Building Trades Counter Non-Union Jobs
Both management and labor in America’s unionized construction industry are trying new tactics and accelerating some old ones as they struggle to slow the growth of the non-union sector of the industry. The effort is helping, but only minimally so far.
Times are relatively hard these days for union construction workers.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers’ purchasing power has weakened badly over the past 10 years. The inflation-adjusted income for all workers dropped a hefty 8.5%.
But the amount of goods and services that construction workers could buy plummeted disastrously, going down 16.1% during the same period--almost twice the decline suffered by the average worker.
The men and the very slowly increasing number of women hired by unionized construction contractors have been hit by a steady erosion in union jobs because of the increasing low-wage, non-union competition.
The low wages earned by non-union workers contributed to the huge drop in the average real wages of all construction workers. But BLS researchers say union construction workers have taken an economic beating almost equal to the industry average.
To help their employers meet the non-union competition, union workers have made substantial concessions in wages and benefits and have streamlined many of their once-rigid work rules.
Also, for more than a decade, management and labor trustees of huge construction industry pension funds have created jobs for unionized craft workers by investing billions of dollars into projects whose developers agree to hire only union workers.
The national AFL-CIO has its own substantial building and housing investment trusts to create union jobs and build what it calls affordable housing.
More recently, several major insurance companies such as Prudential, Aetna and Equitable have set up their own union-only investment departments, offering hope for a substantial expansion of the idea beyond the union pension funds.
These various investments, while substantial, “are still in their infancy and just beginning to really take off as a significant source of both construction money and union jobs,” said Landon Butler, a labor adviser to former President Jimmy Carter who now works on pension fund investments.
But other tactics are being developed to counter the non-union construction trend, two of which have emerged in Southern California. Industry officials say the new approaches are promising and may spread to other communities around the country.
A plan that began last month will mean hundreds of jobs with the city of Los Angeles, and agreement is near to do the same thing with Los Angeles County.
The city council adopted an ordinance that calls for the city to hire all the temporary craft workers it needs through union hiring halls.
In return, the unions agreed that workers will accept pay that is 85% of the regular journeyman wage, plus 100% of union fringe benefits, according to V. C. (Bud) Mathis, head of the Los Angeles County Building Trades Council.
It is a good deal for the city because “it will provide us with instantly available, highly skilled workers at reasonable rates,” said Gordon B. Lawler, a senior staff official with the city.
Until now, it often took the city weeks to find skilled temporary workers and get them through the lengthy civil service procedure so they could go out on a job.
Another innovative plan to increase union jobs is intented primarily to promote work for carpenters in six Southern California counties.
Industry and union leaders recently formed the Carpenters/Contractors Cooperation Committee Inc., which has two primary functions.
It will put on an advertising campaign that will cost upward of $500,000 to tout, among other things, the use of concrete, thereby increasing the number of jobs for carpenters who build the wooden forms needed to hold concrete while it hardens. The labor-management committee will also promote concrete use by conducting seminars for architects, engineers, developers and others.
The committee’s other main function is the use of teams of investigators to check out charges against contractors allegedly violating federal, state or local labor laws such as failing to to pay minimum wages or to obey health and safety regulations.
Government agencies are supposed to enforce those laws, but the agencies are chronically understaffed and often don’t catch violators whose illegal actions make it possible for them to make unfairly low bids on construction jobs.
Have these various tactics, the new and old ones, done much to curb non-union construction? The answer is yes.
There had been a gradual decline in the proportion of union jobs in the industry, beginning in the early 1970s. By 1980, it had dropped to 30.9% of the industry’s work force, well below the peak of over 50%.
The decline continued, although it slowed down, and by 1987, union members made up only 21% of the total. Now the loss seems to have bottomed out, at least for now.
In 1988, unionists made up 21.1% of the total, not much of a gain over 1987, but an indication of some success in the campaign to hold onto union construction jobs.
It would be tragic if union construction workers are forced to continue accepting lower and lower wages and benefits to meet non-union competition.
That would be a lousy goal for this country since we pride ourselves on what once was a steadily rising standard of living for all Americans.
Far better would be more of the still relatively well-paying construction jobs, along with relaxed work rules to increase efficiency. Those more admirable goals can be achieved by a substantial increase in the investment of pension funds and other money in union-only construction. Also needed is more labor-management cooperation committees and more plans to expand the use of union hiring halls, as has been done with the city of Los Angeles.
