Thousands of construction workers on strike, shutting down high rise sites
Posted May 2, 2022 11:46 pm.
Thousands of construction workers are off the job and it could have a ripple effect on projects underway across the GTA.
Around 15,000 house framers, high rise forming workers, tile installers, carpet and hardwood installers, who are members of LiUNA! Local 183, are all on strike.
A union spokesman says all high-rise sites across the region are shut down.
LIUNA Local 183 members in residential sectors start job action.https://t.co/CqwsbG4FEm pic.twitter.com/v2VrdHQscH
— LiUNA! Local 183 (@liuna183) May 1, 2022
Union spokesman Jason Ottey tells CityNews 680 the main issue in the dispute is wages and the rising cost of living.
“Inflation is at its all time high. We have a well documented accepted, and accepted, shortage of housing and a critical shortage of people with the necessary skills to build them,” he said, “quite frankly their offer was well short of what would have been acceptable to our members.”
Ottey says union members stepped up to help builders and developers at the start of the pandemic but are not getting anything in return.
He says the impact of the strike is already being felt, “pretty much all the way from Lakeridge Road to the edge of Burlington, and all the way up to Simcoe County, that is our jurisdictional area, so all of the high rise sites for the contractors that are bound to the work that we do, those sites will be shut down.”
The president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario is hoping agreements can be reached with the union without significant delays to the projects.
Meanwhile Ottey says workers don’t want to be off the job.
