ICBA celebrates 50 years of serving open shop construction this year, and we are looking back every week at some of the significant moments, milestones, and people who helped ICBA become Canada’s largest construction association.
Today, we turn back the clock to 1997, when NDP Premier Glen Clark tried to essentially unionize all of B.C. construction.
The interviews and other original research on which the ICBA50 series is based were conducted by writer Kevin Hanson. We appreciate Kevin’s work capturing the people, events, and milestones that shaped ICBA’s first half-century.
When Mike Harcourt stepped down as premier in November 1995 – taking responsibility for a bingo fundraising scandal he wasn’t directly involved in – it opened the door to something much worse. Glen Clark, a cabinet minister with deep ties to the Building Trades unions, won the leadership and took over.
In the May 28, 1996, election, the NDP lost the popular vote and dropped seats. But thanks to vote-splitting on the right, they managed to cling to a majority. And just like that, ICBA and the open shop sector were staring down another hostile government – this time under a premier who was brasher, more combative, and unapologetically aligned with the union movement.
Clark was a former union organizer. More than a third of the money raised for his leadership campaign came from the Building Trades. And on day one, the message was clear. “I vividly remember the day they were trooping into the chambers,” said Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer. “And standing at the foot of the house shaking hands with every single one of them was Len Warden of the Building Trades and Ken Georgetti [of the B.C. Federation of Labour].”
“It was disappointing and frightening,” recalled Joel Nauss, ICBA Chair in 1997-98. “[Clark] called us into his office and we weren’t treated like British Columbians, we weren’t treated like fellow citizens, we weren’t treated like entrepreneurs… It was right in the gutter, right out of the gate as soon as we walked in the room.”
Clark’s combative approach, already evident during the Island Highway fiasco, would define his premiership. Labour Code reform was next – and the NDP’s ambition was to go even further.
By mid-1997, that ambition became Bill 44.
On the surface, it was a short bill. But it packed a wallop. Bill 44 would have imposed sectoral bargaining across the construction industry – forcing companies into master collective agreements they hadn’t negotiated, regardless of size, location, or circumstance.
Worse, the business community had been completely shut out of the process. Labour Minister Dan Cashore later admitted as much: “We already knew what business would say.” A scheduled briefing for the Coalition of B.C. Businesses on June 10 was cancelled at the last minute – because union feedback had prompted more changes.
When the details leaked to the Vancouver Sun on June 14, Philip Hochstein didn’t mince words. “If it is sectoral certification, it’s bad news for the construction industry and the investment climate in B.C.,” he warned, noting construction costs would skyrocket.
The bill was introduced June 25. Vaughn Palmer later wrote that it “would have given [the Building Trades] their biggest boost since the NDP granted them a near-monopoly of public construction in the early 1970s” and had been “delivered in an atmosphere of undisguised contempt for employers.”
ICBA, the Coalition of B.C. Businesses, and now the broader business community fought back hard. On June 24, a coalition press conference announced province-wide protest plans. Coalition Chair Suromitra Sanatani wrote to Minister Cashore condemning the exclusionary process and the fundamental violation of free choice. Full-page newspaper ads showed Premier Clark driving B.C.’s economy off a cliff.
“We were going to do what we were going to do and just inflict pain,” said Hochstein. “As much pain as we could.”
Marcia Smith recalled the emotion at one Coalition meeting: “People were just angry. It was visceral and it wasn’t contrived. It was people’s personal reactions.”
The anger united the Coalition. Even industries not directly impacted by Bill 44 saw the writing on the wall. “Nobody could trust the government,” said Geoffrey Howes, “and we knew that speaking as a collective voice was the only way that we would effect change.” Hochstein added: “Slowly but surely they came around to the idea that this was an attack on them as much as an attack on us.”
It would take a Herculean effort to defeat this unfair law.
