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Toronto Local Signs New Contractor

June 7, 2005

In a successful year-long campaign, Toronto Local 353 organized a large commercial electrical contractor in a 96-1 vote in early May.

The ranks of the 110-wireman unit at Tricin Electric are expected to swell to 240 by late July, thanks to the local’s deep reservoir of highly skilled electricians, which will allow the contractor to take on more work, said Local 353 Business Manager Joe Fashion.

"They have tremendous amount of work on the books," said Fashion, who is also Eighth District International Executive Council member. "Before we organized them, they wouldn’t have been able to supply the 120 or 130 more people they were going to need."

Now Tricin, which specializes in schools and other institutional buildings, will be among the biggest of the local’s nearly 400 signatory contractors, Fashion said. Local 353 leaders convinced the contractor of the benefits of IBEW representation by appealing to its desire to take on more and larger projects. Local 353 now has a toehold in the schools market, which until now has largely remained the province of nonunion contractors.

"They will be important because they do a lot of man-hours and this captures a lot of market share for us," Fashion said.

The promise of better wages and benefits was the main factor behind the overwhelming pro-union vote by Tricin’s electricians, said Local 353 Business Representative Geoff Nash.