Planning for the Future
March - April 2003
Do you know what the Millennium Morning Project is? If you don’t, here is your chance to learn more and get involved. In the latest membership survey, when members were given a brief description of this broad based effort to develop a plan and strategy for the Union’s future, they were more than willing to share their ideas on how best to organize non-union contractors, increase masonry’s market share, and increase member retention and participation in the Union.
Advice From Members
Members who participated in the January 2003 General Membership Survey offered advice on dealing with three key challenges facing BAC. The following were the most often cited suggestions:
What’s the best way to organize non-union contractors?
• Approach contractors and explain the benefits of signing an agreement, including the access to highly skilled workers.
• Cut the non-union contractors’ labor supply by organizing their workers.
• Hire professional organizers who are bilingual.
• Picket and boycott nonunion worksites.
• Improve member benefits
• Work with government officials, and repeal Right-to-Work legislation.
What should we do to increase market share?
• Advertise more and promote the advantages of using masonry products.
• Maintain quality craftsmanship and continue to train members. “If you don’t have enough qualified people to do the work, you’ll lose the work.”
• Put more Union representatives in the field.
• Stabilize wage rates.
• Lobby politicians and change the laws.
How do you retain members and get them active in the Union?
• Keep members working and offer more job mobility.
• Maintain good wages and benefits, and offer better and more benefits.
• Provide better representation, and keep members informed about what the Union’s doing.
• Provide good training and apprentice programs.
• Keep doing what we’re doing. “My Local is doing a good job, the business agent knows how to reach out to people.”
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In Phase I of BAC’s strategic planning initiative, the Millennium Morning Project, the Executive Council focused on gathering information on trends that would impact our Union and industry in the years ahead. Among the key findings:
• Demand for labor in the masonry industries represented by BAC is growing.
• There will be a large number of jobs opening due to retirements and people leaving the trades in upcoming years, in addition to new jobs being created.
• As a result, there will be a need to bring in a large number of new workers, and the new workers entering the labor force will be different from those who traditionally have been in BAC.
• Union contractors’ work is concentrated in different sectors than that of non-union contractors. Non-union contractors’ work, for example, is concentrated in the residential sector. In contrast, BAC signatory contractors dominate in commercial and public sector construction. Therefore, a slowdown in these markets has serious ramifications for BAC contractors and members.
• There are significant opportunities in the residential sector, but they present many organizing challenges.
• The masonry market holds a significant share of certain categories of non-residential construction and residential construction, and geographically, the masonry market is heavily concentrated in the South and the West. BAC’s presence in these areas is not as strong as it is in the Northeast and Midwest.
• Significant opportunities exist for residential and alterations, maintenance and repair work — these two sectors constitute a market almost twice the size of the nonresidential market. These findings have broad implications for organizing, bargaining, and representation. In the next phases of the study, the Executive Council will focus on how to address these findings, and develop a strategy for the Union to grow and prosper in the years ahead.
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