The Building Trades in the Twenty-First Century Mark Erlich and Jeff Grabelsky
Standing at a Crossroads: The Building Trades in the Twenty-First Century Mark Erlich and Jeff Grabelsky American building trades unions have historically played a critical and stabilizing role in the nation’s construction industry, establishing uniform standards and leveling the competitive playing field. Union members have enjoyed better than average wages and benefits, excellent training opportunities, and decent jobsite conditions. But in the last thirty years the industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. This article describes the decline in union density, the drop in construction wages, the growth of anti-union forces, the changes in labor force demographics, the shift toward construction management, and the emergence of an underground economy. It also analyzes how building trades unions have responded to these changes, identifies structural impediments to union renewal, and proposes strategies for building trades unions to reassert their presence and power. The curved facade of a new US$65 million Salt Lake City public library is made up of 2,000 individual pre-cast concrete panels. Arriving on giant flatbed trucks in a total of 140 separate shipments, the 10-ton loads of panels were driven from Pretesca, a factory outside of Mexico City, to Utah. The library’s general contractor and architectural team had sought bids from pre-cast plants in Phoenix, Denver, and Las Vegas, but, according to project manager Steve Crane, ‘Pretesca’s low-cost labor made up for the higher shipping costs, and they came in cheapest.’ The fact that the substantial trucking costs of a 2,350-mile journey did not eliminate the savings realized by low-waged labor in a Mexican plant is an indication of the gross wage disparity between the two countries.
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