Alabama Institutes Industry Fee for Recruitment Campaign

The Alabama AGC has joined in a coalition with other trade associations, unions, and owner groups to form the Alabama Construction Recruitment Institute (ACRI) and launch a statewide image-recruitment campaign designed to bring field personnel into the non-residential construction industry. The campaign will be financed by a fee of 0.0009 collected on wages ($900 on $1 million in wages) paid to field personnel below the superintendent level – working foremen and craftsmen through common labor, said Bill Caton, Alabama AGC director of workforce development. The law is designed to raise $1.75 million annually for the recruiting program. This recruitment effort is exclusively for the non-residential construction industry; the fee is not applied to construction work on single-family homes. “The AGC board of directors agreed to support this initiative because it understands the long-term labor need and the value of image enhancement-recruitment for our industry,” Caton said. “This program is designed to act as an ‘Army of One’ campaign for our industry. The AGC and others have already financed research and development that will be used to help complete and implement the recruitment campaign.” Dr. Tim Alford, the first director of Gov. Bob Riley’s Alabama Office of Workforce Development, has been hired to lead the ACRI. Additional staff will be put in place to implement the campaign, “ultimately bringing talented people into our industry and guiding them into craft education programs and onto our members’ jobsites,” added Caton. The law limits collection of the fee to four years and requires legislative action to change that. “We are in favor of letting the ACRI run for a couple of years before deciding on any legislative action to change its time limit,” Caton said. AGC expects to provide more information about the recruitment campaign as it develops and launches.