Eager to learn, Heather Pratt dedicates herself to a successful career as a union millwright. When the alarm clock sounds early in the morning, Heather Pratt, a member of Local 1192 starts her workday with an analytical mindset, eager to face the ever-changing challenges that come with working as a millwright.
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.
The Southeastern Carpenters Training Trust Fund hosted a graduation ceremony for eight new journey-level millwrights last month, and swore a new group of members into Local 1263 before hosting an open house of its Savannah Training Center.
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.
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.
George Schwab, a millwright apprentice in Local 2411, has been a member of the SSMRC since June of 2020 after taking advantage of the Helmets to Hardhats program to ease his transition into a construction career after serving in the military.
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.
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.
aluminum-recycling mill in Bay Minette, Alabama, will provide a wealth of opportunities for SSMRC partnering contractors and millwrights to install robotics and other equipment at a 3,000-acre site.
Governors of nine states in the SSMRC’s 11-state jurisdiction have signed a letter opposing an executive order issued in February that requires project labor agreements on large, federally funded construction projects.
Both side and roofing panel installation is going well during construction of the $5 million, 25,000-square-foot training facility in Nashville, Tennessee.
Since he became a union millwright in 1994, Ellis Griffin has worked across all 11 of the council’s states in nearly every industry that the SSMRC serves, and while he mainly sticks to turbine work these days, he takes pride in serving as a mentor to the apprentices working alongside him.
Regional councils and locals that make up the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, our parent organization, participated in more than 200 events and initiatives across the United States and Canada during construction-industry Tax Fraud Days of Action, April 11-16, 2022.