One of North America’s premier labour relations experts, Tony Fanelli has more than 30 years experience in labour relations, human resources, recruitment, labour strategy, construction management and safety processes across Canada and the US, on multi-million and billion dollar projects. He has also led sensitive negotiations with the First Nations for a variety of owners, paving the way for successful project agreements and delivery.

Tony’s experience spans a broad range of sectors including nuclear, hydroelectric, fossil, solar and wind power generation, as well as infrastructure including roads and light rail, manufacturing, oil refineries, upgraders, LNG, pipelines, petro-chemical and steel mills.

Tony brings a practical, hands-on approach to leadership, labour relations (LR) and construction management. He has deep expertise administering collective agreements; and has negotiated project and maintenance agreements with construction/maintenance building trades both provincially and nationally in Canada, and the US. He has worked in all sectors of the construction industry, primarily participating in ICI provincial negotiations in most provinces in Canada representing industrial contractors as well as other industry associations. Tony is a founding business director of the Construction Sector Council for Canada now known as Build Force Canada.

Tony has established corporate labour relations programs and procedures for a wide range of projects, and has managed the human resources function at regional and corporate levels. He has provided advice to executive management and owners on all matters relating to LR including collective bargaining, grievance resolution, safety policy & procedures, regulations and legislative matters and project governance.

Positions Tony has held throughout his career include Vice President, Manager of Labour Relations, Bantrel/Bantrel Constructors (subsidiary of Bechtel Canada); Project Labour Relations Manager, Fluor Canada; Director of Labour Services for SNC-Lavalin, Montreal; Operations Manager for BFI Constructors; and Vice President, Employee Relations & Safety for Comstock Canada. Recent notable projects:

        •   Negotiated the first Project Labour Agreement (PLA) of its kind in the Province of British
             Columbia for Pacific North West Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in Prince Rupert, BC
        •   Kitimat Modernization Project, major expansion of world scale smelter for Rio Tinto
             in Kitimat, BC
        •   Negotiated and administered the PLA for the Edmonton Valley LRT Project
             in Edmonton, Alberta
        •   Set up the Labour Strategy and PLA for Conoco Phillip’s 180,000 Barrel/day SAGD in
             Fort MacMurray, Alberta
        •   Managed the LR Program at Scotford UE1 Upgrader Project for Shell Canada in
             Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta
        •   Negotiated and administered the PLA for the Iron Ore Company (Rio Tinto) in
             Labrador City, Labrador
        •   Set up corporate governance and administered the Labour Relations Program on
             the Keeyask Project in Gillum, Manitoba for Manitoba Hydro.

Tony graduated from the University of Western Ontario; went on to University of Windsor; and received his Financial Certificate from York University.