Taking Action for Working Families

On April 18th, 3,000 building trades union representatives met in Washington, D.C. for the Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD) annual three-day Legislative Conference.

Urging his audience, including about 40 BAC representatives, to “stand up and be heard” by advancing the priorities of working families with members of Congress, BCTD President Edward Sullivan acknowledged the challenging political climate that unions and their members face on a daily basis. “There has never been a time in the history of the labor movement when it was more imperative for all of us to be united in pursuit of common goals,” he said.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) with representatives of BAC Locals from Illinois at the BCTD Legislative Conference. From left, Robert Fital, Luciano Padilla, Mike Lowery, and Don Newton of 21 IL, Sue Newton, Steve Nelms of DC 1 IL; Obama, Tim Aikens of 56 IL, Ralph Affrunti of 67 IL, Pete Culver of 27 IL, BAC Craft Director-Finishers Paul Nagel, Jeff Bloom of DC 1 IL, Bill Meyer and Ernesto Velasco of 52 IL, Henry Kramer of Local 74 IL, and Mike Erdenberger and Andy Gasca of 21 IL.

BCTD Initiatives Press Onward

Despite challenges on many fronts, Sullivan reported favorably on some of the Department’s new initiatives and the progress of ongoing programs. At the top of the list was the release of its final report on Associated Builders and Contractors’ (ABC) sponsored non-union training programs, which found that ABC programs graduate only 6 percent of trainees, helping prove “what union members have known all along...the ABC programs do not work and only the union programs are supplying real skills training for our industry,” said Sullivan.

After making repeated, but unheeded request s to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for action on the ABC training programs, Sullivan said the BCTD “must conclude that even in the face of concrete facts, the Department of Labor has chosen to please its political friends rather than remedy a broken system,” and expressed hope that an investigation into the DOL’s handling of apprentice programs by the Government Accountability Office, expected to conclude by the end of the year, would finally get the agency’s attention.

Sullivan also outlined important steps forward on several BCTD initiatives:

• Creation of a new standing committee on Women in the Building Trades, to help expand recruitment and retention among women in the trades;

• Continued success and growth of the Helmets to Hardhats program, now in its third year, which links returning veterans with jobs in construction, and its increased national recognition; and

• Expanded dialogue with contractors and corporate owners under the Construction Users Round Table, which has resulted in the implementation of joint recommendations aimed at reducing work stoppages, curbing absenteeism, and use of overtime on several soon-to-be-named pilot projects.

Priorities in Congress

Former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards greets BAC President John J. Flynn at the Building Trades conference recently where Edwards was enthusiastically received by the 3,000-member audience.

Conference attendees spent a full afternoon on Capitol Hill lobbying their respective members of Congress on these legislative priorities:

• Passage of legislation to provide fair and adequate compensation for workers exposed to asbestos;

• Preservation of Davis-Bacon Act federal prevailing wage protection on federally funded construction projects;

• Reauthorization of the federal highway and transportation appropriations program, which will translate into thousands of building trades jobs;

• Give greater leeway for multiemployer pension plans to adjust to massive fluctuations in the stock market, and provide curbs on rising health care costs;

• Responsible reform and funding proposals to strengthen Social Security; and

• Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would require the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union when a majority of workers have signed authorization cards designating the union as their bargaining representative.