Jim Kollaer's blog

Today was Tax Day for millions of Americans, but not for some in our industry.  The current situation with our broken immigration system and the smuggling of workers into the country across our open borders; the “cash” and underground economy in the construction industry; and those contractors and owners who tolerate and turn a “blind eye” to the misclassification and wage theft happening on the construction sites of their buildings have created a situation where the tension in the industry and in the economy is rising to a boiling point.

This week, thousands of construction workers will be paid as independent contractors and in the process, their bosses will avoid reporting or paying any taxes on their behalf.  They in turn, will pay no federal income taxes.  In a number of cases, those contractors paying cash will even refuse to pay the workers even the monies that they are due, not to mention the taxes that should be withheld, reported and paid.   [node:read-more:link]

I was asked to say a few words about the approach to the Marek Workforce Development session that we noted in several blogs recently.  The session, according to the interviews and feedback that we have received, was on target and productive.  That is exactly the result that I wanted to help them achieve.

I was pleased that they let us tape the session and then blog about it.  Most of the facilitation that I do is confidential since I typically cover the most intimate of company issues like, “How do we make it through the next two years or two weeks?”; “How do we improve our marketing efforts?”; "How do we design a succession plan for the next generation?”; “How do we restructure the company for next year?" or similar subjects.   [node:read-more:link]

Randy Travis, no not the Grammy-winner in country music (whose dad, by the way, ran a construction business), the investigative reporter from Fox 5 in Atlanta, has been doing a series of investigations into the use of illegal workers and subsequent wage theft issue that arise when those workers are not paid.  In the latest episode, he interviewed the owners of Perez Masonry in Atlanta.

The company is owned by two brothers who are both illegal immigrants, yet they just worked on a military project in Atlanta where they were “sub-subs” to a specialty contractor that they now claim has not paid them for their work.  In the video report, Travis asks:

“How could this happen?  After all, under Georgia law, any public contractor has to check [node:read-more:link]

This recent commentary in Bloomberg brings up an interesting point about the role of the Yakuza or Japanese mafia in the reconstruction of the earthquake damaged parts of Japan.  Because of the need for construction to get underway as soon as possible, some think that the Yakuza will take advantage of the situation and become more deeply involved in the construction industry again.  They have been banned from several projects in the country and the government is trying to distance themselves from the crime organizations, but that might be hard to do in the light of the massive destruction caused by the earthquake.

This article brings up a major question in my mind.  We know that there is a history of crime involvement in the construction industry in the US that extends back into the 1800s.  Stories of links between organized crime and the unions is the stuff of novels.

The question that I am wondering about is the involvement of the Mexican cartels in the construction industry in the US today. [node:read-more:link]

In the mid 80s the economy was so bad in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction and Real Estate worlds that we started to give slogans for each year to provide a little levity or, as my Dad used to say, “To laugh to keep from crying.”  In Houston in 1982, we doubled the square footage of available office space in one year.  That left us with lots of “see-through” office buildings that it took the rest of the decade to lease up.  So we started those slogans to keep our spirits up.

The slogans went something like this:

• Shut the door in ’84
• Staying alive in ’85
• Pick up sticks in ’86
• Look to heaven in ’87

Today is St. Patrick’s Day and spring starts officially next week.  Both of those dates are signaling the start of the construction season for 2011.  Sure, there is snow on the ground in parts of the country, but already daylight savings has started in a number of states and the temperatures in the south are in the 70s and 80s.

What are some of the other signs that spring is here?  Besides the big blue jay sitting outside the window and the robins in the yard, several economists in the industry have recently stated that we are in a Design Recovery period in that the design firm indexes are indicating that their business is improving, certainly not to the levels of 2006-07, but improving nonetheless. [node:read-more:link]

We got this one from one of the friends of Construction Citizen, John Hinson in Dallas.

Pennsylvania enacted a misclassification law last month and within a week, officials had begun cracking down on the violators across the state.

Pennsylvania television station WFMZ/69 News quoted John Morganelli, district attorney in Northampton County, as saying "Essentially, this law attempts to level the playing field between businesses that classify their employees properly as employees, and those who are bad actors under the current system.”   [node:read-more:link]

According to ENR (Engineering News-Record - subscription required), a new 3D Model Viewer is rocking the BIM world.

Tekla has released BIMSight, a free 3D viewer for BIM modeling that is making waves in the industry.  According to users, it rivals some of the other retail programs and does an excellent job of clash control, coordination and end-to-end construction coordination in a 3D environment.  Tekla International has headquarters located in Finland and has 14 offices worldwide.   [node:read-more:link]

Judy Schreiner at Engineering News Record (ENR) has, in her latest column in the February 28 issue, talked with author Chuck Underwood about ways that we will have to work with the Millennials who are showing up at your offices looking for work on your construction sites.  Underwood is the author of The Generational Imperative and the founder and principal of The Generational Imperative, Inc.  According to Underwood, the Millennials are people who were born from 1982 through the present.  His comments were focused on the First Wavers who are 18 to 29 years old this year.  According to the statistics there are 40 to 50 million of them and they are likely already working for some of us.

I was interested in the article as it compares the various generational similarities and differences between Gen Xers and the Millennials.

Most interesting to me is Underwood’s comment:   [node:read-more:link]

In Part 3 of the I-Team report, reporter Randy Travis continues his undercover investigation of illegal workers laboring on publicly funded construction projects in the Atlanta area.

“The goal of the Stimulus Bill was to stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work.  A FOX 5 I-Team investigation discovered one local stimulus project is actually making it easy for illegal immigrants to get those jobs.

To get a job in this country, you have to show identification and prove you can legally work.  So why did one company on this stimulus project say to get work there, you don't need any papers at all?”   [node:read-more:link]