MONTREAL -- Two-thirds of construction workers want to continue their jobs despite the COVID-19 pandemic -- but they want to work in more sanitary conditions.
The CSD-Construction union supports those demands, based on an in-house survey it carried out among its 28,000 members by email and text message, to which 6,660 of them replied.
Of those who replied, 67 per cent said they wanted to continue working but under improved sanitary conditions: being able to wash their hands more frequently, disinfectant wipes, more frequent cleaning of toilets, safe distance maintained between workers and so on.
In an interview on Monday, CSD-Construction president Carl Dufour reported that even today, despite the calls from the construction industry employers' associations and even Premier Francois Legault, some contractors are negligent when it comes to these measures and are therefore making their workers vulnerable to COVID-19.
CSD-Construction, the fourth largest union organization in the industry, is asking Labour Minister Jean Boulet to impose a fine of $50,000 on any recalcitrant employer and to make them lose their licence in the event of recidivism.
