Open posting to the Building Trades General Presidents –

Dear General Presidents –

This is the continuing research by Labor Rising of now 523, up from 483 connected union individuals and groups. Major end-users are, among other goals, looking to dramatically reduce union CBA’s and associated costs in order to increase their profits. They are working to strategically capture the skills of a percentage of Building Trades workers sufficient enough to man their jobs and train future non-union workers.

Union leaders and Rank & File should go to CURT’s website @ www.curt.org and familiarize your selves with CLMA, Construction Labor Market Analyzer, as well as other aspects of this site; I’ll leave it to your judgment as to what this document & site means to the future viability of the Building Trades.

Consider the following:

1. Major end users affiliated with  CURT, (Construction Users Round Table) may be compiling multi-year demographical information on our skilled Building Trades workers to include, but not limited to:
   1. Time on the road
   2. Skills, credentials, licenses, training, etc.
   3. Age, background, work history, attendance
   4. Temperament
   5. Flexibility and multi-craft abilities
   6. Union tendencies, i.e., calling Reps, grievances, knowing their rights, etc.
   7. Financial and credit strengths and weaknesses
   8. Many other diverse aspects of employment
2. Major end users, such as CURT affiliated companies, are major contributors and muscle behind increasing anti-union laws and legislation
3. Anti-union consultants and attorneys have been busy training not only anti-union contractors on union avoidance, but also have increasingly focused on union contractors becoming double breasted and/or union free altogether.
4. Community colleges and vocational training facilities programs are the single largest growth component in post-secondary education, with a substantial increase in training of Building Trades skills.  CURT’s purpose has been to “Empower and enhance the effectiveness of Local User Councils throughout North America”.  Local CURT User Councils have a strong level of interest in the skills training of the community colleges as it relates to building trades training.
5. Labor-Management cooperation has afforded CURT, which was formed in 2000; a clear and concise look at the inner philosophy of Building Trades unions, including the personality and habits of individual union leaders – all the way up to senior union leadership.
6. Our research indicates that many union contractors claiming to have “gone out of business due to the economy” are now re-emerging as labor brokers through – out the trades facilitating non-union construction needs.
7. Also non-union recruitment firms are very aggressive in recruiting union membership familiar with operations, field supervision, estimating and leadership positions for non/anti-union construction firms.

With both houses of Congress now in solid Republican hands – look for infrastructure legislation to be passed in the Congress with all types of repeals and attacks on pro-worker legislation.

The President will be in a very difficult position to VETO these much needed infrastructure legislation.

In Solidarity,

Danny L. Caliendo
Organizer
Labor Rising Group