done to workforce development and the construction sector in Manitoba under the former Progressive Conservative government.
Manitoban’s deserve to know that their tax dollars are used efficiently and are benefiting our communities. Once this bill has passed, the Manitoba Building Trades Council looks forward to working with the government to ensure all future major public infrastructure projects are completed under a model of fair and open tendering by implementing PLAs.
The Standing Committee on Social and Economic Development will consider Bill 7 The Public Sector Construction Projects (Tendering) Repeal Act on Thursday Oct 10 at 6pm.