PARTNERS IN ACTION

SMACNA San Diego and Local 206 build their partnership through charity work

By Deb Draper

The sheet metal industry carries a proud legacy of commitment to building strong communities that goes beyond physical structures and systems. This responsibility was demonstrated again this year when Local 206 and SMACNA of San Diego teamed up to support Angel’s Foster Family Network–a non-profit organization dedicated to creating safe, stable, loving homes for infants and toddlers in foster care throughout the county of San Diego in California.

Local 206 Business Manager Dave Gauthier says, “We’ve been doing this as a Local for six years now, raising money to purchase toys, clothes, diapers, and gift cards to add a little holiday cheer to those kiddos and the families who have stepped up to save those young lives. This year, SMACNA stepped in and matched what we raised, and through the Strive to Succeed Challenge we also received $2,000 from Partners in Progress.”

Executive Vice President of SMACNA of San Diego, Linda Baxter-Jennings, explains how this partnership with Local 206 came into being. “At the end of last year, my Board sat down and created some goals for 2020, and the biggest was to achieve a better relationship between our contractors and Local 206.”

“It’s a lot easier to sit across the negotiation table when you know you’ve walked through a store together buying toys for kids,” says Local 206 Business Manager Dave Gauthier.

Meanwhile, Partners in Progress had made available the Strive to Succeed Challenge, a program designed to build collaborative labor-management relationships with financial incentives towards strengthening mutually beneficial partnerships. (See the September 2020 issue of Partners in Progress at issuu.com/partnersinprogress/docs/pinp_sep2020_ final for more on Strive to Succeed.)

“I got in touch with Dave at Local 206 and asked if we could formally support their charities and also apply to complete the Strive to Succeed Challenge,” Baxter-Jennings says. “I suggested we would do the paperwork, and if we finished and got the money, we would put that money towards their charity at the end of the year—not to take the place of the contractors who were participating as well, but to have Partners in Progress write the cheque directly to the Angels Foster Family Network.”

“I’m new as a manager, having been in this seat only since July 1, so Linda handled the application to the Challenge,” Gauthier says. “She’s been a good ‘Partner in Progress’ the whole way. As a result, this was our biggest year yet. We contributed over $7,000 as a team!”

On Giving Tuesday, December 1, SMART and SMACNA members went out shopping together, filling baskets with hundreds of dollars worth of gifts and delivering them in person to the Angels office.

“It’s such a wonderful feeling,” Baxter-Jennings says. “Everyone goes—contractors and union members. When you join together to give to such a deserving charity, you can’t help but feel good about the people you’re working with.”

Gauthier agrees. “It’s a lot easier to sit across the negotiation table when you know you’ve walked through a store together buying toys for kids,” he says. “We are then coming from a base of knowing things about each other, about our families, about our goals. It makes it a lot easier to deal with one another rather than just being a cold business relationship.” ▪

From her desk in Calgary, Alberta, Deb Smith writes for trade and business publications across North America, specializing in profiles and stories within the hospitality, food service, mining, recreation, and construction industries. When not writing, she’s likely traveling, gardening, or taking long walks with her big white dog.