Message to the Membership

Brother and Sisters,

As I write, our organization is experiencing a critical shortage of manpower in all classifications requested to supply skilled, qualified workers to the turnarounds in Alberta.

While this is happening we currently have more than enough people on our Out-of-Work-Lists to easily fill the outstanding calls.  I totally get that we all have the right to work when and where we choose and would not wish it to be otherwise.

However, the reality of our job market is based on our ability to supply large numbers of highly skilled and qualified tradespeople to multiple worksites at certain times of the year.  If our organization is unable to meet the demand our owner clients are compelled to seek other sources to satisfy their needs. Once they start down that path it is possible the shift could become permanent and our market share would be compromised forever.

To summarize this point; the jobs we cannot fill today may not be ours to refuse tomorrow.

To alleviate this situation now and going forward, we will be undertaking a comprehensive and ongoing advertising campaign to let qualified, skilled workers across Canada know that we have employment opportunities here in Alberta. We will use every medium available; Kijiji, Indeed, Radio, Newspapers, Blast emails, Website posts and of course networking with other Boilermaker locals and other union trades. If there are qualified people anywhere in Canada that are willing to work here we will find them!

I want to thank each and every one of you for your decision to choose the Boilermakers as a career. Your skills, professionalism, ability to work safe and bring the job in on time have always been the cornerstones of our organizations success. In short you make a tough job look a lot easier than it is.

I also want to thank you for taking the time to read this message and for considering the importance of how serious the threat of eroding market share is to our mutual well-being.

I remain Fraternally Yours,

Dean Milton

Business Manager/Secretary Treasurer