Get to know the IBEW with Scott Crichton

Zack Hartle: 0:00

Welcome to episode number four of watt's the word? We're really excited about our guest that we are going to have on the show today. Of course, I'm Zack Hartle, and I'm here with my co host, Jason Cox. Our guest today is going to be from the IBEW, and he's going to share with us a ton of information about the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. And also a little bit of information about the local union four to four here in Alberta. Both Jason and myself really didn't know too much about the IBEW going into it. And as you can hear from our episode, there's lots of stuff to know about it. And our guest just has a plethora of information not only about the IBEW, but about the electrical industry as a whole. So I'm super excited to share the episode with you today. If you liked the show, please remember, like, subscribe download, leave us a review on Apple podcasts if you can get in touch with us. And most importantly, just enjoy the show. So I'm going to hand things off to Jason.

Jason Cox: 1:08

Today we're joined by Scott Crichton. He's the assistant business manager of the IBEW, Vice President of the IBEW Local four to four executive board, Scott Welcome to Watt's the Word.

Scott Crichton: 1:21

Welcome, Jay. It's a pleasure to be here this morning.

Zack Hartle: 1:25

We're glad to have you here today. Scott, before we get more into the IBEW, and what you do there, we want to learn a little bit more about your background and how you got to being the assistant business manager and the vice president of the executive board. How'd you get from we know you're an electrician based on talking, how'd you get from electrician to that position and tell us a little bit about your career journey. And we might stop you to dig a little bit more if we need to. But

Scott Crichton: 1:53

sure, um, so in 2001, I was looking for a way to jumpstart my life. Like a lot of people in Saskatchewan, I had jobs but there, there wasn't a lot of careers. I wanted to become a skilled trades person. And a lot of my friends were moving to Alberta to see some of the opportunities that were here at the time. I came to Calgary in February and within a couple of days, I was able to land a job for a smaller company doing residential construction. There's a lot of residential that was happening at that time, where houses from saddleridge to Springbank area and everywhere in between and it was a great time to learn a skill trade in our province. From there around 2005 kind of got bored of the residential construction, I was looking for a new challenge. So that changed companies learned a little bit of commercial and light industrial and traveled the oilfield oilfield wired a lot of compressor stations and oil batteries and seen a lot of the province when a lot of places that people don't normally go is these remote locations are challenging to get to in a Toyota Corolla. So they gotta I don't know, be creative with how they get you into these some of these sites. And around 2011, I joined the IBEW. And I've worked up in the oil sands, like a lot of people. And that was a pleasant experience. Around 2017. I came into the IBEW business office as an assistant business manager. And then two years ago, I ran for election on the executive board and serve as the vice president of the local union executive board. But I still retain my position as an assistant business manager working in the business office under business manager, Financial Secretary Michael a Reinhardt. So that's kind of the Coles Notes version of my career. And it's been a it's been an awesome journey and a pleasant experience. And I just, I love what I do every day. And I think it was, you know, being coming to Alberta and becoming an electrician was one of the best decisions I think I've ever made.

Jason Cox: 4:37

I think so many electricians have that same. That same story, right? Everyone's very happy and proud of of the accomplishment and the credential and we all have stories similar to yours. I kind of chuckled when you talked about driving around up north. I too had that adventure mine was in a Pontiac sunbird. I think it was called. And yeah, you see some Just beautiful locations in the middle of nowhere but yeah, it was an adventure right to go I mean in Calgary now like the housing never stopped building right? There's still building houses everywhere. But yeah, just your story there. I just I laughed because I could see the two by four I could see the the wood frames and then all of a sudden you took me right up to me driving down some back road and Whitecourt or Athabasca. And I mean, obviously you went even further north than I did so. So yeah, the the trades really good for getting people experience.

Scott Crichton: 5:43

I you know, I saw a lot of different sides of the residential living in Calgary, everything from your small starter homes and saddleridge up to some great big beautiful, multimillion dollar homes down in elbow Valley. And it was just such an amazing experience to see how vast the industry is just in the residential portion of our craft. But then, when I started doing the light, industrial and commercial, I thought while I'm learning something new every day and every day is a new experience and every day is a new challenge. And what a great career path. I think it's been.

Zack Hartle: 6:27

Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing take away from your story for me is address the variety of things that you got to do and how did you What are your skill set that led you to be the assistant business manager? What is what is an assistant business manager at the IBEW do like what's your kind of role entail in that position?

Scott Crichton: 6:46

If you're alright, Zack, maybe I can just start with what the IBEW is, yeah, the role into the ABM position that I have, for sure. And then we can give people a whole understanding of what the union is and what its function is. So IBEW starts stands for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, we are what you would call a craft union. A craft union is a union that specializes in a particular skill set or trade hours, obviously, being the electrical trade, what we do is we represent electrical workers. 90% of our membership are electricians, the other 10% are everything from ADT Security, to your sign technicians, to your data fiber communication techs, because we found over the years that those people, they want a union and they want representation as well. And we're here to get them a collective agreement and represent them. So we are an international union. We are all across North America. And I guess there's a little small portion of work in Guam, so maybe the Asia Pacific if you count that I that's kind of stretching a little bit. And we're the largest electrical worker union in the world, 700,000 members, all across North America and the geographical geographical area that I described in Canada. We have just under 70,000 members across the entire country. And Alberta, our local union, local union, four to four has between five and 6000 members.

Zack Hartle: 8:41

And 44 is just the province of Alberta,

Scott Crichton: 8:44

just the province of Alberta, and and the Northwest Territories as well. Yeah. So to give you an idea of the structure, you have an international president that is in Washington, DC, is Lonnie Stephenson, and then under him, you would have international vice president who's Tom Reid, who's in Mississauga, Ontario. And then for our local union, it's the business manager, Financial Secretary Michael, a Reinhardt, who's here in Edmonton. And then under him, you have assistant business managers. We kind of set our organization up that we have contract contractors that do commercial construction, residential construction. We have also companies that do the data fiber and sign technician. And we also have industrial construction. So an assistant business manager will kind of look after whatever type of work the contractors are doing. Right, and they'll report back to the business manager. And that's kind of the way that it works. We have union meetings every month. It's been a little bit challenging lately due to COVID 19. So once a month, the business manager will give his report to the Executive Board, which is made up of a president, vice vice president, and then a couple of unit chairs, also a treasurer, and I find and the recording secretary after he gives his report to the executive board, he goes across the province, and meets with the members. He has a meeting here in Edmonton. He has a meeting in Calgary in a meeting in Fort McMurray, and he puts the financials up there, and he gives his report as a way to tell the members what the union spending their union dues on and what they can expect for upcoming work and maybe get feedback from the membership on how we might be able to have a better union. And that's kind of how it works.

Jason Cox: 10:58

What does it mean to be that IBEW employee? I mean, obviously, you're you there's a benefit package. But like can you just yet talk a little bit about the I mean, obviously with yourself to like, what was the difference between being with a non union employer and now working with the union? So just for someone that really doesn't know?

Scott Crichton: 11:27

Well, you know, working in a union, you're working under collective agreement, right? Like this, this is our collective agreement. So every four years, we release a bargaining survey to our members and ask them, what do they want for wages? What do they want for working conditions? What do they want for health and welfare? What do they want for pension? Right. And then we kind of tally up a list, we call it a bargaining proposal. And on the other side is the Electrical Contractors Association of Alberta, right? They have a union arm and a non union arm, by the way, so we deal with the union arm, obviously. And they have their demands. And between the two of us, we kind of hammer out a collective agreement. So you know, being a union member, I have a collective agreement that is the same for all of us. In the open shop world, you're bargaining basically, as an individual, right, you're dealing with the employer, one on one. And in some cases that might work to your benefit. In some cases, it might not great, because you're, the employer has the freedom to hire you fire you cut your wages, increase your wages, whenever they want. But when you have a collective agreement in place, both sides, both sides, the employer and the union have to adhere to the terms and conditions of the collective agreement. You ask how it changed my life, Jay, I would say you know, a couple of different things. It's offered me a defined benefit pension plan. So after 20 years in the local union, I can get, you know, I'm eligible for a pension that's going to pay you anywhere on average from $1,000 Every two weeks to maybe as much as 2500 every two weeks. It depends how many hours I've worked over the last 20 to 30 years. The other thing, I guess, would be the training. Great. You know, the electrical trade is always changing. And we have our own training center that offers skills training, that the various poli technical schools don't offer great. The Politecnico schools across the province st needs, you know, other schools, they offer, you know, your curriculum that you need to become an electrician and a few other courses on top of that. We talk to our contractors every three weeks and we talked to our membership and go, What do you guys need? You know, do you want pipe bending? Do you want solar? Do you want motor controllers? What courses would you guys need to increase your skill set and Miki be a better electrician? And that's one of the things that I felt helped me. I went and talked to the training director, I talked to him about what some of my strengths were, what some of my weaknesses were. And they put together some courses that they felt were needed to help increase my skill set and making me a better electrician. So a little bit of a long answer sorry about that. But that's kind of what what what it's done to help me with my career and so One of the benefits I found being in the union? Well, I

Jason Cox: 15:04

mean, what an opportunity. I mean, how often, I mean, the three of us, we know several electricians, and you would go to school and you would learn, like motor controls, right? I mean, you learn three wire to wire motor control, and basically first year, and students, some of electricians, when it comes to the schematics and just the operation. totally forget how all that works. So I mean, you spend all that time in an apprenticeship, learning stuff, and then eventually, you don't know how to do it. Yeah, that's great that you guys have the opportunity to refresh yourself on on specific courses, and then also get to suggest and modernize but do courses, select that. I mean, that's a perk. And I mean, let's not forget the defined benefit, pension. I mean, that's just a rarity. Now in this day and age, and and eventually there's going to be a time where when you're going to have to retire. And having that peace of mind. And security's incredible

Scott Crichton: 16:20

always been at the philosophy that every electrical worker should have the opportunity to retire with dignity, right? You know, they shouldn't be struggling after they've done 20 or 30 years in the trade, they should be able to retire and do what they want. They've worked hard their whole life. Now, in their golden years, let them do what they want for the rest of their life. I mean, it's some people want to keep working. And that's great. They can do that, too. But some people, you know, there's, there's things that they want to do. And that's what the defined benefit pension plan does. It gives them this income that they can count on every two weeks and plan their life around. So you're right, Jay, that's, that's one of the best things I think we have going for us. Well, another

Jason Cox: 17:11

thing too. And it was brought up in another conversation Zach and I've had recently is, is safety. And not only are you training for specific courses, but I'm under the understanding that you guys do have quite an extensive safety safety program, as well as Is that true?

Scott Crichton: 17:31

Yeah, we a lot of the safety training that we do is through the training center. But also, some of the oil sands facilities are pushing safety as a required prerequisite before you go and get onto their site. So what we do is we try to get that training put into place ahead of time. And what we found is, as we were doing this training through the training center, the commercial contractors and some of the other guys thought, well, this might not be a bad idea for us to start offering or requiring that our employees do this training as well. And good example is for LRT construction. You know, we have this arc flash awareness training that we offer for the larger oil sands sites and facilities. But as the line was becoming energized, on the valley, line LRT here, we thought this is a good opportunity for some of the people doing LRT construction to take the arc flash awareness training, right, and let them know about some of the hazards that they're going to be encountering, as these lines become energized and turned over to epcor.

Jason Cox: 18:45

Well, that's I mean, one of the things with safety and with education is sometimes it's not no one's fault, they just simply don't know. And I mean, your timeline in the trade and mine, for sure. Maybe Zack like arc flash is something that is a newer topic to us like it didn't exist when I was on tools, we we just isolated equipment. We're trying not to make an electrical connection. We had no idea about the potential hazards from an arc flash incident. But it sounds like that's something that your membership would hear about through the communications is I mean, there'd be some some bulletins going out there. This is information that maybe a smaller company might I mean, they might just simply not know of these hazards.

Scott Crichton: 19:40

Yeah, every three months or so we meet with our contractors, and we have a meeting, right? And we talk about some of the hazards that we're encountering in some of the workplaces and some of the jobs that they're doing and we talk about, you know, lately it's been COVID-19 that we've been talking about how How can we improve workplace safety? So that, you know, we don't have to worry about transmission? Arc Flash is a topic that's come up, right due to a lot of the LRT construction that's been happening lately. And that's where we talk about, look, we're hearing back from the membership that there's some unsafe conditions out there. And here's some of the courses that we have that are available. Are these sufficient to have a safe work environment? Or should we talk to the training director here, and try to develop some more, right, tailor something specific to some of the workplace hazards that are happening out there? And it's very, very helpful to have these meetings with the contractors every three months or so, is some of them have been in industry for, you know, 2030 years. And they can share some of their experience with us as contractors about what might work or what might not work, and our members at the union meetings, they can give us their feedback as well. And we kind of come somewhere up the middle. So that we're, you know, we're providing safe training. But at the same time, we're not hurting our contractors competitiveness.

Zack Hartle: 21:18

I guess I have two questions. So going back a little bit to just to the structure of the IBEW sure the contractors work directly with the IBEW and they would have basically agreed to hire all IBEW members as their workforce. Is that kind of how that structure works. Are the members working for the IBEW? Are they working for the contractor?

Scott Crichton: 21:41

That's a really good question. Okay. So see, somebody like myself wants to let's just talk about my experience, I walked in the front door, and I said, I want to join the IBEW I want to be a union member, fill out an application. There was jobs available on the job line. So I pulled the slip, and went to work up in the oil sense. And that was a great experience, right. So that's basically the way that it works, right? If you want to join the IBEW, you walk in the front door, you fill out an application, you're what you call a permit for the first three months. And after that, you get sworn in, and then you're a full member. Now on the contractor side is a contractor you're required to hire through the local union hiring home. What that means is you have to say you picked up a job like, I don't know a shopping mall, and you need 10 electricians, right, because you got 10 guys working for you, but you need 10 more. Now you talk to the dispatch department. And you go look, I need 10 Guys, journey person with, you know, recent commercial experience, we post that on our website, contractor XYZ electric, looking for a 10 journey person electrician with recent commercial experience, right? Now, we can just put the call on there, or maybe they want to do something like a three for interview or eight. That's an option for some of them, they can they can put a three for interview. Maybe there's somebody that the had working for them. And then they had a lack of work. And they had to lay them off. You know, they want to recall the guy. That's another option. So as a contractor, you're required to talk to dispatch, tell them who you need, like how many guys you need. And then we post the job, and then electricians bid on the job. And then they go to work.

Zack Hartle: 23:47

One thing you said there you apply to the Union. And then you go to the job board. Is there any jobs right now like if we are anybody's listening in, they're looking for work, but they haven't thought about joining the union and looking for work? Is there opportunities right now to get into the Union and find work?

Scott Crichton: 24:04

So there's always opportunities to get into the Union? Like well, we'll take people in at any time. When we talk about upcoming work. There's a lot of calls going open right now due to the shutdown season happening, right. Definitely in the Edmonton area, and some for the Wood Buffalo region. So that's some opportunities to put some people to work, I would expect that there'll be more opportunities in the fall due to LRT construction. Yeah, so that's kind of what's going on. But a lot of that work would be your light industrial, heavy industrial construction.

Jason Cox: 24:48

You said that you would look on the job line and then bid for a job. How I'm guessing I could be outbid by someone else. How does that work?

Scott Crichton: 25:01

So you're going to see come in, you join the union, you get something called an out of work number, right? And then you look at jobs that are on the job line, and then you bid on a job. Now, when that job is completed, you might get laid off. Right? So you come back to the union hall, you ask for a new out of work number, and you get a new out of work number and then you start bidding on jobs on the job line. If somebody has a lower number than you, then they could potentially be in front of you for that job. Let's not forget, though, sometimes the contractors are looking for people with a certain type of skill set, like recent commercial experience, or heatrae, splicing or fiber optic splicing. So that might become a factor and who gets the job and even regardless of where the number is, but yeah, you're right, Jay, that's basically the way it works. Whoever's got the lowest number, they're the next in line to get the job.

Jason Cox: 26:04

And then, like you said, then maybe if I was lacking, I'm guessing I could call Colin and someone say, well, Jay, yeah, you were really close on that you just, you were outbid, because contractor, x had heat trace experience through your training center, is that something that I can I can take your course on heat trace or some other skill set?

Scott Crichton: 26:31

Yeah, I mean, and that's what we try to encourage people to do. Right? Okay. So I had, I had a member, that contractor that did call on the job line and did three for interview. They were looking for a recent commercial experience, and the needed some fire alarm training. So they interviewed a guy and he just didn't quite have the amount of fire alarm experience the contractor needed. So the guy came back to us and said, You know, I didn't get the job. There are some courses that we suggested that he take for his fire alarm training, so that when he goes to bid on the next call, he's going to be more successful, right? Be the Same thing for heat trace. If a contractor is asking for that the member doesn't have it. We encourage him to get in touch with the training center, take the courses that he needs, so that he's successful the next time.

Zack Hartle: 27:32

And who pays for the courses? And would it be the electrician looking for the work? Would you know there'd be a fee? I mean, assuming subsidized a little bit because they are an IBEW member. Are they free, typically, to members?

Scott Crichton: 27:44

They're free to members, because under the collective agreement, 40 cents an hour of your salary goes towards the training fund.

Zack Hartle: 27:55

And that's, that's huge, right? I mean, we're all for keeping that knowledge flowing in the trade, right? Where lifelong learners, right, I'm a huge fan of that. So that's something that is beneficial, especially if you take advantage of it. I'm sure lots of guys don't. But

Scott Crichton: 28:10

absolutely. And that, you know, that's there's many different things that that can help pay for great tuition reimbursements. Also another thing, right, so you've gone to school and you want to get your tuition reimbursed. We expect that you'll contact this training center ahead of time, let them know, Hey, I'm going for third year, I want my tuition reimbursed, right, have all the paperwork done ahead of time so that when you're done, you can get your tuition reimbursed, right. And that's a big thing. being off work for two months, getting that money that's going to help you pay some bills.

Jason Cox: 28:50

This sounds expensive. I'm as a tradesperson. I'm paying dues for a for a pension. I'm paying dues for a training center. I probably have medical benefits. These are all wonderful things, but how are you staying competitive with the non union contractor?

Scott Crichton: 29:16

So the collective agreement has different wages for the type of construction that they're doing rates. If you're doing industrial construction, there's going to be a higher wage rate for that. For commercial, there'll be a lower wage rates, right. And I believe it's around 36 an hour. Right? And that helps the contractor with their competitiveness, right. And that's also one of the reasons why we have the meetings every three months because we talk about upcoming work, and we talk about are they being competitive are they picking up more work? What's the situation like out there? Right? But, you know, the reality is at the end of the day, you know, some of these contractors been with us 50 years, 70 years. If we didn't work with them to find some way to to have them be competitive, they wouldn't be in business anymore. Right. I think it's just having that open dialogue with the contractors and and letting the, you know, hearing what their concerns are. But at the same time, making sure that the people working for them are getting a living wage rate, having enough money put in their pocket that they can make their mortgage payment and look after their family and finding that balance between the two. Right.

Jason Cox: 30:55

Yeah, and I mean, I 100% do not want to, like I want to make sure that I'm not sitting here downplaying the union as being too expensive. That's actually to the contrary. One thing when you're dealing, obviously, if you're dealing with a union contractor, everyone is certified. Everyone is pulling permits. Everyone is there's there's no shortcuts, right. I mean, that's right now, there's there's many people out there that are working and not following the rules, and they're undercutting both Union and non union contractors. And I mean, it's, it's not good for our industry. No, it's

Scott Crichton: 31:39

not. And you know, we've we've had some conversations with all levels of government when we talk about procurement, right? When we talk about building a school or hospital or a rec center, you know, various buildings that are in our communities using taxpayers money. What are you doing to ensure that the contractor doing the work has two things, they have the experience and the wherewithal to be able to build this project, get it done on time and under budget and meet the requirements of the Canadian electrical code, but also the people that are working for that company are qualified skilled tradespeople. One of the programs that DCA has is the the PTC program, professional electrical contractor. I've been pushing for years now to say, if this is a government project, and it's going out for tender, why not make it a requirement that the contractor be a member of the ECA and be a PTC contractor? Right, as we know, the the PTC has its own peer review committee. So if a contractor does poor work, all the owner has to do is file a complaint with the ECA. And ECA will do an investigation, and maybe that contractor will no longer be eligible to be a member of the PTC program. Right. So these are things we can do when we talk about procurement, to make sure that the contractors union and non union are doing good work. But also paying workers a good wage and making sure the people doing the work are qualified.

Jason Cox: 33:33

Well, you just mentioned a huge thing there. Like if your union, obviously you guys have a little bit of clout, you can actually speak with the government about issues of concern. I mean, you're representing 1000s of people just here in Alberta alone. But I mean, obviously, this could be even on a national level. In Canada, I don't think obviously you're an international but it's nice that you guys are able to speak up and at least represent our our trade with the government. So I mean, that's a huge, I mean, that would help all electricians honestly.

Scott Crichton: 34:13

When been you know, it's interesting, as I started pushing for these things, Jay, the contractors said to me, is there anything we can do to help? So it was nice to have the association at times want to join with me and say, look, as a business owner, I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about the race to the bottom when we talk about wages. I'm concerned about unqualified contractors doing the work, you know, the one man ladder in a truck jack of all trades, Stan out there is going to put up your siding installer receptacle at the same time for I don't know the Walmart discount price or whatever you want to call it. That's hurting him as a business owner. And I think what We work together with the contractors and go look, you know, as an individual worker, this is hurting my livelihood. But also, as a business owner, you're hurting small business, and we need to have these changes. It helps push the government to form better policy.

Jason Cox: 35:24

Well, better policies is always a good thing, right? Because so often we get wrapped up in policy trying to make sense of the policy that I mean, we don't go anywhere. So so it's good to hear that subject matter experts in our industry are helping shape policy.

Scott Crichton: 35:43

You know, one of the one of the good examples is, we talked about the electrical trade Regulation Act and solar. One of the concerns I had was a lot of incentive programs being released, and unqualified trades people or unqualified people being out there doing the work. Right, that was a serious concern that I had. And I leaned hard on the government to make some changes. And one of the things I like to do is show an example of how somebody got hurt, right? There's a case in Sarnia, Ontario, where there's an unqualified worker that got injured, he was there was a 600 volt arc flash that happened. And this individual, you know, was not qualified, it was working in unsafe conditions. And unfortunately, mistaken a hospital, he survived. But it was a good example of why we need qualified electricians doing the work. And the contractors actually helped me push this messaging to government and

Zack Hartle: 36:49

the media made

Scott Crichton: 36:50

appropriate changes to the electrical trade Regulation Act. And to be clear to do solar work in Alberta, you must be either a journey person, electrician, or an apprentice working under the supervision of a journey person. So it was good, it was, you know, a mistake was made in Ontario, but in Alberta, you know, we made sure to learn from the mistakes made in a different jurisdiction and make sure that the people working here were safe, when the incentive programs came out.

Zack Hartle: 37:23

And that that conversation there, that's something we discussed a lot in actually, episode two of this podcast was with talking about solar. And you know, where is that line, and we are lucky in Alberta, that the line is, it's pretty, I guess, high and that we need electricians to do anything to do with connections and grounding and bonding. And it's it's unfortunate that there is, you know, different parties out there trying to push it to allow more unskilled laborers to be involved. But I mean, at the end of the day, you're even grounding and bonding. It's that's an electrical connection that needs to be done by qualified certified electricians, right. Well,

Scott Crichton: 38:01

what had happened in the case in Sarnia, Ontario was, you know, the company at the time said, it's very easy. It's plug in and play, plug in and play. And what happened was, you know, they're making a bunch of serious connections, you know, and at the end, the person didn't know the difference between the positive and negative. And that's when the 600 volt arc flash should happen and the worker became injured. So there was some industry pushback when I was sending this message to government saying, Well, no, anybody can do it. It's plug in and play us. There's no plug in and play. It's positive and negative. Great. I said the module when it's exposed to the sun is a power producing advice device. Great. This is electrical work. And when you're putting it on somebody's home, right, where they're going to be living with their family, or on a school in some instances where we have children, right? We want to make sure that qualified people are doing that work. Great. Safety is not just a concern of the electrician, it should be everybody's concern. Last thing we want to see is somebody get hurt because we cut a corner somewhere and we have unqualified people doing the install.

Zack Hartle: 39:21

Yeah, no, it's I mean, everything in our trade is you put a wire under a screw, you connect a wire, you put together a conduit, right? It's all I guess, by that argument, plug and play, but there's you got to know what you're plugging into what and what's going to happen afterwards.

Scott Crichton: 39:37

Absolutely.

Jason Cox: 39:40

Scott, can you tell us about some of the International options for work for your members?

Scott Crichton: 39:46

Sure. So as an international union, what we find sometimes is, you know, there's a lot of employment opportunities in Alberta for about 15 years or so. So People came from across Canada to help us fill these jobs that were available in the oil sense. And when a lot of that construction ended, and people still needed a job, other locals in other parts of Canada or in the United States, the needed some extra journeyperson electricians, extra labor. So now there's an opportunity for us to be able to go other places. Like there's an LNG plant that's in Kitimat BC, or sent a dozen people working right now. Pennsylvania, there's the hydrocracker plant where we have 133 members working out in Ontario, there's a couple of projects that are happening down in Sarnia, where we sent two dozen members. So being an international union, the employment opportunities don't necessarily stop just here in Alberta, there's going to be opportunities for people to be able to go other places.

Jason Cox: 41:09

I mean, it's definitely an option and you have some administration there to help you. Right guide you through the process. I mean, everyone. When when people talk to Zack and I about getting into an apprenticeship, we say Yeah, well, sure it's No, it's great job, do it just go find go find an employer. And that's like the hitting a brick wall right away. But it sounds like there would be at least some, obviously some support or I mean, you have people that know, know the process. So that's, that's nice as well.

Zack Hartle: 41:44

Obviously, Scott in the electrical industry is not alone in this. But in every industry, we're seeing this big transition from, you know, carbon based energy into these renewable energies. And what is the, I guess, position of the Union on that? I mean, obviously, you've been heavily into oil and gas here in Alberta. But you already mentioned in this show about solar energy, what's the position on the IBEW on that transition?

Scott Crichton: 42:13

Well, I'm just, I don't think that solar and wind are going to save us as electricians. You know, while since construction, when we talk about IBEW 44, it's created a lot of employment opportunities and a lot of wealth for the Union and for our members. And we're grateful for, for everything that's come along with that, that as we move towards the future, and we see less and less oil sands facilities being built. I'm guessing that our industry in Alberta is probably going to move more towards the small modular reactors that have been talked, a lot of people been talking about, I could see more of those getting built. And putting a lot more people to work. Energy storage projects, like the Canyon Creek energy storage project being built out in Hinton by turning point generation. Trans lt has got a proposed energy storage project that's being built. It's something related to brazo down my I can't remember the exact name. And hydrogen Air Products is building a $2 billion hydrogen production facility. So when we talk about industrial construction, and putting people to work, I see more that the small modular reactor that hydrogen energy storage projects, let's not forget a few weeks ago, I believe it was the Alberta energy. J, you're gonna have to help me with the acronym. I always get it wrong. But Alberta energy system operator?

Zack Hartle: 44:00

Yeah, yeah. The ISO Alberta electric system operator,

Scott Crichton: 44:04

right, they hit a, you know, the head of Level Two alert across the province, right. And the reason being, with all the smoke that was happening, solar wasn't producing, you know, the amount of power that they were hoping it would, right. And now there was wind at the time.

Zack Hartle: 44:23

And at the same time, we were 37 degrees here, everyone's running air conditioners. And

Scott Crichton: 44:29

exactly. So you know, you can only put so much solar up before you're going to that's it. There's nowhere else to put solar. So we need energy storage projects to be able to store that power and release it back into the grid. Right? at whatever time it's needed. And that's where these energy storage projects are going to come into play. And they're going to put a lot of people to work and they are renewable energy projects. If you go to the turning point generation website, they do a very good presentation on how it all works. It New technology. And I believe that's where the industry is headed.

Jason Cox: 45:04

I think that that's, I mean, that's the conversation we need to have. Not with electricians. But with Canadians, we can't just turn our backs on carbon energy, we're gonna need it as we transition into other types of energy. And yeah, just like you're saying, we need solar energy is great, but it's only good for 12 hours of the day, less than that, I mean, as as fall comes, we need to start investing in some way to capture this energy and be able to use it when we need to use it.

Zack Hartle: 45:43

And the big word there being diversification, right, just getting a little bit of eggs and a bunch of little baskets to help us meet our power needs. And, you know, especially as EVs become more popular, and the demand on the grid is going to increase without question. So,

Scott Crichton: 46:00

you know, let's not forget about the hydrogen either Air Products. Back in 2015, I was working on a large project out at Scotford at Air Products was building there, the company that's going to be building this hydrogen plant, right? It's industrial work, it's good paying work, it's going to be good paying jobs, which is what we need. When we talk about doing any type of transition to the workforce, we got to make sure that wages and working conditions aren't left behind. Great. You know, I'm all for creating new jobs, but I don't want to see people's wages being cut.

Jason Cox: 46:40

Yeah, you're, you're totally correct with that. And I mean, there's, there's so many people in, in, I'm gonna say, in white collar industries, that for years, were making far more money than, than a lot of the con, the electricians are gonna say the trade person, not the about the actual business owner of the electrical company. But then we've seen a huge change in the white collar salaries. It's easy for them to pop back up again, when the when the economy changes, but it sure takes a long time to get the journeyman journey person rates back up. It's important that we, we have to have like you were saying earlier, we have to have fair, reasonable salaries for for all of our workers.

Scott Crichton: 47:32

I mean, one of the things that I've been pushing for is to have something similar to what they have in Manitoba, or it's, it's a construction industry wages act, right. And, you know, basically what they've done, there's They've set a minimum wage for everybody. But they also set a minimum wage for your carpenter pipe fitter, an electrician, and basically said that this is the minimum wage union and non union, this is what you're gonna get paid, nobody's gonna get paid less than that. At one point in time, the government was looking at possibly repealing it in industry. And the unions came together and said, Don't do that, because it'll start a race to the bottom. And if you do a race to the bottom, then we're going to have a skilled labor shortage. We we want a minimum wage for electricians and pipe fitters, and carpenters. Right. So that that race to the bottom doesn't happen. Right?

Jason Cox: 48:31

Well, I mean, it's, it's a really big topic. And I mean, just thinking about it, and with this race to the bottom, and if we do lose those skilled trades, eventually government intervenes. And then that means they have to incentivize people to get into the trades. They're going to spend all that money later on. So it's not it. I mean, there's a lot of moving pieces here.

Scott Crichton: 48:55

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, as a labor union, we don't we don't get behind one political party. We support good policy. You know, and we like to think we like to push for things like a fair wages act. Great. We had that federally, right. That basically said, union or non union, this is the wage, this is the wage that you're going to be paying the workers. Federally, when this passport office or RCMP station goes out for tender. This is what everybody's gonna get paid and not a dime less. Right. So non union contractors can bid on it, but they gotta pee, you know, the same wages that the union guys are bidding that bid on the job. And let's stop that race to the bottom right. Let's make sure that everybody doing the work is getting paid a good respectable wage.

Jason Cox: 49:51

Yeah, I really like this race to the bottom term you're using because I'm very concerned about it. I think it's so important that We, that we're all on the same, same level, we're all pulling permits, we're all qualified, we're all doing the work the way it's supposed to be done.

Scott Crichton: 50:10

I'm all for creating jobs at the same time, right? We like to push for large projects to be created. in Calgary, when the arena was going out for tender, I wrote a few letters to the mayor's office, pushing for the Calgary arena to go to get approved because I wanted to see people go to work. The Canada pucks plant, you know, we're, they're basically going to take bitumen and they're going to form these pucks that are going to be used for different purposes. I wrote a letter to the government and pushed for and lobbied for incentives to build these plants here in Alberta with a new type of technology, because I thought it would put Albertans to work. The tech resources, they were going to build a $20 billion oil sands mine in northern Alberta. Not only did I write letters to government, I testified at the hearing. And so did the iron worker and the carpenter and the boiler maker. We all showed up there to basically say that we want these jobs want to quit Albertans to work. Right.

Jason Cox: 51:18

I think it's very interesting and timely right now that you mentioned that the union doesn't support one political party. Wheat, Zach and I were speaking with a gentleman from Ontario last week. And I mean, we really haven't even talked about COVID here today. But COVID coupled with the downturn in the economy in Alberta, I mean, it is, this is a tough time for Albertans. This is a tough time for electricians. I mean, any thing or any one that can do something to promote investment in in, in construction and job opportunities on Alberta. I mean, you're a superhero.

Scott Crichton: 52:04

A union is essentially a reflection of society, right? We have members that vote for every political party, because it lines up with what their belief system is. So as a labor union, it's our responsibility to represent all of them. Right? So how do we do that we support good policies like fair wages, good working conditions, right, and proper changes to industry to make sure that people are working safely. Right. And as long as we take that position, and we keep trying to push. I think that everybody's going to benefit at the end of the day.

Jason Cox: 52:45

Well, I looked through one of your collective agreements online this morning, and even yesterday, and some of the information listed on just the the standard of the job site, right, some of the things that construction workers, I mean, we work in some pretty rough environments, but just the minimum standards required. I mean, it was it was nice and reassuring to, to read that your workers are given like a standard to make their job a little easier, right? I mean, nobody wants to be out in a plastic box using the facilities at 40. Below. Just looking at some of the considerations that were in your collective agreement. It was it was refreshing to see.

Scott Crichton: 53:30

We try to drive changes in industry that way, right. So if we get the changes in the collective agreement, hopefully it's not long before the open shop starts to follow in behind, right.

Jason Cox: 53:41

Vaccinations has been kind of a polarizing topic in the workplace. How are you guys approaching vaccination for your members?

Scott Crichton: 53:52

I want as many of our members to get vaccinated as possible. And the last thing I want is somebody to get the vaccine and rushed back to work because they're, they don't want to get their pay, you know what I mean? They're they're worried about their pay cut, or they're not making an income. So you know, there's adverse effects, some people doesn't affect them at all. Some people, they get a headache, and they can't think right, and they got to be at home. So I said, as an employer, if somebody's getting the vaccine that day, would you agree to pay them till the end of the day? Right, so that they're not rushing back to work, and then there are no left, and they're getting side effects from this vaccine. And the people around them are unsafe, in the employers said to me, we would be more than happy to pay them until the end of the day if they're getting the vaccine that day because it's to our benefit to have as many people as possible get vaccinated. So instead, if that's, if that's the concern that they're going to rush back to work, we will. All they need to do is provide us a The doctor's note, you know, saying that they are getting the vaccine that they will gladly pay them to the end of the day. And it pushed the Alberta Federation of Labor to push more employers to do the same. If somebody's getting the vaccine, don't make them rush back to work, agree to pay them till the end of the day and more of your workforce will be vaccinated and everybody will be healthier and happier.

Zack Hartle: 55:22

You know, Scott, this has been a an awesome, probably hour and a bit that we've been talking here. And I think we could go on for several more hours. But I think we kind of want to wrap up a little bit today. But just with the maybe put the thought in your mind, would you ever be willing to come back and do another show? I know, there was lots of other things that we had kind of lined up to talk about today.

Scott Crichton: 55:42

Absolutely. I'd love to come back. Thank you for having me today.

Zack Hartle: 55:45

Yeah, absolutely. It's been really informative. I mean, I mentioned before, I personally didn't know anything about the IBEW and I learned a huge amount and there's so much more to learn, especially about their collaboration with other counterparts and other provinces. And even with the other countries, the collaboration between them is huge. Kind of on that note, if people are listening and they want to learn a little bit more about the IBEW, what they do, how they operate, or, you know, reach out get a job or anything like that, where should they go to find out more information

Scott Crichton: 56:18

so they can come to our office in Edmonton or Calgary or they can check out our website at WWW dot IBEW 424 dot net.

Jason Cox: 56:29

Zach and I would like to thank Scott for chatting with us today. Check out the link below for the IBEW if you'd like more information. And of course if you'd like our show, please subscribe to get the latest downloads. We can be found wherever you're downloading podcasts. Connect with us and let us know what you would like to hear in the future on Watt's the Word. Keep yourself safe out there, and if he can someone else to