VANCOUVER—British Columbia Infrastructure Benefits (BCIB)—a unique provincial organization that uses a community benefits agreement to help workers land good local jobs in construction—is succeeding in making its workforce more representative of the province’s population, finds a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Building Better: The positive impact of a community benefits agreement on the B.C. construction workforce shows how using a community benefits agreement in construction employment helps address the industry’s chronic shortage of skilled workers, diversify the workforce and provide substantial local economic benefits by giving priority to hiring from communities where its projects are located.
“The tools the BCIB are using to provide better local jobs in the construction industry are working,” says report author John Calvert. “It’s helping to counteract a toxic worksite culture that can be hostile to new workers who are women, Indigenous or racialized. It’s helping construction workers land better paying, unionized jobs. And that’s helping local economies.”
From 2019 to the end of 2024, British Columbia Infrastructure Benefits (BCIB) hired 4,946 workers, who logged over 7.5 million paid hours. This makes it the second largest provincial construction employer and the source of benefits, such as:
- Reaching a 92 per cent hiring rate of B.C. residents, 76 per cent of whom are in the communities where projects are built.
- Reaching a 20 per cent hiring rate of trainees or apprentices and a 21 per cent of rehiring of BCIB employees on new jobs.
- Reaching a 14 per cent hiring rate of Indigenous workers, more than double the provincial construction average
- Addressing the frequently toxic worksite environment affecting many workers via its Respectful Onsite Initiative (ROI).
- Guaranteed payment to all workers on BCIB’s payroll, eliminating the common problem of non-payment of wages.
- Providing consistent pay across worker classifications, regardless of contractor, through unionization of workers on BCIB worksites.
“BCIB is unique,” says Calvert. “It is the only example of a government creating a public employer to train, employ and supply the trades’ workforce on major construction projects in Canada. “BCIB’s support for training and apprenticeship, its efforts to retain skilled workers in the industry by promoting employment continuity through rehiring workers, and its focus on local employment represents a long-term investment in the industry’s workforce. It’s working.”
Build Better is available at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/build-better
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