June 10, 2024

Unifor has launched a campaign against Enbridge.

Enbridge and emergency response

Enbridge's Profitability vs. Public Safety:

  • Enbridge is highly profitable
  • 13.51% net profit margin in 2023
  • $6.19 billion net income in 2023

Despite this, they are cutting essential frontline staff in Toronto, jeopardizing public safety, a decision prioritizing profits over the well-being of Toronto residents. In their 2024 corporate report it states they have

"Reliable cash flow and strong balance sheet"

and

that safety is one of their value drivers for investors.

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Workers, communities, and investment in safety for residents of Toronto are not seeing the benefits of that value growth and supposed dedication to safety.

Impact on emergency response

  • Reduced staffing will lead to slower response times for gas leaks and other emergencies.
  • This increases the risk of catastrophic events and delays in responding to other emergencies.

Increased risk to Toronto residents

  • Enbridge is downloading costs and risks onto Toronto residents.
  • Fewer workers mean inadequate infrastructure audits, increasing the risk of undetected leaks and potential hazards.

Root cause: corporate culture and incorrectly applied risk mitigation programs

  • This issue stems from Enbridge's management culture focused on cost-cutting and risk mitigation at the expense of safety.
  • This short-sighted approach prioritizes profits over the safety of Toronto residents.

Proposed solution

  • Reverse cuts, hire in-house workers, prioritize safety.
  • Increase the compliment of each shift by two workers.
  • Develop long-term plan for reducing leaks, reducing risks of incident along their infrastructure, and the city of Toronto residents.

The importance of safety

  • Our members are committed to safety and are raising this issue to protect Toronto residents.
  • Fewer leaks mean fewer greenhouse gas emissions and less natural gas leaking into our homes.
  • We use gas, and it is a safe and necessary part of the energy mix. However, it requires proper investment to remain safe.

Call to action

  • Municipalities, provinces, and the federal government should review their contracts and regulations regarding gas infrastructure. Leak mitigation, inspection, and staffing levels should be sust
  • Public pressure on gas companies to prioritize methane leak mitigation, safety of infrastructure.
  • Demands for investment in adequate staffing to ensure the safety of residents.

Additional notes

  • Emphasize the potential for catastrophic events if Enbridge's cuts are not reversed.
  • Highlight the expertise of union health and safety experts and prioritize their voice.
  • Stress the importance of public safety and the need for gas companies to act responsibly.

Explanation

When full-time shifts are cut, the emergency response will be done through on-call workers. That is, workers who have gone home and are on call for that week.

They already partly do this for much of the overnight shift. It does not work well.

Most/all on-call workers live out of the city.

The company calls a contractor to go to the site, then when it is a call that needs an in house worker (most of the time), they go through the on-call list. The worker who is available has to drive into the city, get their tools and / or vehicle and go to the site.

All of this takes way longer than just deploying workers who are on shift in the city.

This increased time means the emergency services (usually fire services) have to sit on the site, which has a knock-on effect on already stretched emergency services.

The additional issue now is that so many workers have been laid off, the on call list is sometimes empty. In that situation, the workers are forced back from vacation or other leave.

There is another issue. Enbridge has also reduced or eliminated compliance checks on infrastructure.

Valves, pipes, and points of failure. They used to check this infrastructure at timed intervals such as every two years or every five years. They have announced they are going stop the checks and not known small leaks.

It gets worse, but we have started with this information that we have proof of.

Toronto is not under a Municipal Franchise Agreement with Enbridge, it has a law and several other types of agreements.

Unifor are asking the city what level of safety assurance they have in these agreements to see if Enbridge is in violation. We are hoping in this process people figure out how ridiculous this all is and we can come to an agreement that Enbridge reverses direction. The alternative is the City enforce a level of investment and safety. At that point we will need provincial regulation, which is obviously more difficult.​