Still
Standing.

We didn't go out over nothing.

We're at $36.30 an hour. The company's offer moved us $1.50, to $37.80 — which starts an operator below the company's own maintenance labourers at $41.01. Same plant.

We drive loaded trucks on public roads, run the loader, clean and chip the plant, and grease our own equipment. We deliver loads the company bills out at roughly $2,300–$3,200 each — from CBM's own published 2026 price list — and we take home about $65 of it. That's why we said no.

The cost of living outran our pay.

That's how much the cost of living has climbed in Canada since 2000 (Statistics Canada CPI) — and about 18% in just the last five years. A wage that crawls up a buck-fifty doesn't catch that. Standing still is a pay cut you can feel at the pump and the checkout.

We still have power — together.

CBM, Dufferin and Innocon drivers are all Teamsters Local 230, sharing the same benefit trust fund. When one plant sets the pattern, it touches us all.

• Innocon settled — and Innocon is the smallest of the plants. The smallest shop taking the deal first doesn't set the rate for everyone else.
• CBM and Dufferin are the two big producers — and we're both still out. The weight in this market hasn't gone anywhere.
• The GTA cannot pour concrete without us. That is leverage — no matter who tells you it's gone.

Solidarity wins. Ask B.C.

In 2022, Lower Mainland concrete workers — Teamsters and Operating Engineers — walked out against Rempel Bros., Ocean Concrete and Allied Ready Mix (all owned by the same parent, controlling about a third of Greater Vancouver's concrete).

And it's happening now in the U.S. — in July 2025, 300+ Teamsters were locked out at National Ready Mixed in Los Angeles for rejecting a concessions deal, just days after drivers at Catalina Pacific won a strong contract with real raises. Holding the line works.

The fear they're selling you.

You'll hear: "The government will force you back," "the company won't give a cent," "you've got no leverage."

Here's the honest part — a government cannot just order you back to work. That takes back-to-work legislation the province has to actually pass: it isn't automatic, isn't instant, and isn't a given for a ready-mix dispute. "They'll force you back" is pressure, not a fact.

Get the real numbers.

* U.S. figures are a different market and currency — shown only for scale (2026 industry data). The honest comparison is the Canadian settled rates — get them from your Business Agent and write them in.

It's a seasonal job.

This isn't 52 weeks of paycheques. We're ready-mix — when the pours stop, the layoffs start, and the company can keep us off the road for five or six months at a stretch.

That's the whole reason the rate matters so much. What we earn in the working season has to carry our families straight through the dead months. A wage that looks "okay" spread across twelve months is a wage you can't survive on when it only lands for six or seven.

We just want to be treated like people.

We get painted as greedy. We're not. Take the dollars off the table and look at what's left — the things that actually grind a person down: being watched, being rushed, being doubted when we're sick. This is about dignity.

• Watched, but not fed. We run loaded trucks under dashcams that record our every move — but can't reliably get the time or relief to stop and eat a real meal on shift. They can afford the cameras. They can't afford us a lunch break?
• Sick notes they can't even demand. Call in sick and the company wants a doctor's note — even though Ontario's Employment Standards Act says an employer cannot require one for your job-protected sick days. Making a sick, broke worker pay a clinic to "prove it" isn't safety. It's distrust.

So when someone says this is just about a raise — they haven't sat in our seat.

Happy with a union that tells you to sit down and take it? Then nothing has to change. But if you're ready for representation that actually fights — on wages, on safety, on respect —

Pressure from our own side.

Be straight about where the push to fold is coming from. It isn't only the company — after members voted to strike, our own representatives urged us to take the deal. Innocon, the smallest plant, has already settled.

Whatever pressure led there, the principle is simple and it's not up for debate: telling members to fold on a strike they voted for is wrong. A union's job is to back its members when they stand up — not to talk them into sitting down. That's a fight we settle the democratic way — at the ballot box, when this local elects its leadership.