More than 100 years ago, New York contractors agreed to only use union labor on job sites. Now, they’ve had enough. If building trade contract talks in New York City do not yield fruit by a June 30 deadline, NYC contractors have revealed via a letter to the Building and Construction Trades Council that they will “terminate the New York Plan for the Resolution of Jurisdictional Disputes” – the first step to formally breaking the business model that has existed since 1903 where all contractors jobs are build with 100 percent building trades members,” explained Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association (BTEA)[1]. Coletti added that the vote was no one that “nobody in the BTEA ever wanted to make,” but that NYC contractors will not be able to survive if they cannot get the unions to make certain changes to “help us and to help them.” Unions have responded that terminating the agreements is not on the table as far as they are concerned.
Analyst Hope Cohen calls the situation “potentially the most serious standoff that we’ve heard about,” adding “Maybe there is going to be a strike. Cohen recently wrote a report on the area’s construction industry, charging that the New York Plan resolution process, which prohibits work stoppages and requires contractors to be fully union, “has resulted in less productive work rules.”
Do you agree with the BTEA that the New York Plan is outdated, or should NYC contractors stick to their agreement?
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[1] http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110602/REAL_ESTATE/110609955
I agree with the BTEA in that the unions must make concessions like every other company & organization is making. There is a depression, not recession, going on now in various parts of the country presently….so that means there is plenty of cheaper labor to be had.
The problems between unions and everyone else are getting more noticable during this time of lower economic activity.
I’m a mortgage loan officer and I have done mortgages for union official in NY and CA. Ya wanna know what goes on there DAILY? One of my clients was the secretary of a local union chapter. He earned great money as a hvy equipment operator AND got TONS of $$$ as a “consultant”. I mean thousands of dollars per “issue” with the builder. His words “if I say we stop, everything stops”. So he got the builder to use him as a “consultant” so “issues” could be cleared up. Nice, huh? Built-in extortion. Nice agreement, contractors!!!
Labor unions have become political action groups and their members need to take them back.
Its truly sad that we as a nation do not get that as a country we are only as strong as our middle class. and that the middle class only exists through the efforts of the union.. history is very clear that we became a powerful nation directly as a result of our union growth… It is fact that greed is too great for corp management to understand the connection between the middle class and the buying of products.. no middle class no sales no corp profit… this balance has been under attack sense reagan sold the country piss for drink and everybody bought into his garbage.. and we have been going downhill ever sense.. when will be wake up.. maybe when we hit bottom.
I think we need to Downsize the Government and use the Money they are spending to Create Jobs, Fix the Housing problem because they can’t do it. (Have tried & Failed more than once)
They are looking in their rear view mirrors to drive down the Freeway, and can’t see what is right in front of them.
There is no Vision in the minds of our leaders, we need to focus on the Solutions not what is wrong, we all now what is wrong. You can’t fix the problem with your mind on the same level as the problem, you need to rise above it and look down on the problem so you have a clear view of what needs to be done to solve it.
Everyone is stuck at the problem because our leaders won’t stop and get a clear view of what needs to be done to solve it, not just sit there and say yes this is the problem.
Throwing money at it is not the Solution, unless it involves Private Investors as part of the tool being used to fix it…