Merit won a significant success on July 8, 2010, when Hamilton City Council passed a motion to change their tendering rules to allow all General Contractors to bid their public projects. As described in the linked article in the Hamilton Spectator and Daily Commercial News (see below), since 2005 only GC's signatory to the Carpenters Agreement have been allowed to bid.

 

From the date of the certification we have been making deputations and working with the City to fight the certification which they did in litigation at the Labour Board and in the Courts until they lost a Judicial Review in late 2008. Our principle arguments are: (1) to disqualify qualified local contractors was simply unfair; and (2) to eliminate the majority of competition from bidding projects was going to drive up prices substantially.

 

Hamilton Staff did their own investigation based on our concerns and produced a valuable Staff Report that looked into the market share of open shop contractors in the Hamilton area and came up with stunning information. Of 260 Contractors that performed carpentry work who were in their purchasing records, less than 20 were affiliated to the Carpenters; so the certification was eliminating over 90% of the competition. The report also stated that after consulting with industry experts in the engineering community they estimated that costs would go up from 10% to 40% depending on the type of job, simply due to the lack of competitive bidding. The Carpenters Local and their affiliated contractors insisted that the cost and competition estimates were incorrect.

 

In the past, our Association has won various victories concerning bidding restrictions. The Hamilton situation is the first of its' kind because in Hamilton what happened is that everything that we had been arguing for years and was reflected in the City Report came to pass. When the City put out a RFP for the first $50 million contract in an $800 Water Works Capital Plan they received only one application from a Carpenter affiliated contractor. The sequence of events described in the Spec eventually lead to an open RFP to all qualified contractors and 4 open GC's out of 7 were accepted but then disqualified because a 3rd affiliated GC showed up.

 

At this point we intervened, led by Jeff Pigott of Kenaidan Contracting, a Hamilton resident and member of our Board.  He declared the whole process was an unacceptable violation of the good faith of the disqualified contractors and one that failed completely to provide the City with competitive bidding. City Council finally agreed because the 4 disqualified open shop contractors were in fact the biggest and the best Water Works Generals in the Province.

 

The years of  our advocacy work is paying off, as this is the first time we won the day, not as the little guys calling for fairness but as the dominant contractors in the sector and the situation was to obvious to ignore. It was also clear to the City Staff and Council that the union's advocates were incorrect in dismissing the conclusions of the Staff Report. The Carpentry work must still be subbed to a Union firm so our job is not done but our GC's now have access to $800 million in work that was out of reach a month ago.

 

This is a significant victory for all Merit members, as it demonstrates the growth and strength of our Association.  30 years ago there would not have been a single open shop contractor able to bid a $50 Million project and we are now dominant in the sector.  Let's keep it up.

 

Work Safe and Keep Cool

 

Dave McDonald,

President, Merit OpenShop Contractors Association