Author: paul

The Tennessee Valley Authority has provided tens of millions of people with consistently good service for eight decades. Its prices are lower than those of many private corporations.  And it has provided good jobs and career training opportunities for generations of working people, including many of your brothers and sisters in SMART.
The TVA does not receive taxpayer dollars and its debt is not taxpayer funded. Further, it has been a model of efficiency and opportunity.
For some reason, President Obama intends to sell off the TVA to the highest bidder.  Tell the President this is unacceptable.

Rapid business growth may be the key to finally unionizing shipbuilding workers in Mobile, Ala., where an Australia-based defense contractor has successfully fought union organizing for more than a decade.
That’s the estimation of Ron Ault, President of the AFL-CIO’S Metal Trades Department (MTD), an umbrella group for unions representing boilermakers, machinists, pipefitters, and other skilled shipbuilding workers from around the country. “There is a boom in Gulf Coast shipyards now,” Ault says, and high demand for skilled workers may give unions a foothold. Gulf shipyards are recruiting workers from all parts of the country, including heavily unionized areas, and the presence of this whole new generation of workers is a real opportunity for labor organizing, according to Ault.  Click here for more of the story from In These Times reporter Bruce Vail.

Darrell Wade, sheet metal shop foreman at Pierce and Associates in Alexandria, Va., has been selected as a recipient of SMOHIT’s 2013 Safety Award, joining previous 2013 winners Kurt Christiansen of Southeastern Wisconsin, Ed Hoganson of St. Louis, Roger Fewkes of San Diego, Local 33 in Cleveland, RHP Mechanical Systems in Reno, Nev., and C&R Mechanical in St. Louis.
Wade used his knowledge and facility to collaborate with SMOHIT and MetaMedia Training International to create e-learning safety training programs and DVDs. “Four High Hazards,” “Stressors in the Workplace” and “Safety Orientation” were created to give workers more information about how to ensure their safety in the workplace.
“Darrell and the crew at Pierce are always willing to help us with whatever we need to get the right shot, whether it’s safely operating a forklift, welding in a confined space or showing proper hoisting and rigging techniques,” SMOHIT Industrial Hygienist Charles Austin said. “MetaMedia Training International has always felt comfortable when calling on Pierce Associates for safety programs developed for SMOHIT.”
 

In 2012, 50 workers at Greenbrier Rail Services in Tucson, AZ filed for a representational election to join the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Local Union No. 359, now the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART).  In response, the company allegedly laid off one third of them, threatened to close its facility, threatened, interrogated and spied on employees while at the same time promising benefits to those who would vote to not unionize.
In a rare move, a US District Judge in Arizona ordered the company yesterday to immediately reinstate its terminated employees, recognize and bargain in good faith with SMART as its employees’ collective bargaining representative, and restore operations at its facility to its original level.
This 10(j) injunction, and bargaining order, is a rare a remedy for egregious unfair labor practices by an employer.  These are only used when a Union has shown they had majority support and that the employer has destroyed the will of its employees with conduct so serious that it prevents a fair election from being held, such as a widely broadcast threat to close a plant or mass firings.
According to Local 359 Business Manager Dion Abril, “This is a great day for our local union as we never gave up on the workers and for the workers who never gave up on forming a union. It proves that there is justice and that workers do have the freedom to form a union of their own choosing without intimidation and threats from unscrupulous employers.”
 
Read the court order here.

As a Union member, you already have some of the best health care coverage on the market, however, your friends and family members may not.  The deadline to apply for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act is fast approaching. They have until March 31^st to apply for a plan through an exchange. Urge them to visit  Healthcare.gov to sign up to get covered.

The Benchmark building information modeling (BIM) training software has become a feather in the cap of unionized sheet metal education. Members can be trained and certified on the system, a three-dimensional collaborative drafting program that allows skilled union workers to design heating and air conditioning systems, and take the technology with them to their contractor for continual on-the-job use. Benchmark contains a number of modules, including detailing, estimation, fabrication, field installation, land-based positioning, project management, administration and fitting input.
With approximately 160 training centers across the country, many in rural areas, workers can’t always make it to one of 39 training centers accredited to train and certify in BIM. Therefore, the International Training Institute for the unionized sheet metal industry (ITI) also offers online training, on-site contractor training for small and large companies and hosts academy classes for large numbers of students at training centers nationwide.
“They see Benchmark and they see savings,” said Ron McGuire, BIM program coordinator for the ITI. “For the big contractors, it’s a great opportunity. It’s also great for a small contractor because they can’t afford to spend $10,000 to $20,000 on software to be competitive on BIM.”
Apollo Mechanical, a $200 million annual contractor in Kennewick, Wash., saw an opportunity with Benchmark to get software, training and support for little monetary investment.
“We’ve always been detailers, but you’re always looking for that product to take it to the next level. Benchmark came along, and it was practical. We could put our union detailers to work. It was economical,” said Michael Daniel, CAD manager at Apollo Mechanical. Although it didn’t cost tangible dollars to have their employees trained, Apollo Mechanical invested 40 hours per employee to take the certification class. “If your department is set up to do BIM and detailing, you’re set up to run the program. But you have to invest in your people.”
As McGuire said, Benchmark software can benefit smaller companies as well. AIRmasters in Springfield, Ill. added a construction division to the 20-year-old heating, cooling, refrigeration and sheet metal company in 2012. The company started its detailing department last summer. Currently, Donny Kerber, HVAC project manager and estimator, is the only employee using Benchmark.
For a smaller company, having Benchmark available to them opens doors. The company can bid on retrofit projects and negotiate work they couldn’t before, as well as complete projects for existing service clients instead of referring customers to other contractors.
“If they have an outdated system and they need a new system, we can do it all in-house now,” Kerber said.
No matter the size of the company, Benchmark helps save time. Three-dimensional BIM software allows draftsmen more control over a project. Additional visibility, as well as the ability to make easier changes to existing designs, allows every detail to be in view as if the designer were standing in front of a finished product. The software allows the trial and error in a project to be reduced to very little, if any.
“Without any software like this, you’re sending a guy into the field to measure everything,” Kerber said. “With this, I have a three-dimensional drawing to work off of. It cuts many steps out of the process. It frees us up to do larger jobs.”
Kerber and Daniel agree Benchmark’s support staff is a great value. No matter the question or problem, the staff is there to guide them.
“A lot of the support staff with Benchmark have come up through the construction industry and know the type of things we go up against,” Daniel said. “In all, you really have to do what makes sense for your business, for your company. Commercial companies want to sell software. They say they’re going to do all these things, but when you get it, it doesn’t do what it said it would. Benchmark delivered on what it said it would. I’ve been doing this too long. I wouldn’t use something that didn’t deliver what it says.”More than 15,000 apprentices are registered at training facilities in the United States and Canada. The ITI is jointly sponsored by SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (formerly the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association) and the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA).

Story provided by Steve Cooper at We Party Patriots
Addressing a crowd already energized from powerful speeches by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, surprise speaker Bill Clinton made clear his position on job-creation and economic growth at the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) National Conference on Monday: “Investment, not financial transactions.”
The 42nd president repeatedly assured the crowd of nearly 2,500 that, “We’ve just begun to scratch the surface,” in terms of investment and infrastructure opportunities in the United States. Clinton, whose appearance was entirely unannounced but made perfect sense given the involvement of both BCTD and AFT in the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), cited painting Harlem roofs white as a bare bones example of energy-efficiency’s ability to create jobs. It put people to work without even beginning to harness the endless possibilities of the sophistocated upgrades and construction practices of the future, Clinton said.
But the undeniable charm of Clinton’s overall message was less technical than it was inspiring and, frankly, fed up. He admitted that the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, but suggested that countless loopholes and a general culture of greed make this fact more or less moot. He hammered offshoring of profits, saying over one trillion dollars are overseas that should be brought home. How this money is returned to U.S. shores, however, is as important to Clinton as whether or not is happens. Again, he stressed the importance of putting this money to work, highlighting infrastructure banks. “It’s the proper way to invest in our economy because it works,” he said behind his now-trademark demi-specs. “These types of investments are a better job growth strategy than financial transactions.”
Clinton derided the current recovery, saying, “We are hiring people at only half the rate of other post-recession recovery periods.” With 100 years of practices since similar economic collapses, Clinton suggested there is no excuse for this rate of change. For the most part, he placed blame on economic policies championed by multi-national corporate interests and misconceptions about the value of a hard day’s work.
This was pitted against labor’s more pro-active efforts, especially workforce development. “Your apprenticeship training is astonishing,” Clinton said, eliciting massive applause. Earlier in the morning, BCTD President Sean McGarvey reminded the construction worker gathering that together their unions, members and partners were investing $1 billion dollars annually in apprenticeship. “The thing I like about the labor movement,” Clinton said, “we want everybody to get rich, we just want them to get rich by putting them to work.”

A video utilizing stop-motion animation by  Evan Orlando, a sheet metal apprentice at Local 16 in Portland, Oregon.  According to John Candioti, Local 16 Business Manager, “the video helps explain layout so much that the School Boards we invite to our Training Center for tours get it when they see the video instead of us trying to explain the process to them.”  Click here or on the image to view the video.