Operating Engineer - Winter 2014

Canadian News
Cochrane Part of Official BC Jobs and Trade Mission to Asia
IN A SIGN of respect for the strong
advocacy role played by IUOE Local
115 on behalf of its members, Business
Manager Brian Cochrane was invited by
the province’s Premier, Christy Clark,
on a recent Jobs and Trade Mission to
China, Korea and Japan.
Local 115 has been a strong critic
of Clark’s right-of-center BC Liberal
government on important issues like
unemployment and workers’ rights,
but also recognizes that obtaining
needed investment to create jobs is best
of jobs available to IUOE Local 115
members,” says Cochrane. “We
will work with local, provincial or
national governments who respect our
members’ interests and we will put
aside differences to reach common
goals of mutual benefit.”
The government estimates that up
to 70,000 jobs could be created through
LNG exports, many of them in LNG
plant construction.
It is telling that Cochrane has also
country to BC while denying jobs to any
qualified Canadians who applied.
While the Court case was not
successful in overturning Temporary
Foreign Workers permits, IUOE Local
115 and building trades unions won the
most important battle – in the court of
public opinion, Cochrane said, which
forced government to make positive
improvements to the program.
“IUOE Local 115 will continue to
monitor the Temporary Foreign Worker
Program and take action to protect our
members’ jobs,” said Cochrane.
The new role being played by IUOE
Local 115 is an indication that effective
public advocacy by the union is being
noticed and that the importance of
IUOE Local 115 as a key source of skilled
workers for key resource sector jobs is
being recognized.
[L to R] Brian Cochrane (Business Manager, IUOE Local 115), Lee Loftus (President, BC
Building Trades), Christy Clark (Premier of British Columbia), Tom Sigurdson (Executive
Director, BC Building Trades), Glen Hilton (Business Manager, IBEW Local 993)
achieved when labour, business and
government can find agreement.
So Cochrane joined other private
sector labour leaders, business
representatives and government
cabinet minsters to support Premier
Clark’s efforts to bring new jobs to
British Columbia through investment in
natural resource extraction, especially
Liquified Natural Gas exports.
“Our union’s most important role
is to protect and increase the number
played a prominent role in challenging
Canada’s use of Temporary Foreign
Workers from China to develop coal
mining projects in northern British
Columbia.
Last year Canada’s Conservative
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
changed the Temporary Foreign Worker
Program to end abuses after IUOE Local
115 and other unions went to Federal
Court to fight a government decision
allowing HD Mining – a Chineseowned
firm – to bring workers from that
“Operating Engineers are
acknowledged leaders in training
workers for skilled jobs across North
America,” Cochrane said. “Our union
can help employers and governments
meet labor market needs but there has
to be support for our members and
unionized jobs at the end of that process
or it doesn’t work.”
Cochrane says participating in BC
Premier Clark’s Asian mission helped
both the government, employers
and IUOE Local 115 members, by
showing potential investors that
despite differences, all parties can work
together to create jobs.
“The previous Premier either
attacked or ignored our union – we are
still here and he is long gone,” Cochrane
said. “We will work in good faith with
governments of any political stripe so
long as they respect our union and our
members – that’s a bottom line that will
never change.”
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INTERNATIONAL OPERATING ENGINEER