Alberta labour flexes its muscle - by Jon Harding, National Post, Canada
The chaos led to Alberta introducing a new labour act in 1988, which today draws scorn from the labour side as favouring employers and limiting trades from asserting themselves through individual job actions.
The legislation drew criticism again in 2004 when the province granted Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. a rarely given concession under the act's Division 8, which allows a contractor to sign a blanket agreement covering all trades at one work site.
Canadian Natural, which is nearing the end of building a $7-billion first-phase oilsands project called Horizon, had its site contractor sign a sweetheart collective agreement, in the eyes of Alberta's trade unions at least, with the Christian Labour Association of Canada, a union the Alberta unions saw as probusiness.
Division 8 also makes it illegal for a strike or lockout to occur at the Horizon site.