Updates & Articles

BAC President John J. Flynn leads a discussion with Executive Council members on their draft Millennium Morning Project recommendations.

At its winter meeting, the BAC Executive Council moved the IU’s strategic planning initiative into its final phase. As part of this project, the Council has taken an in-depth look at the industry’s and Union’s market share, labor force projections, and opportunities for growth. In this last phase, the Council discussed at length the recommended actions based on what’s been learned. The recommendations were developed based on feedback from members at Chapter and Local meetings, workshops at the Local Leadership Seminar, discussions at Regional Council meetings, and Executive Council deliberations. BAC President John J. Flynn reminded the Council that “all of the recommendations are aimed at three important objectives; enabling BAC to respond to the changing labor market, expanding work opportunities, and growing and strengthening the Union.”

The recommendations were based on the following facts:

• The labor market is changing and if we’re going to attract new workers into our trades and members to our Union we’re going to have to try new approaches and reach out to different groups. In the years ahead the Department of Labor is projecting that there will be significant job openings in the masonry trades due to individuals retiring and leaving the trades and new positions being created. The pool of workers that future BAC members will come from will include more minorities and women than ever before, and many of these new workers will not have the union tradition that current members have.
  
• There is room for the masonry industry to grow. A market share study conducted by Dodge Analytics found that there are opportunities for the masonry industry to expand its share of the construction market.
  
• BAC holds a significant share of the masonry market, but there are sharp variations in the Union’s market share between Regions. This finding underscored the need for different strategies in different markets. For example, in the Northeast and North Central U.S., the data indicated that BAC has a firm hold on the masonry market. The challenge is to expand the masonry industry’s overall share of the construction market in these areas. In contrast, in the South and West, the study found that BAC must do more to increase its share of the existing market.
  
• The residential sector is a critical part of the masonry industry and BAC must expand its portfolio of project types to include more of this important sector.
  
• All Locals face increased challenges from competing unions and non-union contractors.

With minor modifications, the Council approved the draft recommendations. The final report will be delivered at the next Executive Council meeting and then brought to BAC’s Convention in 2005.

“But that doesn’t mean between now and the Convention we’re going to sit back, miss opportunities to grow, and do nothing,” BAC Secretary-Treasurer James Boland told the Council. “We’re going to take what we’ve learned and begin to put it to work for us and every Local must do the same.”