The strength built from a coalition of GCIU locals, building trades unions and occupational health professions, coupled with some pro-worker health and safety laws are helping to protect workers against a major asbestos hazard at a Quebecor plant in Ontario.

GCIU Rep. Alan M. Tate said the situation began when Quebecor decided to expand its Photoengravers and Electrotypers (PE&E) plant to accommodate a press shipped from its plant in Rhode Island that it had closed.

A pipe filled with asbestos fell near an area where Toronto 100M pressmen were working. Toronto 500M Vice Pres. Norm Beattie said the building trades "were not getting the information that workers are entitled to have" under Ontario law and did not know they were ripping out asbestos-laden pipes.

"The last straw," said Local 100M Health and Safety Coordinator Dan Huziak, was when the boxes containing the Rhode Island press were opened that same day and they also contained asbestos.

Under Ontario health and safety law, asbestos is regulated as a hazardous substance and workers have the right to refuse unsafe work. Representatives of the building trades unions phoned Tate to alert him that they were planning a safety action and that GCIU members probably had been exposed to asbestos. Tate phoned Local 100M and Toronto 500M, which represents pre-press and bindery workers in the PE&E plant.

The next morning, Tate, Huziak, Local 500M Executive Vice Pres. Frank O'Reilly, Beattie, and Health and Safety Committee Co-Chair Dan Hayward, and Local 100M Executive Vice Pres. Machael Marsbergen went to the plant and demanded a meeting with the plant manager and project manager, Tate said.

The GCIU leaders demanded that Quebecor comply with Ontario asbestos regulations. Quebecor agreed to all of the demands for worker notification, training, air testing, medical testing, and a joint safety committee with GCIU and building trades representatives. Meanwhile, building trades union members, were gathered outside the plant, Tate said. Huziak added: "Had the Quebecor managers not complied with our demands, then we would have pulled people out of the shop, too."

Marsbergen said the company has implemented a program that provides notice to the union prior to any asbestos removal or repair of any area containing asbestos. The company is allowing the union and management health and safety committee chairmen to monitor conditions. The company also is posting asbestos-related construction plans for the benefit of the workers in the plant – all actions that should have been taken before the construction began, he said.

Tate said the action at the PE&E plant was "significant because it pulled together the GCIU locals and the building trades union to fight a major hazard."

Beattie added that "it just shows that when we get together we can really help each other out. That's what unions are all about."

Tate said the situation also "demonstrated the benefit of the right to refuse unsafe work, which we see as a really big right in Ontario."

Huziak noted that, with health and safety law under attack in Ontario, the PE&E hazard showed "how important it is that we lobby at the political level. Otherwise, our rights will be eroded."