THE SHIFT

Labor-management partners lead transformation during difficult times

By / Sheralyn Belyeu

The COVID-19 pandemic thrusted the world into an economic and social maelstrom, disrupting even the most basic organizational practices. In normal times, professionals succeed by focusing on a few central priorities, but today’s leaders must cope with constantly shifting health and market forces. Every day, they face unprecedented problems that are simultaneously urgent and important. Seasoned leaders flourish in the chaos by transforming the industry as they go.

Put the Industry First

Focusing on the overall industry transforms negotiations for Local 36 and SMACNA-St. Louis. “When an issue comes before the Labor Committee, we talk it out, agree upon a solution, and then we vote on it,” says Butch Welsch, Labor Committee chairperson for SMACNA-St. Louis. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a vote that was other than six to nothing. Basically, we work it out first, and then we vote.”

Local 36 Business Manager Ray D. Reasons III, knows that Welsch puts the industry first. “I trust Butch,” Reasons says. “And I think he can trust me. When I have an issue come up, I know how it will affect my workforce, but I always think about how it will affect the contractors. I don’t want to do something that’s going to make it hard for them to bid work, because if they’re not getting the jobs, who are they employing?”

When early pandemic shutdowns threatened benefits in Cleveland, Local 33 and SMACNA Cleveland took the same big picture approach. “Imagine if a SMART member was out of work and didn’t qualify for health coverage during the pandemic,” says John Sindyla, chapter executive of SMACNA Cleveland. “We had an emergency Friday afternoon call with our trustees and changed the benefit requirements to make sure that every member in our district was taken care of.”

Timothy Miller, business manager for Local 33 in Cleveland, agrees. “When we walk out of a room, it’s not about what’s best for the contractors or what’s best for the union,” he says. “It’s about what’s best for the industry.”

Start Small

Huge changes are necessary to survive a crisis, but changes that are too abrupt will founder. Welsch urges leaders to start with small adjustments and build up. “We have quarterly meetings between the SMACNA-St. Louis Labor Committee, and Local 36,” he says. “We get the little stuff out of the way, so when we sit down to talk about the contract, we don’t spend months going over things that should have been taken care of already.”

Starting with small, fast changes brought massive payoffs for the sheet metal industry in San Diego. When shutdowns started, the first priority was to keep working. “We took baby steps,” says Linda Baxter-Jennings, SMACNA San Diego executive vice president. “First, we needed a memorandum of understanding, then each worker needed a piece of paper saying they were essential in case they were stopped by the police.”

The baby steps evolved into weekly meetings with the electrical contractors and the general contractors. “We put safety guidelines in place for the city of San Diego, the county of San Diego, and the state of California,” Baxter-Jennings says. With wide cooperation, they were able to maintain a local building boom. “Last year, we had the most workhours that we’ve had since 1978. In 2018, we had 1.2 million workhours, but it was 1,323,277 hours in 2020.”

Keep Building Relationships

Local 33 built a partnership with SMACNA Cleveland using the same incremental approach. “Many things that we’ve done seemed small at the time, but if you add all those things together, look at the relationship we’ve created,” Miller says.

“When we did our first collective bargaining agreement with Mike Coleman,” remembers John Sindyla, chapter executive for SMACNA Cleveland, “Local 33 offered to streamline travel pay.”

Under the old system, if three different people calculated travel pay, they would all come up with a different number.

“Mike offered to average it out,” Miller says. “We got a bigger wage increase and did away with zone pay inside the county. Now our members get the money whether they’re traveling or not.”

“Imagine the administrative burden that decision relieved,” Sindyla adds. “Giving SMART members a raise made life easier for everyone. And once we knew Mike was willing to help contractors be profitable, that opened up the floodgates to more great ideas.”

Strong collaboration multiplies Local 33’s political influence. A few years ago, the Republican president of the Ohio State Senate attended a joint SMART-SMACNA event at the Cleveland JATC. “He believed that labor and management disagree on everything, but we showed him how we work together,” Miller says. “If you look at the state of Ohio, all around us is ‘right-to-work,’ and prevailing wage has been taken away. We’ve been able to keep those two items. That Ohio state official later said that sheet metal workers are one reason Ohio is the way it is when it comes to prevailing wage and right-to-work.”

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

In chaotic times, decision makers need current information so they can respond quickly. Industry leaders agree that clear, prompt communication is vital. “We may go a day or two without talking, but we’re texting,” says Dave R Gauthier, business manager at Local 206 in San Diego. “Local 206 isn’t about me. It’s about the member who is going to get laid off this Friday. If I’ve got an open relationship with our contractors, then I can call them and say somebody really good just hit the books.”

That open relationship let Gauthier and Baxter-Jennings throw together an experimental sheet metal industry career fair this summer. “We invited a dozen of the biggest and best mechanical contractors to recruit in the parking lot of our JATC,” Gauthier says. “It was a giant open house of our apprenticeship program. About 200 people came through, and 40 people applied to our apprenticeship.”

Take Some Stress Off

Making high-stakes decisions for hundreds of people is demanding under the best of circumstances, and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic piles on complications. “If we forget that we’re all people who have kids and families, it makes everything else hard,” Gauthier says. “I know who Linda is, who her kids are, and vice versa. Keeping a sense of humor and seeing each other as actual human beings is essential.”

Gauthier and Local 206 invited SMACNA San Diego to support their toy drive for Angels Family Foster Network.

“I have a $1,500 check right here that we’re going to give to Angels for Christmas,” Baxter-Jennings says. “The Local buys toys and clothes at Target. It feels good, and the contractors are starting to participate more physically by going with us to Target or to Angels to drop everything off.”

SMACNA Cleveland and Local 33 relax together by supporting ASHRAE golf fundraisers with LMCC funds. “You learn a lot about someone when you’re playing golf, just riding the cart together,” says Sindyla. “That’s how I got to know the business agents, by playing golf and just talking about life and our kids and our families. I know we have business relationships, but we are also friends. We talk all the time.” ▪

A Colorado native, Sheralyn Belyeu lives and writes deep in the woods of Alabama. When she’s not writing, she grows organic blueberries and collects misspellings of her name.