Letter to the Labour Relations Board
(March 22, 2007)

Mr. Brent Mullin
Chair
Labour Relations Board

Dear Brent,

We send this letter to you in an attempt to provide more awareness of the inter-relationship between the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) and the employer community.

åWe refer you to the IOSC Fifth Annual Open Shop Construction Conference – http://www.iosc5.com.html. You will note CLAC is a major sponsor of this annual event. There is without a doubt a direct connection between CLAC and the employer community. Any reasonable thinking person would come to this conclusion. The conference issues included on the agenda are not new to the labour movement. These topics confirm the position we have taken for decades; the Christian Union is not a bona fide trade union but rather an employer dominated organization which is simply a veil and protection from the Real Unions in our society.

Let us look at the definition of Merit Shop.

A “Merit Shop” company is one whose employee hiring and advancement policies are based on subjective criteria or qualifications determined by the employer, and not by policy or practice originating from an agreement with a labour union. The term” Merit Shop” was coined by John Trimmer, who served from 1952 to 1976 as an officer of the Associated Builders and Contractors, an American trade association comprised primarily of non-union construction contractors www.abc.org.

In common usage, Merit Shop is often synonymous with being non-union or open shop. A definition provided in Merriam’s Webster’s Dictionary of Law (1996) defines “Merit Shop” as a noun meaning “Open Shop”.

It is our respectful opinion that the Labour Relations Board members and vice chairs in their deliberations can and should rely on this information and redefine CLAC as the “non-union” union!

We are surprised when the spirit of cooperation is confused with collusion. The Labour Relations Board’s integrity is being compromised when these issues are undermined. We implore the LRB to undertake a full investigation of this organization.

In closing, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it must be a duck.
Yours truly,
Gary W. Kroeker
Business Manager