AGC Holds Midwest Regional Meeting with Carpenters and Operating Engineers

AGC held a regional meeting with the National Construction Alliance II (NCAII) on July 13 in Chicago, IL.  About 50 members and staff from various collective bargaining chapters in the Mid-America Region of AGC's Executive Leadership Council attended, along with Operating Engineers General President Vince Giblin, Carpenters General President Doug McCarron, Union Contractors Committee Chairman Jim Clemens, AGC Union Contractors Committee Staff Associate Denise Gold, and NCAII Executive Vice President Ray Poupore. NCAII is a partnership of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and International Union of Operating Engineers.  It is the successor to the NCA, which also included the Laborers, until they dropped out of the alliance last year and rejoined the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.  For more information on the background and activities of NCAII, click here. AGC-NCAII regional meetings are intended to provide AGC chapters with an opportunity to communicate union contractors' local and regional concerns directly to the union leaders and to engage in a dialogue to solve problems together.  The first such meeting was held on May 28 in Philadelphia, PA.  The July 13 meeting covered a number of issues, such as shortcomings of job targeting programs, worker portability restrictions, the need to recruit more women and minority apprentices, handbilling of union construction jobs by industrial unions protesting nonunion materials, jurisdictional disputes, the inability of contractors working on National Maintenance Agreement jobs to attain waivers from restrictions on collective bargaining, and more. Contractors raised serious concerns about the state of multiemployer pension plans (MEPPs) and the viability of the current model for the future.  The economic model of MEPPs is fundamentally flawed and impedes organizing, asserted Harold Force of Force Construction Co.  "It's difficult to sign up a new contractor when he's going to sign onto an undefinable liability," he said.  McCarron and Gold reported on cooperative efforts by AGC, the Carpenters, and the Operating Engineers to seek statutory relief for troubled MEPPs, both in 2006 and at present.  McCarron stated that he favors full funding - a goal of 120% funding, in fact - of current MEPPs but opposes the conversion of defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans.  Giblin agreed.  The general presidents also agreed about the need for pension fund mergers.  Mergers may be difficult, but they provide necessary cost-savings, they said.  McCarron indicated that he is encouraging locals to push for mergers in their next round of collective bargaining negotiations. As in the May 28 meeting, the general presidents expressed interest in directly hearing about local problems in a timely manner.  Contractors should first try to resolve problems with local business agents and managers but, if unsuccessful, should bring the matter to the general presidents' attention, they indicated. The scheduling of the next AGC-NCAII regional meeting is currently underway.  Information will be announced when available. For more information, contact Denise Gold, Associate General Counsel, Labor & Employment Law, at goldd@agc.org or (703) 837-5326.