CEP reaches deal to work at Horizon
Union to fill hundreds of jobs on $11-billion project

For immediate release
May 11, 2006

EDMONTON – The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union has inked a collective agreement with Horizon Construction Management to help build the Horizon Oil Sands project in Northern Alberta.

“We are offering another legitimate choice for unrepresented construction workers who want to work at Horizon,” said Don MacNeil, Administrative Vice President of the CEP in Alberta.  "These jobs either would have gone to the non-union sector, CLAC or they may have gone to temporary foreign workers from the US or elsewhere."

The union is the second union in the traditional labour movement to have signed a formal agreement with Horizon Construction, which is owned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.   The Alberta Ironworkers Union also signed a deal for their work last month.

MacNeil said the CEP will use its vast Alberta and Canada-wide union network to recruit construction workers to the project, which is saddled with a chronic Alberta trades shortage. 

“We have direct access to workers no one has,” said MacNeil, noting that the CEP's Quebec alliances will aid in recruiting laid-off trade workers from that province suffering from an economic slowdown. CEP has recently forged a protocol service agreement with unions in Quebec that will offer employment for qualified Quebec trades workers.

McNeil said his union found the transportation conditions at Horizon appealing. The company and the union have negotiated free direct flights for workers to many locations in Alberta and Canada.

“Working at Horizon means construction members can earn good money while spending more time with their families at home,” said MacNeil. “Other northern Alberta projects involve taking a six-hour trip from Edmonton by bus or car on the busy and dangerous Highway 63.”

“The CEP is about fighting not just for better working conditions, but for a better quality of life for our member’s entire family,” concludes MacNeil. "The best job for families is at Horizon with its direct flights."

The CEP represents 150,000 members coast to coast including 10,000 in Alberta.

For more information contact:
Don MacNeil, CEP Administrative Vice President 
(780) 984-5289

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
540 - 1199 West Pender St., Vancouver, B.C.
V6E 2R1
tel. 604 682-6501
fax 604 685-5078