The Straight Talk On Labo(u)r Unions

Isn’t it kind of weird that labor is spelled labour in the United Kingdom?  I guess this is true for a few other words like organization (organisation) and catalog (catalogue).  But I think it is safe to say that I don’t really care at all which way they are spelled (spelt in the UK) – I get the point either way.

But regardless of the spelling, labor (labour) unions in the construction industry are like the pink elephant in the room that nobody dares to speak of.

*Incidentally, the saying is in fact the “elephant in the room” and not the “800 pound gorilla”. While these sayings are often confused, the 800 pound gorilla refers to a powerful individual or group that will do whatever it pleases while the pink elephant is merely a significant entity that is obviously present.  While construction labor unions can act and have acted as the 800 pound gorilla, in the previous reference they are clearly the pink elephant. *

So why are construction labor unions the pink elephant in the room?  For a few reasons.  One, labor unions in any industry are a political topic with strong feeling on both sides.  Politics, much like religion, are topics that are only broached at settings that are sure to not erupt in uncontrollable violence.  However, I think even a dose of political banter may cross the lunch room table or the water cooler before the topic of construction labor unions arise.  The reason for this is downright fear.

Lets be clear that labor unions are in place to protect, well, labor.  And at the time they were established this was absolutely necessary.  They were formed because management was taking advantage of labor and were not a result of labor ganging up on management. The US labor posters for employers back then were very interesting, it’s worth a little research session for the curious. Also, it is very important to note the origin of labor unions in any discussion of the topic, because I think people very easily forget.

Now, it is my belief that while unions were established for a very good reason, they have now grown to a point where they are no longer serving the purpose for which they were formed and can at times border on counterproductive.  This is evidenced, in my mind, by two incidents that occurred in Philadelphia over the past few years.

Philadelphia has often been called the last real union town.  I moved here from the largely non-union construction market of Colorado and hit the east coast union construction world like a hammer hitting a half embedded nail (very hard).

I was running a small project non-union about 15 miles outside the city when an incident took place in the same area.   It involved members of the local iron workers union beating a non-union contractor with baseball bats over the non-union erection of steel for a Toys R Us.  These are the tactics of fear and intimidation that give unions a bad reputation and sours the work that has been put in to create organizations that work toward better craftsmanship and fair treatment of labor.  I had a few sleepless nights after hearing about this incident that occurred only a few miles from my job.  Dreams of aluminum connecting with with side of my face were not very pleasant.

The other incident took place on the Comcast building which is now the tallest building in Philadelphia.  The Comcast building was designed to have flushless urinals to reduce the impact on water usage.  The union claimed that this was taking millions of dollars right out of the pockets of union plumbers.  Somehow (and I’m not sure exactly how they did this) the union insisted that hundreds of feet of cast iron pipe (yes cast iron, not PVC) be installed in the building.  The pipe was installed and it now sits unused in the Comcast building.

The whole Comcast situation was obviously non-sense and sheds negative light on construction labor unions (i.e. 800 pound gorilla).  So what should we do?  Well, that’s the bazillion dollar question.

I think the first thing is that the unions need to cut out the violence and intimidation along with the non-sense installation of construction work that isn’t even used.  Beyond that, I’m not really sure.  I would suggest that the unions trim the fat and lose the corruption.  This just doesn’t help, and only leads to more anti-union sentiment.

Beyond this, I’m not really sure how to handle it, and from what I gather, nobody else really does either.  Like most large established institutions, there is a lot of old structure that rakes in a ton of money and is tremendously difficult to shake.

If there is any time in the history of history for the construction industry to make strong positive change it is right now.  We’ve been broken down to nearly nothing and establishment and convention didn’t really work too well over the past several years (or really ever).

So you can spell it labour or labor, but if we continue with fear, intimidation, violence, and non-sense, we’re going to be labo(u)ring along a very treacherous road.

I encourage anyone who reads this to sign up for a WordPress account and leave comments, but let’s keep them constructive (no pun intended).  I think it is time that this issue is discussed and an online forum is a great way to do it while perhaps coming closer to improvement.  Your opinions are welcome.  Thanks -JP