A meeting between the Carpenters’ Union and SoCal tilt-up contractors is set for March 3rd, to discuss “issues of concern to both labor and management.” Needless to say, there is only one issue of concern, and that is the acute lack of work in general and tilt-up projects in particular for union signatory tilt-up contractors.
Tilt-up work in SoCal is, or rather was, so common that tilt-up contractors have their own agreement with the Carpenters’ Union. Their wage rates for private work have traditionally been set at about 80% of the so-called prevailing wage rate. When times were good this allowed union contractors to be reasonably competitive on private projects and still enjoy the benefits of being with the Union. This reasonable accommodation made it fairly easy for the Union to organize contractors, which, for the most part, they successfully did. Harmony between the Union and contractors reigned for several years. However, that was in the good times.
Today work is scarce and the gap between the union carpenter under the tilt-up agreement and non-union carpenters is pretty big. A union journeyman carpenter under the tilt-up agreement costs $37.95 for wages and benefits, not counting taxes, insurance, and other overhead items. A typical non-union carpenter can today be hired for $20 per hour with no benefits, making a gap of roughly $18 per hour. It is, as the old college professors like to say, intuitively obvious to even a casual observer that this is an unworkable situation for the union contractors.
Last year a $5 per hour wage cut was quickly dismissed by the Carpenters’ union as unsellable to the rank and file. That issue is likely to come up again. Also, last year there was a great deal of vitriol unleashed on the Union for allowing a Dr. Pepper facility to go to a non-union tilt-up contractor without even so much as a picket line being set up. This year there will most likely be even more outrage about a huge 1.8 million square foot facility for Sketchers going non-union.
It promises to be a rather unpleasant meeting. Check back on March 4th to see what happened.
David Prizio has over 35 years experience in the fields of general contracting, concrete subcontracting, and civil engineering. He functioned in the capacity of carpenter at Prizio & Prizio while attending college. After graduating from Cal Poly, Pomona in 1975, David Prizio began working as a project manager at the firm. He was responsible for design coordination, cost estimation, construction coordination and administration of commercial general contracting projects. He consulted with clients regarding design, marketing, and financing of building and construction projects.