Five Minutes with Dick Heinen, Executive Director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada
The Christian Labour Association of Canada has 43,000 members and is playing a growing role in industrial construction, including work at the oilsands in Alberta. That has upset some unions because they see CLAC as overly friendly with employers and a trigger to lower pay standards. Because CLAC espouses a non-confrontational approach and has had only five strikes since it was founded, some unions say it isn’t a union at all. Started in 1952 in Ontario and British Columbia, CLAC says it is a bona fide trade union recognized in five provinces and in federal jurisdictions in Canada. CLAC also says it is not a religious organization and is not affiliated with any church or church-based organization. CLAC is known for its wall-to-wall contracts, which give it jurisdiction over all of the construction trades on a jobsite. ENR correspondent Jonathan Barnes recently spoke to CLAC’s executive director, Dick Heinen, about his organization.