March 10, 2016 – After a 3 year-long organizing effort, roughly 330 workers at CS Wind—a wind turbine tower manufacturer—ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with Iron Workers Local 721.

“With this contract we’ll earn more, have better health & safety protections, and real job security,” said Randie Stone, an employee who was active in the organizing effort, and now a chief steward. “We look forward to working hand-in-hand with management to make CS Wind the most profitable company out there, and with the best-trained and qualified workforce.”

The union says the CS workers reached out to them in the summer of 2012, seeking representation to address workplace health & safety issues; fix unfair scheduling of work; correct inequitable wages between employees performing the same work; and to obtain better wages.

Bargaining lasted just under one month, reports the union, and workers voted by a 4 to 1 margin to ratify the agreement.

The Ontario Iron Workers District Council says they are “looking forward to working with CS Wind to make the plant into a model for the future of energy industry manufacturing in Canada”.