The Labourers' International Union of North America [LiUNA] opened its new training centre in Sarnia Tuesday afternoon.
Local dignitaries joined union members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open the 15,000 square foot facility on Confederation Street.
LiUNA Local 1089 Business Manager Mike Maitland said it's state-of-the-art.
Business Manager Mike Maitland
"We have two classrooms, one is for safety which is your confined space and first aid training, and the other one is our main classroom for the construction craft worker," said Maitland.
The construction classroom has been named after Sarnia Construction Association President and Labour Relations Council Chair Ray Curran.
"Ray Curran's an icon," said Maitland. "I've been the manager going on 13 years and there's nobody I've met in this organization in my 30 years that promotes the building trades like Ray Curran does."
Maitland said Local 1089 currently has 1,200 members in Sarnia, but he expects membership will grow to 2,000 when NOVA Chemicals begins construction of the next phase of its polyethylene plant in St. Clair Township.
"Our core jurisdiction is concrete finishing, forming and sewer/water main asphalt, things like that. Demolition is a big sector of ours. It's more prominent in the Toronto area, so Local 506 has probably 60, 70, 80 guys right now, give or take, taking down Lambton Generating Station and units at Imperial Oil."
International Vice President and Regional Manager for Central and Eastern Canada Joseph Mancinelli said they're expanding all the time because the need is so great.
"We need to train so many people, we're barely keeping up," said Mancinelli. "You have full employment here because the petrochemical industry is exploding and there's so much investment dollars coming into the industry, so our members are the ones that do a lot of the work and so we need to train these folks."
He said getting new members through the door is challenging.
"There should be classes at an early age, I would say even in Grade 7 and Grade 8, exposing them to the construction industry, because a light bulb may go off in some of these kids heads that they may want to do this. It's not just an industry for boys, like traditionally it used to be, but for girls as well."
He said they're really trying to recruit more young people, women and immigrants.