ORGANIZING OUR INDUSTRY BY JORGE RIVERA

The Organizing Department has been focusing on bringing new members and finding the right companies to become signatories. We have started some new campaigns on company organizing, and getting new organizers involved in strategizing for a campaign. We are targeting multiple painting, taping, and glazing companies. Jay Kinslow is helping with research and coordinating analysis and Action Plans as we support each other to get this off the ground. We are working as a team on all campaigns, with a single message from everyone. We had recent successes with a few companies using some of the organizing tools and now we are looking for additional work opportunities for them. The Organizing Department is committed to filling the needs of our signatory contractors for new qualified Journeymen within all our construction crafts and offering more work opportunities to our current members. While visiting open shop job sites we continue to stay engaged with open shop workers to offer work opportunities, especially for the wave of the residential market. We are also focused on building relationships with General Contractors, compliance, and enforcement with the Department of Labor, Attorneys General, and the Foundation for Fair Contracting. Whether it’s a public or private job, inclusion is a focus not only in the workforce but on companies that are WBE/MBE Certified. Along with our organizing efforts we have been able to start to create an opportunity for partnership with the Department of Education of New Hampshire to develop a pre-apprenticeship pipeline from high school graduating students interested in joining the trades programs.

Together with the Political Director, we have been getting involved with some political figures in key cities such as Worcester and Framingham. Both cities will have a big construction boom and we need to capitalize early with their support to try to secure upcoming work. We have also reached out to and successfully brought New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan to visit our training facility in Brentwood so she can understand the training involved with our apprentices. We have also been working together on the Wage Theft bill because it is a big part in organizing and job awards. The more cases we win, the closer we bring in the bid results to level the playing field and open the market for work opportunities. This includes the certified payrolls and private misclassification cases we are currently working on. The relationship built with the Massachusetts Attorney General has helped us focus on companies that threaten our bidding power by not following all the rules. The AG has also helped us with Wage and Hour training and future training around Labor Trafficking.

We continue to engage with pre-apprenticeship programs and pipelines for our young generation. We are working together with the FTI to incorporate our efforts to drive training of AGMT workforce along with getting more glazing companies to become NACC certified; this is another certification that will separate us from the open shop competition. Together with all departments, we will be looking to kick off a glazing forum highlighting the importance of the NACC certification which will benefit our certified contractors when bidding against an open shop. A&A Window recently benefited from a bid protest surrounding this very same certification where the Attorney General ruled in our favor and A&A Window was awarded the job.

The organizing department is busy highlighting and pressuring some jobs that have not gone in our direction, so we have informational lines on Davis Companies and Digney York and the Marriott. This Marriott Campaign is going to be a battle, as it was in the past, but the organizing department is yet again ready for the fight. Together with the Greater Boston Labor Council and all other unions, we came together on Labor Day and celebrated with a rally highlighting the injustice of Marriott and its owner, Host Hotels & Resorts, not hiring back some members from the hotel union (Unite HERE Local 26) after pandemic layoffs, and for hiring out-of-state contractors to perform their hotel renovations. Union engagement, community involvement and support are a big part of our organizing strategy. We’re staying involved and creating new partnerships with groups to help us informationally and keeping a unified message across our areas. There were many politicians supporting our campaign, including all the front-running Boston Mayoral candidates. The fight for fair working conditions and local work opportunities will continue and we will be at the forefront.

Working in the West:

The University of Massachusetts Building Authority is still working at the VA hospital. S-Cel-O Paint was awarded one of the tenant fitouts. Along with the VA hospital, UMassBuilding Authority is building the NERB Project which is still bidding out for our trades. There is a lot of residential work coming out of Worcester that has piped from the WooSox ballpark. We are currently working with the city and the developer Madison to get the GC to follow compliance requirements set by the city on these projects. There is a lot of work that seems to be coming soon and we are having conversations with developers and many general contractors looking to work in the city of Worcester. As we try to grow a presence in the west, our union participation is key to getting the message out to the public and our political allies. Worcester is becoming louder as we continue to hold more informational lines against unscrupulous contractors and the public is getting our message and supporting the union message.

Worcester and Springfield have some public work that we need to keep an eye out for: Holyoke Soldiers Home and the Elm Street Project, which is under a PLA. The Holyoke Soldiers Home was a fight that no one was giving up on. It was the right call to install PLA language for this type of work. Even though it was vetoed by the Baker administration, the Building Trades went to work along with State Senator and union member Paul Feeney to make sure that it was included in the bill, which now will not only secure the Soldiers Home in Holyoke but also any other VA Hospitals in Massachusetts in need of renovations.