That’s because a battle over jurisdiction and work issues has erupted between the Carpenters’ District Council of St. Louis and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1 in St. Louis, the AFL-CIO’s longtime electricians union.

Earlier this year, electricians union officials in Kansas City voiced concerns over the St. Louis carpenters union forming its own electricians union in direct competition with IBEW Local 1. Those worries probably heightened when the Carpenters’ District Council of Kansas City was dissolved last week.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters, the union’s national organization, ordered that the 14,000-member Carpenters’ District Council in Kansas City be parceled out to three other districts, with St. Louis receiving the greater share. About 9,000 of the Kansas City district’s union carpenters living in western Missouri and Kansas now belong to the St. Louis council.

About three years ago, the carpenters and electricians unions in St. Louis feuded over which group should do a certain job on a big casino project in downtown St. Louis, according to a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

The bad blood escalated to the point that in late 2008 the carpenters union formed Associated Electrical Contractors Local 57 of St. Louis, becoming a union alternative to IBEW Local 1, which has about 4,000 members.

Associated Electrical Contractors Local 57 has made inroads in St. Louis, signing up 200 contractors. But that has furthered the tension with IBEW Local 1, whose leaders have questioned the legitimacy of the rival electricians union.

The Post-Dispatch reported that vandals had destroyed property at the firms signed by AEC Local 57 in three separate incidents.

The national organizations of the two unions have asked their St. Louis units to resolve their differences.

But the conflict does not appear to be over. The carpenters union in St. Louis has been successful in signing up non-union electrical contractors that allow union carpenters to do electrical work, said Mike Damico, financial secretary of IBEW Local 124 in Kansas City.

“We’re afraid that could also happen on our side of the state,” Damico said at a labor/media meeting in early June, weeks before the St. Louis carpenters council took over the Kansas City membership. “We call them ‘carpentricians.’ ”

Damico and other Local 124 officials could not be reached last week following the announcement regarding the St. Louis Carpenters’ District Council taking over the Kansas City area.

A St. Louis carpenters council officer last week said he did not expect the battle with the IBEW in St. Louis to spread to Kansas City.

“AEC Local 57 is a St. Louis union, and I don’t think they plan on expanding into Kansas City,” said Dave Wilson, assistant organizing director for the St. Louis carpenters council. “We will continue to have the same relationship with the construction trades in Kansas City that we had under Terry Davis.”

Davis was the longtime carpenters union leader in Kansas City before last week’s developments.

While the union under Davis had its share of jurisdictional work disputes with other construction unions in Kansas City, labor observers agreed that they have not escalated to the levels currently seen in St. Louis.

Local labor leaders will see what happens now that Terry Nelson of St. Louis is responsible for the direction of the carpenters union in Kansas City. Bitter labor fights like the one in St. Louis are harmful in attracting new businesses to the area, Jim LaMantia, a St. Louis labor leader, told the Post-Dispatch.

“Anything that is a negative like this can have an impact on development,” he said.

Despite widespread, long-term use of PLAs, studies can be difficult to conduct and have shown mixed results on the economic effects of PLAs.

The report (R41310), prepared by Gerald Meyer, an analyst in labor policy, notes that PLAs have been around for more than 75 years. “PLAs have been used in the US since at least the 1930′s,” according to the report. “… [the Government Accountability Office's] research concluded that most PLAs are in the private sector and that they have been used in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on both private and public projects.”

According to the report, “to some extent, projects that use PLAs may be different from projects that do not use them, which can make it difficult to isolate the effects of PLAs.”

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH STUDIES

Recent studies conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute, the fiscally conservative research arm of Suffolk University, concluded that PLAs raise the cost of construction, CRS found. A 9 year study of Boston school construction projects led BHI researchers to conclude that PLAs raised the cost of construction by $16.51 per square foot. A 2004 BHI study of Connecticut school construction projects attributed a $30 per square foot rise in costs to PLAs.

However, a 2003 study of new school construction projects in Mass, Conn, and Rhode Island, conducted by researchers from Michigan State University, concluded that “PLAs did not have a statistically significant effect on the costs of construction,” according to the report.

STUDIES ON INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

Research on individual projects was just as ambiguous, the report found.

A study conducted by the ABC concluded that PLA raised bids on two NY state projects by 26%, while a consultant hired to negotiate a PLA on a different NY state project concluded that the PLA reduced the cost of the project by $6 million, or 4.6%.

QUALITATIVE STUDY

In a qualitative study conducted by the ELECTRI International, the Foundation for Electrical Construction, interviewees cited both advantages and disadvantages of PLAs. Though a PLA can lead to “timely completion of the project” and provide a “steady flow of qualified labor,” interviewees were concerned that PLAs “increase the bargaining power of construction unions.”

“In areas where a large share of jobs are covered by PLAs, construction unions may make greater demands during negotiations over the new union contracts. If one union is successful, other unions may make similar demands,” according to the report.

Though the report pointed out that the final regulations concerning Exec. Order 13502, regarding PLAs, went into effect May 13 (56 CLR 197, 4/15/10), it drew no conclusionsabout their effects. The EO encourages federal agencies “to consider requiring” the use of PLAs on large-scale construction projects (54 CLR 3194, 2/11/09).

The regulations include general requirements for PLAs, stipulating that they must bind all contractors and subcontractors, contain guarantees against strikes and locouts and provide binding procedures for resolving labor disputes, among other things.

The report’s author was not immediately available for comment.

The council will vote July 13 on the agreement with Building Laborers’ Local 394 enabling the borough to hire workers at an hourly wage to augment its shorthanded public works department.

“It’s all about smaller government working more efficiently, and I think this was an opportunity,” Mayor Colleen Mahr said, noting the agreement would save the borough in overtime costs and benefits in tight budgetary times.

The agreement would be a pilot program for all the state’s labor unions, said New Jersey Laborers’ Union spokesman Robert Lewandowski, noting other mayors have expressed interest.

“The construction industry is decimated, so these are really people who are looking for work as well,” he said, noting unemployment among the state’s labor unions ranges between 20 percent and 40 percent. “I think necessity truly is the mother of invention.”

The borough of 7,100 currently has six workers, one secretary and a director in the public works department. As a cost-saving measure, the borough has not replaced an employee who resigned in March.

If the council approves the agreement, the borough could ask the union for workers to perform specific tasks like emergency snow removal or small projects in the capital improvements budget like sidewalk replacements. Mahr said the laborers’ hourly rates would be similar to the salary range of its full-time workers but without health benefits or vacation time.

“These guys are trained to do it, and they’re the same people the contractors would be using, quite frankly,” Fanwood chief financial officer Fred Tomkins said at Tuesday’s borough council meeting. “You would eliminate the contractors’ profit, because there wouldn’t be a profit.”

Tomkins said he had worked out similar arrangements for capital projects in Jersey City years ago, but Mahr said Fanwood would be the first municipality in Union County to try it out.

Fanwood’s council members favored the proposal.

“As a union man, I applaud this terrifically, especially if we could somehow get our own local residents,” said councilman Michael Szuch, who works as an electrician, at Tuesday’s meeting.

Source: NJ.com

It is the responsibility of each proposer to ensure that its proposal is received by the Department of General Services prior to the Proposal Submission Deadline, regardless of method of delivery used. No proposal shall be considered if it arrives after the Proposal Submission Deadline, regardless of reason for the late arrival. Proposals delivered in person by the proposer or through an authorized representative will be received by the Department of General Services, on the 3rd Floor of the Arsenal, Building, Harrisburg, from individuals presenting picture identification and providing evidence of his/her authorization from the proposer to deliver the proposal on behalf of the proposer, no later than the Proposal Submission Deadline.  All envelopes containing proposals must be clearly marked “PROPOSAL” and must include the proposer’s name, address, project name and project number.

Project: DGS 577-36 Revised Rebid – Design BuildNew Correctional Facility Graterford East and West

Location: State Correctional InstitutionSkippack Township, Montgomery County, PA

Construction Manager: Hill International, Inc.

Agency: Department of Corrections

Brief Description: The Project is a new 4,032 Bed, Blended Security Level Prison specifically designed as a series of buildings, including but not limited to Administration, Security, Health Services, Dietary Services, Maintenance Shops, Chapel / Treatment, Learning Resources, Inmate Activities / Recreation, Guard Stations, Sallyports, Central Plant, L3/L4/L5 Housing Units as well as Site Work and Site Improvements, including but not limited to Security Perimeter Detection Systems, Fencing, Athletic Fields, Parking Lots, Sidewalks, Access Roadways, Perimeter Roadways, Utilities, and modifications to site entrances and highways. See RFP Part 4, 4-1 for a more detailed description.

The intent of the proposed solution is to provide beds in a combination of single and double cells in the Housing Buildings and special handling cells within the medical suite of the Central Support Building.

The goal of this project is to provide the needed inmate housing and support functions while maintaining safe and secure facility operations.

The objective of the Project is to build a fully integrated replacement correctional facility that results in increased staffing efficiency and heightened security operations. While the documents indicate certain structures as not in contract for future development, the project does include all infrastructure required for those buildings.

Technical Submission Deadline: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 due at 10:00 AM

Cost Submission and Disadvantaged Business Submission Deadline:Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:00 PM

Maximum Contract Award Amount: $365,300,000 See RFP for discussion of this amount.

Contract Numbers: DGS 577-36 Revised Rebid – Design BuildCollective No. 00032616

Bid Guaranty with Technical Submission: Certified Bank or Cashier’s Check Payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,Department of General Services, in an amount One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($100,000.00) – refundable in accordance with RFP requirements

Proposed Date of Completion: 1,278 Calendar Days (approximately 42 months) from the Date of the Letter of Intent to Close-out Inspection.

Proposal Period: Seven (7) days anticipated maximum from Cost Proposal Submission Deadline until Letter of Intent. However, proposals are to remain valid for longer period as per RFP requirements

MANDATORY Vendor Registration: All Bidders must be registered to secure Plans and Specifications and must have a Current, Active Vendor Number. Register at www.pasupplierportal.state.pa.us

Plans Cost: A Plan Holder Registration Fee of Fifty Dollars and no cents ($50.00) is required. This registration fee is nonrefundable. All RFP Documents including RFP, all Appendices, plans, specifications, reference documents and etc. are available upon Registration, agreement to site usage terms and conditions and payment, via credit card, for unlimited downloading at Hill International’s dedicated website:http://dfs.nrinet.us/hill/register.html

Hardcopy versions of any and all documents are available through the website. Requests for copies will be promptly provided and delivered – from Philadelphia, PA or for pick-up in Philadelphia. All costs for production and shipping for such hardcopies are the responsibility of the Registered Plan Holder making the request.

Alternately, Plan Holders may download and print any document(s) however they desire. Parties not wishing to utilize a credit card for payment of the nonrefundable Plan Holder Registration Fee may deliver a bank check or money order payable as indicated at the dedicated website. Upon receipt of the fee payment (check) and required registration information, Hill will issue the Registered Plan Holder with a username and password for access, upon agreement to site usage terms and conditions, to Hill International’s dedicated document website where all documents can be viewed, downloaded and/or prints ordered as indicated above.

Issuing Office: Hill International, Inc., One Penn Square West30th South 15th Street, Suite 1300Philadelphia, PA 19102

Phone No.: .215-557-3240

FAX No.: 215-557-0214

Contact: Lance Rothstein

RFP Documents (including plans, specifications and etc.) may also be reviewed without charge – in hardcopy format at the Department of General Services, Room G-8, Headquarters Building, 18th and Herr Streets, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17125, or Hill International, Inc., One Penn Square West, 30th South 15th Street, Suite 1300, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

List of Proposers who secured contract documents: www.portal.state.pa.us

In accordance with the provisions of Executive Order No. 2004-6, the Department of General Services has established Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and Women Business Enterprise (WBE) participation levels on all Commonwealth Public Works Projects. Only contactors certified by DGS can be used to achieve these participation levels.

The participation levels recommended for this project are as follows: MBE WBE15% 15%For a complete listing of certified Minority and Women Businesses, go to http://www.dgsweb.state.pa.us/mbewbe/VendorSearch.aspx or contact the Bureau of Minority and Women Business Opportunities at 717/787-7380.

Each Technical Submission must be accompanied by a Certified Check, Bank Cashier’s Check made payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the amount of One Hundred Thousand Dollars and no cents ($100,000.00). Failure to provide this will result in the Submission being judged non-responsive and shall not be considered. Technical Proposals judged non-responsive.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling in which the court’s leading liberal — retiring Justice John Paul Stevens — sided with the court’s four most conservative members, said the law does not allow the National Labor Relations Board to operate while it is short-staffed because of political arguments.

“If Congress had intended to authorize two members alone to act for the Board on an ongoing basis, it could have said so in straightforward language,” Stevens said. “Congress instead imposed the requirement that the Board delegate authority to no fewer than three members, and that it have three participating members to constitute a quorum.”

Allowing two members to run the agency because Congress and the White House can’t agree on new members would be letting the board “create a tail that would not only wag the dog, but would continue to wag after the dog has died,” Stevens said.

The decision means that more than 500 of employee-employer cases decided by the NLRB while its membership had dropped to two must now be reopened by the board, which currently has four members.

“Now hundreds of decisions in cases already decided by the NLRB will have to be reopened, needlessly delaying finality for workers who were led to believe they already had it,” said Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of American Rights at Work.

Stevens wrote the court’s opinion, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The NLRB is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers. The five members are nominated to five-year terms by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.

But it has operated with only two members for more than two years because Democrats refused to confirm President George W. Bush’s nominees because of complaints that they were pro-business. Republicans then blocked President Barack Obama’s nominees, complaining that some of them favor union interests.

Before the board dwindled to two members, the three-member board delegated the entire group’s authority to the chairwoman, Democrat Wilma Liebman, and Republican board member Peter Schaumber, who made more than 500 decisions.

“Nothing in the statute suggests that a delegation to a three-member group expires when one member’s seat becomes vacant,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the dissent.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined with Kennedy’s dissent.

Obama gave temporary appointments to two new board members earlier this year over GOP’s objections, giving the current board four members.

The case is New Process Steel v. NLRB, 08-1457.

Source: ABC News

The strike is not driven by wages or benefits but rather language in a proposed contract that would give the company the power to move workers into different roles at the plant, Teamster Local 773 Chief Steward Tim Groller said.

Should the language be approved, he said, the company could shift workers around at any time for any amount of time.

“You’ve got to be happy coming into work,” Groller said.

Groller said some of the 82 union employees are worried about abuse from supervisors who might not like another employee.

Plant Manager Richard Zimmel said the transfer clause is used to fill employee vacancies.

“It usually results in an increase of wages for that person,” Zimmel said. “It never results in a decrease in wages.”

The company was running the plant’s mills Monday morning and was continuing to run shipping operations, Groller and other employees reported.

Zimmel said the company is using its 34 salaried employees to restart some of the plant’s operations.

“We opened up for business today at 3 a.m. as we usually do,” Zimmel said. “We have been concentrating on getting our salaried personnel accustomed to loading our customer’s trucks with cement.”

Some of the truck drivers making pickups turned away when they saw the picket line, Groller said.

“We didn’t ask them to, they just did,” Groller said.

Groller said the union is prepared to strike for the long haul. He said the union provides strike benefits, but he would not say how much. He said there was no contact with the company Monday.

Zimmel said the company is concentrating primarily on resuming operations.

“We’ve been so busy trying to get the plant back up this all just hit us on Saturday,” Zimmel said. “We haven’t come up with a timetable yet.”

Stockertown police reported no problems. However, on Sunday afternoon, Pennsylvania State Police investigated an attempted criminal mischief in which nails were scattered at Hercules Drive and Commerce Way.

“We found the nails, we called it in to the state police,” Zimmel said. “We did find more nails and screws today. It was a gallon-sized plastic bag full.

“They were right in the roadway where our customers’ trucks travel.”

Police did not say if it was related to the strike and did not return a phone message seeking comment. Zimmel would not say whether he thought it was strike-related.

Groller said he spoke briefly with police.

“I have no idea how they got there,” Groller said.

Source: Reporter Michael Buck can be reached at 610-258-7171 or mbuck@express-times.com.

THE past few months have produced so many examples of corporate incompetence—think of BP or Goldman Sachs or Toyota—that it almost comes as a relief to discover incompetence on the other side of the class struggle. Unite, the British union representing British Airways’ cabin crew, is providing a textbook example of how not to handle an industrial dispute.

The crew’s protracted series of strikes has been doomed from the start. BA has plenty of cash on hand and the support of the only employees who can instantly bring an airline to its knees, the pilots. The cabin crew, in contrast, are easily replaced. But the union is responding to growing setbacks by raising the stakes: complaining bitterly about “scabs” and, having already disrupted holiday after holiday, planning to organise another set of strikes over the summer.

With luck other union bosses will at least learn something from this dismal saga. They will come under intense pressure to mount the barricades in the coming months. Discontent is already rife throughout the rich world. It will become rifer still as governments cut jobs in the heavily unionised public sector. But unions need to ask themselves some serious questions before they give in to their instincts. How should they respond to the straitened circumstances of most Western countries? Can they protect their members without inflicting intolerable harm on the public, and thereby undermining their cause in the long run? Above all, how should they adapt their organisations to a world in which the majority of workers are not unionised?

The unions need to start by taking a cool look at their prospects. These are not quite as grim as is widely assumed. It is true that union membership has fallen precipitously across the rich world, from a third of America’s workforce in 1950 to just over a tenth today, for example. But such figures conceal some strengths. The proportion of unionised workers is edging up in the swollen American public sector. Schools and railways are not going to disappear in the way that mines and steelworks have. Many European countries accord unions a prominent, formal role in the regulation of working life. Barack Obama is America’s most pro-union president since Jimmy Carter.

However, the public has no appetite for a public-sector intifada. Most public-sector workers have done well over the past decade. Some have done ridiculously well: Californian police officers can retire at 50 on 90% of their salaries. Governments have no choice but to cut public-sector debt, which is ballooning across the rich world. Mighty private-sector unions were destroyed when they tried to take on elected governments in the 1980s. The same thing could happen to the survivors if they overplay their hands.

The unions need to work harder at presenting themselves as champions of public services rather than simply as defenders of their own members. This requires more than lofty words. It involves trying to improve the quality of schooling or policing, say, rather than being endlessly obsessed with “wages and conditions”. It also means making an effort to communicate with people outside the unionised ghetto. Talk of “fighting” may appeal to professional activists, but it offends those who are more interested in getting on than getting even. Generating fresh ideas in conjunction with policy wonks and NGOs would help make unions look like a constructive force, rather than sullen revanchists.

Two American trade unionists—one dead and one living—provide examples of how this might be done. The dead one is Al Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. He was such a fierce negotiator that Woody Allen based a film, “Sleeper”, on the conceit that civilisation had been destroyed when “a man by the name of Al Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead”. But he also saw that blind resistance to reform would destroy America’s schools. He made no secret of his belief that many teachers were incompetent, arguing in favour of testing them as well as pupils and of linking pay to performance.

The living one is Andy Stern. Mr Stern has dramatically increased the membership of his union, the SEIU, at a time when others are contracting. He has purged corrupt chapters and eliminated lavish perks for the top brass. Mr Stern has also been a frequent visitor to the Oval Office since Mr Obama moved in. He worries that a bunker mentality will consign the unions to irrelevance. He has argued that unions need to be more sensitive “to what employers are dealing with in their own industries” and made overtures to big thinkers on the right such as Newt Gingrich. During the health-care debate he tried to recruit America’s bosses to his campaign to replace the country’s system of employer-based health care.

Such radical thinking about how unions can best look after their members is rare. Many offer training for workers who are in danger of losing their jobs and advice on new careers. But unions may well discover that their future lies in rediscovering their old role as “friendly societies”, providing their members with the support they need to confront inevitable changes rather than trying to defend jobs for life.

Unions, in short, should be willing to reinvent themselves as dramatically as companies have in recent decades. In particular, they need to get serious about good management. The deck may always have been stacked against Unite in its battle with British Airways. But the union has not been helped by comically bad management. It has lumbered itself with two bosses, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, who are not on the best of terms. Mr Simpson provoked ire, from both BA’s management and fellow unionists, when he spent a tense meeting sending out messages on Twitter. The cabin crew fighting a losing and dispiriting battle deserve better.

The Economist

AMERICA’S labour movement rumbled into life in May 1894 when Pullman car workers on Chicago’s South Side began a famous strike. Now factories have all but vanished from the South Side. Across the country union power has waned. The neighbourhood of Pullman, however, once again finds itself at the heart of labour’s latest war. Wal-Mart, the unions’ arch-enemy from Arkansas, wants to open one store in Pullman and another five miles (8km) north in Chatham. Chicago’s unions are ferociously fighting the invader. The city council will vote on the plan on June 3rd.

Big cities are an important target for Wal-Mart, which has already vanquished much of America. For the unions, cities are a last stronghold, oddities where labour still has enough muscle to take on a behemoth. Los Angeles has just one Wal-Mart. New York has none, though the company is plotting an assault there. Nowhere, however, is the battle more vicious than in the arena known as Chicago.

The unions hope either to fend off Wal-Mart altogether or at least to force it to make concessions. Either would amount to a victory. There have already been several skirmishes. In 2004 a West Side alderman won just enough votes to allow a Wal-Mart in her ward. Since then the unions’ allies in the city council have tried to ensure that the West Side Wal-Mart is Chicago’s last.

In 2006 the council raised the minimum wage for “big box” stores. Richard Daley, Chicago’s mayor, overturned the ordinance, the only veto in his 20-year reign. (Perhaps because the city council usually does not dare provoke him.) Stung, the unions set out to tighten their grip on the council. In local elections in 2007, the city elected a class of aldermen especially close to labour.

The timing, though, is good for Wal-Mart: the recession has left the South Side hungry for new jobs and cheap goods. One of the proposed new stores would anchor a big development in Pullman and provide much-needed inexpensive groceries. If the council’s zoning committee approves the Pullman plan on June 3rd, it will move to a full council vote.

Chicago’s political factions have been busy trying to swing the committee. The unions argue that Wal-Mart will spur other stores to slash wages. Local members of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents grocery employees, have urged aldermen to reject the plan unless Wal-Mart raises pay. Many aldermen will listen (though the Chatham and Pullman aldermen support Wal-Mart’s plans). “It’s a union-built city,” explains Jorge Ramirez, secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labour. Unions elect and eject Chicago’s politicians. The next primary is in February.

Larry Roberts, pastor of the South Side’s Trinity All Nations church, takes a dim view of the unions. “It’s like they have the South Side of Chicago held hostage,” he insists. He leads a group of around 200 pastors advocating the Wal-Mart plan. The ministers’ alliance hopes to counter the unions, urging their vast congregations to oust anti-Wal-Mart aldermen next February. Wal-Mart is supporting its allies, giving money to aldermen’s campaigns and local charities.

Mildred McClendon, who has lived on the South Side since 1968, is one of those who say they would welcome Wal-Mart if it paid a middle-class wage. She remembers when the area’s factories whirred. Her husband worked at Automatic Electric and the Wal-Mart site in Pullman was home to a steel plant. The retail stores that replaced the factories, she insists, must pay more. If Wal-Mart agrees to raise wages, other retailers will follow suit. This is the argument put forward by Chicago’s unions and their supporters. But remembering the old days is unlikely to do them much good. “There’s righteousness”, says Mr Roberts, “and there’s a righteous mess.”

Source: The Economist

May 29 – June 4, 2010

The unions, which represent more than 30,000 members who work for the thousands of construction companies in New Jersey are under contract and were therefore not required to make any changes to their contract. According to Jose Colon, business manager of he New Jersey Building Laborers District Council, the wage and benefit freeze was nonetheless needed.

“What is important is that we move projects out of the planning stage and into the building phase,” said Colon.

According to studies by the Federal Highway Administration, $1 billion spent on construction generates 27,822 full-time jobs, most of them in supporting industries.

“If our wage and benefit freeze can create job opportunities for our employers by making them more competitive, then it is a success, added Colon. “If construction can be a catalyst for economic growth in New Jersey as we think it can, then our sacrifices will be well worth it.”

The unions are also stressing that although the decrease in labor costs will make a significant difference after years of construction starts plummeting nationally, it will still continue to push for greater efficiency and effectiveness in its workforce through training and apprenticeship programs.

“Maintaining the best training program in the trowel trades industry is just as important during this economic crisis as it is when jobs are plentiful,” said Richard Tolson, Director, Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers of New Jersey.

Response to the wage and benefit freeze has been met by approval from employers and the developer community as well as officials representing commercial real estate.

“Private sector job growth as has been anemic in New Jersey the last ten years and this has contributed to historically high vacancy rates in our buildings,” said Michael McGuiness, CEO of the New Jersey chapter of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. “Adapting to the new economic reality requires self-sacrifice and concessions, a fact our property owners know all too well, so the fact that the union contractors and workers are lowering labor costs is a real promising sign.”

In addition to the Building Contractors of New Jersey, several other contractor associations have agreed to the revised collective bargaining agreements that include a wage and benefit freeze. The new terms are also in effect for contractors represented by the Drywall Interior Systems Contractors of New Jersey, the Masonry Contractors of New Jersey, the Building Contractors Association of Atlantic County and the Building Contractors Association of South Jersey.

Most contract freezes went into effect on May 1, 2010 and the rest will go into effect starting November 1, 2010. The freezes will last one year from their starting date.

Source: New York Construction News

For additional information regarding this program, please contact Wayne Gregory, Director of Labor Relations at 215-568-7015.

———————-

THE FOUR COUNTY MARKET SHARE RECAPTURE PROGRAM (as stated by Operating Engineers Local #542)

In effect from 5/17/10 to 11/17/10

Waive Oilers on Back Hoes and RT Center Mount Cranes up to and including 60 ton only, excluding Crane Rental Companies. The nature of their program is to allow union contractors to be more competitive in winning projects, putting Local 542′s members to work.

Operators are to receive the 1-A wage rate for Cranes and the 2-A wage rate for Back Hoes in lieu of the Oiler. If a second employee is needed the jurisdiction will remain with the Operating Engineers, all other equipment shall require an Oiler as per the Building Agreement.

This program is controlled solely by I.U.O.E Local 542 and any misuse of the contents of this Market Rcovery Program will result in that particular contractor from the use of this relief on all of the existing and future projects.

Sincerely Yours,

Robert T. Heenan, Business Manager, General Vice President