Advancing a CBA with an Impotent Business Plan –

Here is a list outlining what a modern Building Trades union is confronted with and under-prepared in dealing with.

The Building Trades solution continues to be using a well-worn failed Value business model in the face of continued loss and substantial market losses.

In the upcoming weeks and months Labor Rising will outline solutions which reverses these losses, and this outline is taught in our core Foundations training.

1. Lack of training building a market model. ALL current unions use a subjective and passive model for development of market
2. Lack of building a Compression Zone and working from strengths which go far beyond safety & training
3. Inability to Power Map and have a written strategy from which to work from to win, the make it up and react to the market as it happens is a big reason for failing to advance market share
4. Cultural paralysis and inability to change dramatically in how the leadership reacts to continued and on-going market share losses
5. CURT and other major construction using groups using our own strategy of collaboration against the Building Trades
6. Current market development emphasizes competing on price
7. 88% of ALL work in the US is done anti/non/union
8. No working knowledge and inner working of the NLRB
9. No working knowledge of how Recognition limits market development
10. How Secondary laws limit any effective attacks on high value targets, no knowledge of this
11. Lack of understanding of basic business math, Ex. – the BT are 40% more productive and the union labor cost component of a bid is generally in excess of 90% plus vs the non-union
12. Federal & state anti-worker legislation – 25 RTW states and counting
13. PLA’s banned in 21 states and counting – 9 states allow for use of PLA’S
14. PLA’s thought of as a win for the BT, anything that replaces a CBA is erosion of labor power
15. Inner circle of anti-union lawyers and consultants at management’s disposal
16. Anti-union sentiment prevalent in the US – with only talk as a rebuttal used in the US
17. Temp agencies building capacity and offices in all markets to staff BT work
18. Labor Trafficking, slave labor is up year over year and is a prime way to find workers, these companies have to have a market that uses their services to exist
19. Several national recruitment firms growing at the expense of the BT. Transferring union workers to the non-union. Under-employed and traveling union workers’ top the list for recruitment
20. Complete lack of training on hiring and mass applications to control hiring of non/anti-union
21. Concessionary bargaining is now a factor which plays into recruitment
22. Declining hours of total work put in place, with near record construction spending
23. Modularization and technology in today’s construction delivery
24. Inability to read the various types of credit reports
25. Lack of concentrated training on opposition research
26. Underutilization of 21^st century technology for membership communication, political muscle, contractor marketing and applying pressure on anti-union construction players
27. Passive use of social signals and websites in the Building Trades vs aggressive and structured use
28. Lack of knowledge on using the fraud department of the underwriter for workers compensation
29. Lack of using exit interviews of stripped non-union workers to secure info about the non-union contractor
30. Putting the client’s, credit and social footprint of the end-user, construction manager and general contractors into play effectively to change whole markets
31. Labor/management being used against us as a place to gather information and our tactics, to then bid shop and exit the union CBA legally – such as double breasting
32. Overall and continuous decline in market share and density of the Building Trades
33. Aging of membership
34. Cadillac Tax on Health & Welfare Plan
35. Underfunding of our pension plans – approx. 110 plans in the BT are now severely underfunded
36. Declining political muscle and over reliance on politicians to solve our issue

This list is made even more daunting with the endless meetings talking about this list which is killing us. The Labor Rising program specifically addresses these items in an integrated training program.

We have endless time to meet, but not train on how to effectively win! Have to change and not on the margins and/or incrementally.

The true definition of insanity – Building Trades version. If it does not work, quite talking about it and get rid of it!

In Solidarity,

Danny L Caliendo
Organizer
Labor Rising Group