While attending the Kennedy King Gala in Tampa, Florida, on Aug. 20, SSMRC staff networked with local and state elected officials and candidates to discuss ways to improve labor standards and to learn about upcoming projects that could provide work opportunities for our members.
Harris County, Texas, Commissioner Adrian Garcia visited the Houston training center Aug. 10. He toured the facility, met with apprentices, and discussed with SSMRC staff issues that are affecting union millwrights.
SSMRC and UBC Southern District staff are helping to relaunch the Arkansas Labor Caucus. At a July 13 meeting, members of several labor unions met to elect officers, approve bylaws, and make a plan for recruiting members.
SSMRC and Central South Carpenters staff met with new U.S. Labor Department investigators in Oklahoma July 13 to explain millwright and carpenter jurisdictions (the types of work each craft performs) so the investigators can better ensure prevailing wages and benefits are paid to workers on federal projects.
SSMRC and Central South Carpenters staff met with Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Joy Hofmeister July 18 to discuss issues, including worker misclassification, that affect union members and the law-abiding contractors who employ them.
In the next year, $1 billion in airport-terminal-improvement projects will begin at 85 airports across the country. Funding for the projects comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and represents the first year of a five-year program to invest $5 billion in terminals.
For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. Labor Department is proposing comprehensive updates to the Davis-Bacon Act. The changes would speed up prevailing wage updates, improve efficiency, and ensure prevailing-wage rates keep up with actual wages.
Pensions are now secure for millions of union workers workers and retirees who were at risk of losing their benefits, the U.S. Labor Department announced July 6.
Union millwrights from across the South and beyond will be needed to build the largest auto-production complex in Ford Motor Company’s history. Ford announced last year it will build the $5.6 billion project in Stanton, Tennessee.
Q2 Industry Partner E-News: Upcoming opportunities; Training centers open; Recruiting efforts; Government and economic news; and more
The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee has released a study showing that, compared to their non-union peers, union members earn 10.2% higher wages and are 18.3% more likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance.
Employers and employees are invited to U.S. Labor Department online forums about worker misclassification. Employees who are misclassified as independent contractors are deprived of employer-provided health, retirement, and other benefits as well as Social-Security and Family-and-Medical-Leave-Act benefits.
The Western Region of the SSMRC is looking at expanded growth in both the power-generation and conveyor/distribution markets over and above the 2022 spring season growth. Multiple new construction and maintenance outages have been added to our work scope, including several airport expansions.
The first half of 2022 has been very busy. This is a great time to be a millwright as well as a contractor partner of the SSMRC.
The busy spring nuclear outage season presented a few challenges. With 12 turbine outages from February through April and a total call for just over 725 millwrights, we knew it would be a logistics hurdle.
Through our partnerships with contractors, we identify upcoming projects and inform our business partners of bid opportunities for those projects. I’d like to share with you here some information about projects on the horizon.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law May 20 that reduces the time Oklahomans can receive unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 16 weeks beginning in January of next year.
Q2 2022 Civic Action E-News: Governors oppose labor agreements; Staff meet with Labor secretary, VP; Oklahoma cuts unemployment; Georgia passes labor-friendly laws; SSMRC fighting tax fraud; and more
Primaries are happening across the South; make a plan to get out to vote. Voting laws across some of the Southern states have changed. Here’s what you need to know.
Please fill out the form below if you would like to attend the SSMRC Sisters in the Brotherhood meeting that will be held May 31 at 7 p.m. Central time. The deadline to register is May 29 at midnight. At this online Zoom meeting, sisters will be invited to nominate members to hold the following […]