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 News & Events:
Moving Forward
Dear Brothers & Sisters:
As the Director of Canadian Affairs, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to respond to my call for action. I wanted to hear from you and you responded!
I appreciate the honest opinions, comments and recommendations that you provided and I assure you that I will do my utmost to address the few concerns we received right away.
Together we are going to grow the U.A. by creating opportunities and delivering on our promises and guarantees. I believe we need to:
- Have a clear vision of the United Association so that we can move forward together and secure more job opportunities for our members.
- Create a positive perception of the U.A. in people’s minds including our members, clients, owners and contractors.
- Increase our influence in the industry.
- Increase our membership and re-establish loyalty in the U.A.
- Increase the number of U.A. contractors and the number of clients and owners.
I have given you my thoughts. Now I need to hear yours. How do you think we can accomplish this? How can you help? Please complete the Moving Forward Feedback Form to forward your feedback.
Sincerely Yours,
John Telford,
Director of Canadian Affairs
UA Journal Article - 07.21.09
A review of the UA Journal article on the UA Canada survey. Find out more about what is wanted by UA members in Canada.
Click HERE to read the full journal article >>
Moving Forward Feedback
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2008-06-15
Hello,
I have been a proud united association member since 1996, Over the past decade I have witnessed a disturbing trend set in and would like to see it stopped before it's to late. 2 years ago I was promoted to piping superintendent, Since then I have had the opportunity to get direct feedback from U.A. members, contractors and most importantly the clients that chose to use union labour. All parties seem to make the same statement, "Where have all the quality tradesmen gone?" I believe the schedule of our projects being shortened more and more is a direct factor in this issue, journeyman don't have proper time to teach their apprentices how to properly and efficiently execute the work given to them, before we know it these same apprentices turn journeyman and are not anywhere near ready.
My suggestion to ensure that the united association stays ahead of the competition is training, training and more training!!! Day after day all I hear from our clients in the industrial sector is ,"why don't these guy's have that training completed?" In most cases they are referring to basic safety training, harness awareness, aerial lift, forklift, confined space, SCBA training all of which most of us in the industrial sector have completed at one point in time in our careers but it seems every time we step foot onto a new or familiar site we go thru the same training at a huge cost the client. If the U.A. could lead the way in producing a industry standard that would be recognized across the country we would make ourselves much more attractive to the clients we are trying to get back and retain.
Regards,
Julien - UA Member - Manitoba - Canada 2008-06-19
Hi John,
I am a member of Local. I commend you for you letter as it is one of the only times I have heard any one talk about production (or lack there of) as being our responsibility. I think it is one of our biggest weaknesses. I believe most of our UA members are committed to perform their work in a professional manner and if it is not then it is up to supervision to ensure the finished product is acceptable by the client. Safety is always important and I believe all our members want to go home at the end of the day, however if they are not working safely then again supervision must correct the situation. However production is another subject. Supervision can help with the lack of productivity but it can be ignored or not taken seriously as the worker can just drag up creating the problem for the next employer. Supervision can be part of the solution but the real issue is personal integrity and pride in workmanship. This is a hard subject to move forward on. How can a supervisor help a bad attitude and poor work habits? How do you mandate/enforce personal integrity? Perhaps a start could be that all members should be aware of the standard of excellence which informs members on their role and responsibilities ( as well as the contractor ). I think that this is a very prickly subject and it will be difficult to change a mindset but I guess that will also depend on the amount of feedback you get regarding this subject if any. However in my opinion production is one area where the UA can improve so I for one am glad that the UA Canadian Office is proactive in trying to upgrade our reputation and asking for member feedback.
Yours Truly
John - UA Member - Ontario - Canada 2008-06-22
Dear Mr. Telford
Regarding your letter of June 2 2008 I have a few comments to make.
I got into UA back in 1974 and I took a leave in 1990 because of my knees and then got reinstated in 2003.
I would like to address what you say you believe we need to:
We need a clear vision, most of the years as a member of UA most of the vision was geared between a circle of who you knew in order to get and hold a job.Friends of the BA or BM or the stewards etc..
A clear perception in the minds of contractors, we have too many dog fuckers in my mind that we protect with in the UA, yes we certainly do have great members and great trades persons but we also have those that don't give a rats ass and they make it bad for all the UA so why would many of the contractors hire them.I have been told by many UA foreman and general foreman that if they had there way they would not hire some our members, as a foreman in the past I also had members on my crew that didnt give a damn ro do fuck all.I would never assume the role as a foreman again..
Increase our membership, we would sooner take in travel cards than apprentices or so it would seem to me, I believe the average is 58 or there about with few apprentices coming on stream, I also believe that our apprentices should NOT take their apprentice ship at an existing power plant, they learn nothing from what I have seen and would not make it on an out side job.
Increase loyalty, wow a big one, We have a pension plan at UA that takes a working pensioners $5.00 per hour and puts it into the pension plan at no value to the contributor. Yes I know that the Income tax act does not allow a member to contribute and collect his pension but why cant does monies go into his RRSP of his choice. If a pensioner choose to work a 52 week year at 40 hours per week he would have contributed $10,400 to the plan and not one penny is going to his pension. So you talk about loyalty , how about morals. This is crooked and unethical as well as theft.
If you want to gain loyalty from members straighten out this mess.
I am not proud to be a UA member and why would I, theft from our pensioners that built the UA to what it is today, members that don't do fuck all, members that are not tradesmen and never will be, we have a weld shop that is barley open to train our young wana be welders and a poor so called person running the program. He runs the shop as though he owns it instead of at the members wishes.
My youngest son wants to be a welder and I am not sure I want to send him the UA way.
My biggest beef is that pension one, I can not believe that our trustees would allow contributions to go into the plan and not give the money back to the OWNER of the contribution. Did you also know that even though the collecting pensioner makes the contribution and doesn't receive a penny of it that he can not buy additional RRSP at the year end, so you tell me whets wrong here.
I hope when the guys hire a lawyer to look into this that those members on the trustee board get removed.
Ron - UA Member - Canada [Top]
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