This Day In Clarkland...The Climb Down.

NevermindTheConsonants
RightToWorkRisingVille


At the beginning of the week we learned that BC Hydro is doing its darndest to make us part of the New Deep South when it became clear that their intention is to keep Site C project workers, temporary foreign ones or otherwise, from organizing. 

And the minister responsible for Jobs 'N Stuff, Ms. Shirley Bond, who we believe was also present when the BC Rail sale/not sale blueprint was first revealed for real (see what I did there Mary?), was onside with the fine folks from Hydro:

...“I’m assured by BC Hydro that they have a model that will supply the work force that they need and that’s what matters to me,” Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said...


And then, suddenly, our good Premier, seemingly out of nowhere, intervened:

...“I think BC Hydro took this a step too far,” Ms. Clark told reporters. “I’m going to get it fixed.”

The Premier said she took action once she learned of the lawsuit. “In the last 24 hours, I’ve spoken to ministers, and I’ve spoken to the CEO of Hydro, they agree with me on that. They are going to rework the proposal to withdraw that part of it because I believe [unions] should have the right to organize. They do have the right to organize, and BC Hydro can’t take that away.”...


But here's the thing....

Apparently, the lawsuit wasn't the first time that the Premier's office learned about this:

...The unions were told last April that BC Hydro intended to adopt a new open-shop model for Site C. (Executive director of the BC and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council) Mr. (Tom) Sigurdson said his efforts to persuade the Premier’s office, ministers of cabinet and Hydro brass had achieved nothing, prompting the lawsuit....


So.

Given that our good Premier likes to 'Say Anything' at the drop of a hat, Mr. Sigurdson was wise when he...

..(W)elcomed the Premier’s intervention on Tuesday, but said the lawsuit won’t be withdrawn until the contract terms are rewritten...


Because, after all, even if Ms. Clark is actually really and truly determined to go against Hydro and it's Knotty Gordian-trained CEO on this one, for real, she will still have to deal with that pro-media magnet named Hochstein:

...Philip Hochstein, president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., applauded Hydro’s approach.

“The craft unions are trying to recreate a model that may have worked 60 years ago but is no longer relevant,” he said, adding that fewer than one in five construction workers in B.C. currently belongs to a union...


And, of course, the people who back the good Mr. Hochstein, some of whom, it would appear, also backed Ms. Clark with a big money smear campaign in the run-up to the last election.

My take....This one is not over, by a longshot.



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And stay tuned for the Dean's well-reasoned, insider-accessed baked cake take which should arrive by next Tuesday, I reckon...As for Ron Obvious....Well,  the smart money has him playing the part of the trumpeter swan swooning at the feet of Madame Premier probably by Saturday...As for Mikey Mike...Rumour has it that he's already received the scoop for Sunday on how Mr. Sigurdson once mowed lawns as a kid without a union contract or some such irrelevant showy offish-type thing...
There is one last thing to consider here that may or may not show up in the puffed-up punditry's pieces to come...Which is that all this is going down when there are only a few weeks to go before the bids on the first big contracts are set to close...
And I would be remiss if I didn't note (even though they are linked to above), that the reportage quoted from above come from two very solid 360 looks at this thing from Justine Hunter in the Globe.


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