A growing number of construction unions endorsed Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative Party during the recent election campaign — a trend that weakens the labour movement at a moment when we need to unite with our union brothers and sisters working in health care and education.
As a construction electrician, I've been working on sites across Toronto for more than 10 years.
I've worked on TTC infrastructure and inside landmark buildings, and done outdoor slab work 40-storeys high amid the city skyline — sites where I met and talked to thousands of other construction workers.
I see us as a pivotal swing demographic between the NDP and PC Party. We punch above our weight.
PC Party flunkies see this too. During the campaign, Ford’s camp repeatedly shared photos of him in front of workers in safety vests and hardhats — a visual symbol of the working class.
The battle over trades workers’ votes and trade unions’ endorsements is not only pivotal to electoral politics — we are also the manual labourers that bring election promises to fruition.
Our sweat and muscle can either be used to waste money building Ford’s ludicrous Highway 401 tunnel, or to solve the housing crisis.
We can either choose to undermine — or to support — other union workers, especially those in health care and education. Trades can go either way.
I hope that instead of building a billion-dollar boondoggle under the 401, my co-workers and I can be employed constructing transit projects, affordable housing and hospitals — all critical infrastructure Ontario badly needs.
Continuing a trend that started in 2022, trade and manufacturing unions endorsed Ford's PC Party in spite of the NDP’s long-time links to organized labour, which still exist, but perhaps more reliably from the public sector side. For decades, the Progressive Conservative vote was seen as a no-go by unions of all kinds.
Sid Ryan, a retired Ontario labour leader, said the PC Party has made inroads with organized labour despite many union members remaining solid NDP supporters.
“You have a [local union leader] saying that we support Ford, who goes out to the training centre. They slap on a hardhat and a vest and talk about Ford, and they talk about all the money he is putting into the training centre. And all [Ford] has to do is [say] he wants to build a tunnel under the 401 and of the construction unions are staying ’we are all for that.’”
Some of this is due to the inevitable tension between ideological politics and the power politics of quid pro quo.
If you are a union and you want things for your workers, you want to be on the side that wins.
It’s true that the Ford government has spent big on skilled trades training centres and funded programs to advance women in the sector — an effort to try and correct massive gender imbalances in many construction trades (including mine) where women make up less than two per cent of the workforce.
Under ex-labour minister Monte McNaughton, the PCs also tried to do something about the abysmal bathroom situation on construction sites. While issues persist, no other government or political party had even tried to address this previously.
Construction people tend to be extremely practical, and supporting the NDP in an election it’s likely to lose does not score you patronage, public sector contracts or big union infrastructure projects.
Exemplifying this tension is Chris Borgia, the NDP candidate for Durham and a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) — a union that endorsed the PC Party.
He still put his professional front and centre on the campaign trail.
“I would canvas and door-knock in my work clothes. I kept on my Carhardt and bright orange IBEW toque,” Borgia told me. “I wanted people to understand who it was that was working to represent them.”
It was just three years ago when Ontario’s labour movement united against Bill 28, Ford government legislation that aimed to use the notwithstanding clause to break an education workers’ strike.
Public and private sector unions, including those in the construction trades, stood shoulder-to-shoulder to support the right to strike. Ford blinked. Labour won.
However, that unity was short-lived and the PC Party has resumed exploiting divisions between different types of unions to garner support.
David McNally, a Canadian professor at the University Houston who studies political economy, views any union support for the conservatives as a betrayal of the labour movement.
“Ontario’s election is dramatic evidence that the labour movement needs to flex its muscles against the neoliberal agenda,” he said.
“Further attacks on social services, union rights and job security are coming. For unions to have endorsed Doug Ford’s conservatives is suicidal — and so is acting as if we can do without a fighting agenda for working class people.”
Reflecting on the election, Borgia said the NDP could do a better job with messaging to working people.
“The NDP was started by unions. It's the working people’s party, but a lot of the messaging we put out kind of took for granted people’s understanding of what the NDP is, so the messaging kind of didn’t speak to that as much,” he said. “Then the [right-wing] political parties used that to their advantage."
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Megan Kinch is a construction electrician and writer from Toronto. Find her @meganysta on X or on Bluesky.
