Keeping skilled trades trained, heard and well

An apprentice becomes productive only if a journeyperson has time to teach, and that time is usually the first thing a tight schedule removes. I plan apprentice intake against the mentors we actually have, not against the number of apprentices a project could carry. Some regulated trades set ratio rules for apprentices and certified workers on a crew; where they do not, we set our own limit of two apprentices per designated mentor. Mentors receive a paid premium and a lighter production expectation, which estimators must include in the bid. I track completion of each apprenticeship level, not just intake, because a first-year apprentice who leaves in October is a cost without a return. Our 212 registered apprentices in June 2026 are a pipeline only if they finish.

In Ontario our hourly trades are covered by agreements negotiated across the province between unions and associations representing many contractors. I cannot set wages for those workers alone, so my influence lies elsewhere: in how we apply the agreement, how quickly we settle grievances and how our superintendents treat union stewards. I served on one employer-side bargaining committee, where I learned that a contractor's local habits often cause more disputes than the agreement's wording. Public transit projects add project labour agreements and occasional disagreements between trades over which work belongs to whom. In British Columbia we run union and non-union crews, which calls for consistent standards of treatment without blurring the different legal terms on which people work. I try to resolve disputes at the site before they reach arbitration.

Our vice-president of health and safety owns the safety system: procedures, inspections, investigations and our legal obligations. My contribution is to the conditions that decide whether people use it. I look at who reports hazards and who does not, broken down by crew, employment status and length of service. A crew that never reports is rarely a crew with no hazards. I ask whether new workers, apprentices and workers on employer-specific permits believe a stop call is safe, and I test that belief through interpreters and anonymous conversations rather than through a survey supervisors administer. I also review staffing on the weeks before an incident, because short crews and borrowed workers appear in our investigations more often than missing procedures. Discipline for a genuine report is never acceptable.

Construction has a heavy burden of suicide and substance use among men, and the people most at risk are often least likely to use a benefit administered by their employer. Many of our hourly workers receive benefits through union trust funds, so the company is not their only source of support. I designed our programme around what would make someone call: counselling paid for by us but provided by an outside firm that reports only aggregate use, trained peer supporters drawn from the crews, and access that continues for six months after a seasonal layoff. Supervisors learn to notice and refer, not to counsel. I measure willingness to ask for help through an anonymous annual survey, and I do not claim outcomes the data cannot show.

Public owners increasingly agree employment, training and procurement commitments with First Nations near a project, and contractors carry part of that commitment into daily work. I am careful not to speak for communities or to treat a hiring number as the whole obligation. My work is the employer's part: preparing supervisors to lead new workers respectfully, adjusting schedules so that people can meet family and community responsibilities, and making sure trainees join crews with real mentoring rather than token placements. Procurement colleagues lead work with Indigenous-owned subcontractors. I report to the project owner what happened to each trainee, including those who left, because an honest account of departures is more useful than a count of hires. Where a trainee leaves for a reason we caused, such as a supervisor's conduct, I treat it as our failure to correct.