HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – Members of the Carpenter’s Union and the Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council staged an early-morning picket of Le Germain Group/ATL Hotels new hotel construction site at the Halifax International Airport. The construction site, managed by Marco Group Maritimes, has chosen to build using workers brought in from Ontario-based contractor Long Valley Forming.

Cathy Pike, Representative/Organizer with the Atlantic Canada Regional Council of Carpenters, Millwrights and Allied Workers, notes that Marco Group is known to the Carpenter’s Union as a company that does not employ Nova Scotia unionized workers, but that going out of province and importing workers for its projects is a new development.

The airport hotel site, slated to be a 14 story project, is perceived by Pike as a sign of impending clashes. The Halifax area, riding on the coattails of the $25 billion warship building contract, will most likely see a wide range of development in the coming months and years. Ensuring that those projects utilize Nova Scotia unionized workers is a concern.

“That’s the problem that we’re having,” says Pike. “There’s going to be a lot of work in Nova Scotia, and we want to keep our work here, in the province, instead of having people come in to do it, when we have capable people here that can do the work.”