Posts tagged construction unions
Dam restoration jobs will be union gigs, Deluzio says
May 6, 2024 // The restoration project is part of President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and will require approximately 28,000 construction jobs. It’s expected to cost $857 million. To comply with a Biden executive order, federally funded projects totaling more than $35 million require project labor agreements, identified as pre-hire collectively bargained agreements negotiated between contractors and construction unions. These agreements establish the terms and conditions of employment. Deluzio’s news release, however, states that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was not initially complying with this order. So the congressman stepped in to coordinate with local unions, the Biden administration and the Army Corps to make sure PLAs were in place for all work on the Montgomery Lock and Dam.
California: Offshore wind terminal to be built primarily with union hands
August 17, 2023 // Two of five commissioners (Aaron Newman and Craig Benson) noted their hesitation in voting due to the concerns of non-union construction workers but ultimately voted in support. Harbor district executive director Larry Oetker noted that this type of agreement is necessary — a recent executive order mandates any construction project over $35 million funded with federal dollars must include a labor agreement. The grant for phase 1 of the project involves the district requesting more than $300 million in federal dollars, according to an email from District Development Director Rob Holmlund. The agreement, which was negotiated largely by Jeff Hunerlach, from the Building and Construction Trades Council of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties and Chris Hannon, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, includes some provisions for non-union workers. It allows for any construction under the amount of $250,000 to be exempted from the agreement, according to a presentation from Oetker, who noted the benefits include no work stoppages in the process of construction. Union members said that labor agreements streamline the project by providing the skilled workers needed and to keep things on budget. Lynette Mullen, who said she was hired about three weeks ago by the Humboldt Builders' Exchange (an association of around 300 businesses in the construction industry) to get to the bottom of the labor agreement, said that the Exchange wants fair and equal opportunity toward the project and have more of a chance to weigh into agreements. She said people are frustrated they're being forced to join a union and pay into the union, adding that the Exchange understands the harbor district needs to do the agreement for federal funding. "This has been the saddest thing I've ever seen," she said. Environmental Protection Information Center, Missing and Murdered Indigenous People,
Ex-New York Building Trades Chief Sentenced in Bribe Scheme
May 25, 2023 // Prosecutors say Cahill took more than $140,000 in cash plus other benefits such as appliances and free labor on a vacation home from an unidentified contractor while he was president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council. Additionally, Cahill introduced the contractor to leaders at plumbers’ and pipefitters’ union Local 638 in New York City, where he had been a business agent, and at Local 200 on Long Island, who also accepted bribes from the contractor, prosecutors say. In exchange, the union leaders would support the contractor’s bids on projects, consider labor agreements that were favorable to the firm and allow it to falsely claim it employed union workers.