Carpenters' strike imminent

VAUGHAN — May 5, 2022: Carpenters' District Council of Ontario, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (the “Carpenters”) is today is announcing that a provincewide strike of carpenters in the industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector in the construction industry is imminent.

The members of the Carpenters’ Union have voted by a huge margin to reject the employers’ last offer. Given this, the union’s more than 15,000 members working under the Provincial ICI Collective Agreement will be on strike as of one minute past midnight on Monday, May 9, 2022, all across Ontario.

“Nobody wants to go on strike,” said Mike Yorke, the CDCO’s president and director of public affairs and innovation, “and our union hasn’t been on strike in the ICI sector for 34 years, but our members, from one side of the province to the other, have now voted overwhelming to tell their employers that we want a fair deal.

“Carpenters, like other construction workers, kept working on job sites to build critical infrastructure all the way through the COVID crisis. Their work was seen as essential during the pandemic and because of this, and because of spiralling cost-of-living increases, our union and our members believe that wages now have to be increased,” Yorke said.

“The strike is set to commence on Monday, May 9, and we are hoping that the employers will return to the bargaining table to try and work out an improved offer before then,” said Yorke. “but nobody should be under any illusion that members of the Carpenters’ Union are willing to settle for anything other the fair wage increases, which construction workers and their families deserve given everything that they and their families have gone through in the last two and a half years and everything that they and their families are facing now."

About the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario (CDCO): The Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario (CDCO) is composed of 17 affiliated Local Unions of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners across the province. In total, we represent some 25,000 women and men working in a wide range of skilled trades, including carpentry, drywall, resilient flooring, concrete formwork, underwater construction, welding, scaffolding, and a long list of other construction-related work.