www.ecao.org 12 T History of Provincial Bargaining Between the ETBA and the IBEW/ IBEW-CCO HISTORY PART ONE By Scott G.Thompson, Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP The Labour Relations Act was amended in 1977 to provide for province-wide bargaining in the ICI sector of the construction industry in the Province of Ontario. At that time the Electrical Trade Bargaining Agency of the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario (ETBA) was selected by the Minister of Labour to be the employer bargaining agency in the ICI sector for employers whose employees were represented by the IBEW construction locals in the Province of Ontario. At the same time the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the IBEW Construction Council of Ontario (IBEW) was selected by the Minister of Labour to be the designated employee bargaining agency in the ICI sector to represent all journeymen and apprentice electricians and journeymen and apprentice linemen represented by the IBEW construction locals in the Province of Ontario. These designation orders were expanded in 2001 to include journeymen and apprentice network cabling specialists and cable installers represented by the IBEW construction locals in the Province of Ontario. In 1978 the ETBA and the IBEW were able to negotiate the first province- wide Principal Agreement, which consolidated 14 local area agreements, without a strike. Between 1978 and 1990 the Principal Agreement was renegotiated every two years. Although the parties were able to renew the Principal Agreement without a strike in 1980 and 1984, they were unsuccessful in 1982 (a 1-week strike); 1986 (a 2.5-week strike); 1988 (a 3-week strike) and 1990 (an 8-week strike/lockout).Throughout this period of traditional bargaining between 1978 and 1990, the only material language change to the Principal Agreement occurred in 1982. Traditional bargaining in the construction industry tends to follow the pattern of the highest settlements. Between 1978 and 1990 all four strikes were over the monetary increase to the wage package. The other construction trades were more than willing to sit back and let the IBEW strike first. Regardless of which trade settled first, the settlement with the IBEW either matched the highest trade or was an average of the two highest trades. The only significant language change negotiated by the ETBA during this period of traditional bargaining was the right to name hire foremen, which it achieved as part of the 1982 settlement. As a result of the bargaining history between 1978 and 1990, the unionized electrical industry lost significant market share to non-union electrical contractors. Both the IBEW and the ETBA recognized that the increasing duration of the work stoppage and lost person hours and market share caused by the work stoppage was detrimental to both parties and, therefore, a commitment between the parties was made at the time of the 1990 settlement to explore methods of resolving disputes without resorting to the strike/lockout procedure. In the United States the unionized electrical industry has since 1928 a history of settling their collective agreement disputes through voluntary interest arbitration, without strikes or lockouts. The two pillars of the American system are to resolve disputes without work stoppages while increasing the market share of the unionized electrical industry. The ETBA and the IBEW, after investigating the American system, developed their own version of the No Strike/No Lockout Accord for the Province