Organization: MCAA

Timothy G. Wentz, associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, winner of MCAA’s highest honor – the Distinguished Service Award – and a three-time winner of MCAA’s Educator of the Year Award, became the 2016-2017 president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) during its annual conference in St. Louis, MO June 25-29.

He’s been preparing for this leadership role for many years as chairman of ASHRAE’s Members Council and President-Elect Advisory Committee and a member of the Chapter Volunteerism and Engagement Ad Hoc Committee and the Building Performance Alliance Ad Hoc Committee.

During this past year, Wentz has traveled to all corners of the world visiting and speaking to ASHRAE chapters and attending technical conferences.

MCAA is honored that President Wentz will participate in MCAA 2017 in San Diego, CA!

Last week, the Construction Employers of America (CEA), of which MCAA is a member, submitted a list of construction industry policies to the national Democrat and Republican Parties to consider for inclusion in their platforms during their upcoming conventions.

In introducing these proposed policies, CEA explained that it “works to strengthen the construction industry and provide opportunities for top-quality construction workers to learn and maintain the skills they need to deliver highly productive, quality workmanship that provides the best value to project owners while earning high-value compensation and benefits for themselves, their families and their communities.”

The proposed policies would:

• promote sound infrastructure policies;
• modernize retirement plan options;
• prepare the next generation of skilled workers;
• invest in energy efficient buildings;
• enhance manufacturing efficiency;
• support responsible employers through bid listing; and
• close the employee misclassification loophole.

Read the full policy proposals

The Department of Labor (DoL)  issued new rules pertaining to reporting by labor relations consultants and counsel relative to “persuader” activity, which were to take effect on July 1, 2016.

Instead, a federal court issues a national injunction staying the rules for now while further challenges develop.

The Landrum-Griffin law previously required labor relations consultants hired by management to address employees in union organizing campaigns primarily to meet Landrum-Griffin reporting requirements. DoL has broadened those rules to conceivably include legal counsel advice to employer bargaining teams in collective bargaining negotiations, or representation at the bargaining table, beyond consultants’ basic role of addressing employees in an organizing context.

Prior legal challenges to enjoin the rules’ broader coverage of legal advice have failed, but legal challenges on eventual enforcement will continue. The reporting burden falls on the consultant and the association.

Most MCA and UA local agreements and relations are in the context of voluntary recognition construction prehire agreements, so the organizing context of the “persuader” rules are inoperative in the prehire agreement context. Check with your local labor counsel to determine whether this rule change might affect your working relationship with counsel for labor relations or collective bargaining. Click here to download a powerpoint from an Ice Miller webinar on the new requirements.

Close to 200 contractors and association executives attended the 2016 MCAA/QCA National Issues Conference in Washington, DC, last week to get the latest information on critical industry issues and to share their concerns about those issues with their Senate and House members.

During the three-day conference, over 120 visits took place between MCAA and Quality Construction Alliance (QCA) members and Congressional Representatives and Senators.

A long list of House and Senate representatives made this conference a success, briefing attendees on a wide range of issues affecting MCAA and allied association members’ business concerns.

Issues included:

• A new bill to stem payroll fraud stemming from misclassifying employees as independent contractors from lead Representative Tom MacArthur (R-NJ);
• Federal Infrastructure funding measures by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Representative John Delaney (D-MD);
• Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) addressed energy policy legislation; and
• Representative David McKinley (R-WV) described the formation of the new bipartisan Congressional Building Trades Caucus.

The Conference also focused on recent critical regulatory developments. This part of the program consisted of three expert panel discussions which detailed developments on the Administration’s pending regulations to:

• Require registered apprenticeship programs to file annual written affirmative action plans showing apprentice enrollment of women and minorities and the relation of that utilization rate to the availability of women and minorities in the apprenticeship recruitment area;
• Executive Order 13673, requiring prime contractors and subcontractors competing for federal contracts and subcontracts of $500,000 or more to file legal compliance certifications for pre-award responsibility reviews; and
• Executive Order 13706, requiring federal prime contractors and subcontractors to provide one hour of paid sick/family leave for every 30 hours their employees work directly on or related to (20% or more) a covered federal contract or subcontract.

All of the attendees enjoyed remarks from CNN news commentator and analyst Gloria Borger as she discussed the 2016 political scene.

The program concluded with a strong address by Sean McGarvey, president of the North America Building Trades Unions, on:

• The broad scope of NABTU (formerly BCTD) initiatives with owner/labor/management tripartite market councils;
• Workforce development pre-apprentices outreach efforts to incorporate under-served potential workers into the construction industry;
• Initiatives for economically targeted investments by pension plans to earn high return and support union construction; and
• Ways to focus project owner/financing groups on collaborative efforts with the union-sector delivery system.

President McGarvey made very positive remarks on industry pension reform phase 2 efforts.

Pension and health plan benefits experts Cary Franklin and Aruna Vohra from Horizon Actuarial Services and Malcolm Slee and Josh Shapiro from Groom Law Group discussed a broad scope of tough challenges for attendees’ health and pension plans from the perspectives of either contributing employers or plan trustees.

The 2017 MCAA/QCA National Issues Conference will take place May 2-4, 2017, at the Marriott Georgetown Hotel in Washington, DC. So save the date!

Former Congressman George Miller took charge of the pension reform segment of the program at the 2016 National Issues Conference. He led an expert discussion of the alternate/composite plan proposal that MCAA and the Quality Construction Alliance are hoping to see adopted by Congress this year.

Mr. Miller and Randy DeFrehn of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP), along with Preston Rutledge, Senior Tax and Benefits Counsel for the Senate Committee on Finance, explained the many cross-currents on a variety of pension reform issues confronting Congress this year, including the need to shore up funding for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and recent developments affecting other union pension and health plans.

Former Congressman Miller summarized all the pension reform issues, based on his many years as the leading labor Democrat in the House, and encouraged the group to engage positively with Congress on this most essential reform for the industry.

MCAA participants reviewed a letter from the UA and MCAA leadership recently submitted to the Senate Finance Committee supporting composite plan reforms.
Download joint UA-MCAA Letter on Pension Reform