You might think, with a veteran union leader running City
Hall, that organized labor’s longtime lock on building construction in Boston
would grow even tighter.
Turns out, that is not necessarily the case.
Under Mayor Martin J. Walsh, local developers say, more
projects are being approved that use at least some nonunion labor, especially
housing developments in outlying neighborhoods. While the city says it does not
track the union status of every project it approves, a subset of developments
monitored by the Boston Redevelopment Authority shows the number of new
buildings with some nonunion jobs doubled from 2013 to 2015.
It is a noteworthy shift, but no sea change in a city
with a deep union tradition.
The overall number of open-shop jobs remains small. Of
140 developments the BRA tracked over the past five years, three-fourths of the
projects and 90 percent of the man-hours worked were on full-union jobs. And
the big-money projects downtown are 100 percent union.
What was Mayor Walsh like as a union leader?
The future mayor was in the middle of virtually every
major construction project in the region.
But there are nonetheless more job sites employing at
least some nonunion workers, and for that there may be several reasons,
according to developers, builders, and some union officials. In the current
building boom, there is much more construction work to go around, and
developers are also trying to keep costs in check. Also Walsh is pushing for
more housing that middle-class residents can afford.
And some in the development industry believe there may be
another factor: the specter of a federal investigation into union influence on
city permitting, which may be muting opposition to nonunion work.
“There are a lot of people who are nervous about investigations,”
said John Moriarty, whose construction firm, John Moriarty & Associates,
uses almost entirely union labor. “They’re all afraid of saying that now.”
If more construction jobs do go nonunion, that could put
a dent in building costs in Boston, which are among the highest in the nation.
While wages and benefits are just one slice of a construction budget, they
typically run about 30 percent higher for union workers that nonunion.
Increased opportunities for nonunion workers could also eventually dampen wages
for union construction workers, who make up a sizable chunk of the city’s
blue-collar middle class.
Walsh faces a delicate balancing act: He’s built a career
advocating for union workers, but, as mayor, he’s also pledged to tackle
Boston’s sky-high housing costs.
The Boston Globe reported last week that federal
investigators have subpoenaed several developers and union officials as part of
an investigation into local unions. Walsh himself was heard on a 2012 wiretap
saying a developer would have permitting problems on a Boston high-rise unless
he used union labor on a job in Somerville. This was before Walsh became mayor,
when he headed an umbrella group of building trade unions.
For his part, Walsh has said he never acted improperly
when negotiating jobs for the plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, and other
skilled construction workers he represented at the time. And since becoming
mayor, Walsh has vowed to make the city’s Byzantine permitting process more
open and transparent, without favor to developers or unions.
“No one gets special treatment under my administration,”
Walsh said in a statement last week about the investigation.
Highest-paying metro areas:
Greater Boston had the fifth-highest average wages for
construction workers — union and non-union — last year.
San Francisco: $69,510
Long Island, NY: $66,590
Chicago: $66,340
New York City: $66,040
Boston: $65,980
National Average: $47,580
SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Walsh’s top appointee on development issues, BRA director
Brian Golden, said the union status of a project plays no consideration in the
agency’s decisions. If there are more open-shop jobs, Golden said, that may be
a function of a building boom that’s keeping unions busy enough they’re willing
to let smaller jobs slide.
And while the BRA does weigh input from the community —
including from organized labor — Golden said union voices get no more weight
than anyone else.
“Labor has a seat at the table just like any other
constituency,” he said. “Projects rise and fall on their merits.”
Unions remain an important player at City Hall. The BRA
and Zoning Board of Appeal, which must approve most large building projects in
the city, each have seats set aside for representatives of labor unions. Union
members also often speak out at neighborhood meetings held to review projects.
But a number of developers interviewed said the tone in
City Hall has indeed shifted and credited Walsh and his appointees at the BRA.
“I think it’s better now than it has ever been,” said
Carl Valeri, chief operating officer at The Hamilton Co., a landlord and
developer which uses union and nonunion labor on its building projects. “They
want to do the right thing, and they’re trying to make it as transparent as
possible.”
There are large apartment buildings underway in Jamaica
Plain, East Boston, and Charlestown using a mix of union and nonunion, or
“open-shop,” workforces, according to BRA data. Developers of several projects
in Allston and Brighton are also considering open-shop construction.
Moriarty said there is a growing realization that
building in Boston is so expensive that something needs to give. And in some
cases, he added, what gives is a bit of union labor.
“It’s so hard to [finance] a project unless you can pay
the right price for land and construction,” Moriarty said. “People who in the
past were thinking everything had to be all-union in the city of Boston are
coming to realize it can work another way.”
In Jamaica Plain, Metric Corp. is using a mixed workforce
for a 289-unit apartment building near Forest Hills. Geoffrey Caraboolad, the
company’s president, said Walsh understands the economics of housing. The mayor
set an ambitious goal of 53,000 new housing units in Boston by 2030, and
Caraboolad said Walsh has been willing to be flexible about the use of some
nonunion labor to achieve his goal.
“He’s open-minded,” Caraboolad said. “He wants to get it
done. He wants working-class people in this city.”
To be sure, some in the construction industry aren’t
holding out hope for a wholesale change in City Hall.
“Marty Walsh is Mr. Union,” said Jason Kauppi, spokesman
for the Merit Construction Alliance, which represents nonunion builders. “I
don’t think he has really changed his stripes.”
For their part, union leaders said they are willing to be
flexible, too. The New England Regional Council of Carpenters has long offered
a lower wage rate on apartment buildings, to compete with nonunion shops. The
umbrella group for most construction unions, the Building Trades Council,
recently launched a similar rate structure, though it has not yet signed any
deals.
Mark Erlich, who heads up the Carpenters Council, said
wages are not what’s driving up construction costs. Labor wages are typically
set under multiyear contracts.
And last summer the carpenters ratified a four-year deal
calling for 3 percent annual hikes to wages and benefits combined, increases
far below those for the cost of land and some materials.
“People talk about double-digit increases in construction
costs,” Erlich said. “I don’t know where that money’s going, but it sure isn’t
going to the people doing the work.”
Union leaders are wary of what happened in New York,
where once-mighty building trades unions have watched their share of the city’s
$15 billion residential construction industry shrink in recent years. A
shortage of union labor coming out of the recession opened the door to
open-shop builders in Manhattan, said Robert Barone, who advises developers for
real estate firm CBRE in New York.
Now even longtime union-friendly developers are opening
up their workforces.
“We’ve got nonunion trades building 50-story buildings
here now,” Barone said. Boston’s unions “should learn from what happened in New
York. The New York unions gave it away.”
That doesn’t seem likely in Boston anytime soon.
Erlich said the share of work in Boston going to union
carpenters has remained relatively stable in recent years. If there’s more
open-shop construction going on, he said, it’s because there’s more development
underway around the city.
And whatever the climate might be in City Hall, union
officials note they still have many contractors and developers who prefer to
build with union labor. And they have no plans to back down when it comes to
negotiating work for their members.
“Wherever construction is happening, we’re going to be
there supporting and advocating for good jobs,” said Brian Doherty, head of the
Boston Metropolitan District Building Trades Council.
Metropolitan
Boston Building Trades Council
The umbrella organization represents many unions in the
construction industry.
Teamsters, Local #25: 10,821 members
IBEW Electricians, Local #103; 6,162 members
Operating Engineers, Local #4: 4,750 members
Painters & Allied Trades, District Council 35: 3,574
members
Bricklayers & Allied Crafts Workers, Local #3: 3,486
members
Iron Workers, Local #7: 3,016 members
Pipe Fitters, Local #537: 2,820 members
Sheet Metal Workers, Local #17: 2,538 members
Laborers, Local #22: 2,089 members
Plumbers, Local #12; 1,776 members
Laborers, Local #223: 1,135 members
Building Wreckers, Local #1421: 1,118 members
Laborers, Local #151: 1,109 members
Elevator Constructors, Local #4: 935 members
Sprinkler Fitters, Local #550: 650 members
Roofers, Local #33: 648 members
Heat and Frost Insulators, Local #6: 527 members
Plaster & Cement Masons, Local #534: 418 members
Boilermakers, Local #29: 257 members
Tunnel Workers, Local #88: 202 members
SOURCE: US Department of Labor, most recent membership
numbers filed
Source: The
Boston Globe
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