Carpenter's Strike. August 1986. St. John's and all across Newfoundland ..

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]Major construction projects across the province were at a standstill today.

[00:00:05]5,000 construction workers have gone on strike in a dispute over double-breasting. That's where unionized companies set up dummy companies to get around paying union wages. We have two reports. First, Deborah Collins in St. John's.

[00:00:20]Construction workers did appear on their sites this morning, but just long enough to pick up their tools and lunch boxes.

[00:00:26]5,000 plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, in all a dozen trade unions have gone out together, shutting down all major construction in the province.

[00:00:34]In St. John's alone, a hotel and convention center, an office tower, a supermarket complex, and a new school for the deaf.

[00:00:42]The issue is double-breasting, where an employer sets up a non-union company to compete with his own unionized employees.

[00:00:49]Unions say they're losing work to the lower-paid non-unions. But the employer says the only way to eliminate double-breasting is for unions to take a cut in pay. Up to $6 an hour. The workers say, "No way." What what what what are we supposed to do? Leave for nothing?

[00:01:06]$6 an hour cut? Do you have a mind?

[00:01:09]Today's strike is an unusually quiet one, probably because no one's crossing the picket lines. Most trades are out.

[00:01:15]Those who aren't won't cross. And many workers still don't know all the details. Well, for one thing, we haven't been given enough information to comment on it. Union spokesman Randy Earle says agents for all 12 unions are now in the process of informing strikers around the province. He says they already know the generalities. The details will be filled in as the strike unfolds. But there's one thing they all know without being told. If the strike's not settled within a week or two, they'll be out for a long time.

[00:01:44]Deborah Collins, CBC News, St. John's.

[00:01:50]This is Terry LeDrew in Corner Brook.

[00:01:52]The strike's creating one big headache for the people who own the city's paper mill. Kruger Incorporated and government have poured millions of dollars into modernizing the mill and its equipment.

[00:02:03]Now, 100 men hired to do that have stopped work. A company vice president says they had hoped to have enough of the work done by October, in time for Kruger to put a higher quality newsprint on the world market. He says the delay caused by the strike is going to hurt the people of the city.

[00:02:21]Executives will meet in Corner Brook Thursday to decide what action to take.

[00:02:26]There's no sense of that urgency outside the mill's gates. The two people who were on the picket line ran off when we showed up and refused to talk. There are a couple of other pickets set up at smaller unionized businesses around town, and one forlorn sign at the site of Grenfell College's new office space and temporary arts building.

[00:02:47]The one other main project in town is steaming right along. The new Royal Newfoundland Constabulary building is being built with non-unionized labor, although there are a couple of union members on site. Contractor Frank White says, however, things could change. We yet we haven't seen a picket line here, and if they did put up one, well, I guess we'd honor it, you know.

[00:03:08]You would honor it? I think we would, you know, unless now the general uh the general contractor got orders to us and told us to go through or have the work done or whatever, well, then, you know.

[00:03:19]You'd be caught between a rock and a Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[00:03:22]Terry LeDrew, CBC News, Corner Brook.