Texas has to grapple with an ever-changing job landscape in ways that its leadership has not previously considered, State Comptroller Susan Combs said in a new report titled Workforce – Capitalizing on our Human Assets. “Before the skills gap gets to a breaking point, it is important that we realize today’s best jobs require ever-increasing levels of specialized knowledge and technical expertise,” Combs said.The retiring comptroller, who opted not to seek reelection, says lawmakers need to tackle several issues including increased funding for adult education programs, multimedia information campaigns to promote industry-based certification, and economic incentives for companies to create apprenticeship programs.In her report, Combs said that “unskilled” jobs are becoming a thing of the past, and the workers of today need to be able to be adaptable to the point that they are lifelong learners.
After successfully pushing for them in Austin, the Workers Defense Project is asking the City of Dallas to adopt an ordinance that would require contractors to give water breaks to construction workers. It sounds like something that everyone should simply agree with but, as is often the case, the details are where the devil may reside.
August 14, 2014
Amid the chaos in Congress and the humanitarian crisis on the Texas-Mexico border, construction executives from the Lone Star State traveled to the White House this past week to urge President Barack Obama to be smart about any executive action he might take to address longstanding challenges in immigration policy.Their message to top administration officials was that it would be preferable for Congress to pass legislation on the issue. But in the absence of that – and seeing no evidence that the US House will act – the Republican businessmen from Texas would be okay with an executive order from the Democratic president allowing for millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States as long as they can pass a background check, are identified, and taxed. As envisioned, this would amount to an expansion of the president’s controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. That executive action, as you may be aware, puts deportations on hold for two years for young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Those waivers are renewable.Houston construction executives Stan Marek and Gregg Reyes, along with immigration attorney Beto Cardenas, met late Friday with Obama senior advisers Cecilia Munoz and Valerie Jarrett to talk about what might happen next as the administration grapples with immigration policy.
August 05, 2014
As we've written numerous times, a primary way to deter cheating in the labor market in construction is for the hammer to be dropped on companies that don't follow the law. All too often, ethical contractors that properly classify their workers as employees are bidding against companies that can offer customers a lower price because they're paying people as “independent contractors” or, in an interesting twist, as “member/owners.” This misclassification gives cheaters a competitive advantage that they should be punished for, plain and simple.That was the case with an Arizona company that was on the hook earlier this year for $600,000. The National Roofing Contractors Association reported the case on the group's website:
July 29, 2014
he labor shortage in construction is no myth. Here in Texas, amidst the immigration debate, we’ve heard from business leaders who tell us that it now takes about four weeks in Houston to frame up a house and homes built in Dallas take about six months to complete. Over at Business Insider, reporter Mamta Badkar reminds us that America-born construction workers are simply vanishing: “The reasons are varied. Many of these unemployed construction workers went to other sectors like manufacturing. Many found themselves moving to the oil and gas states where the energy industry has been booming. At least some have just left the labor force."
July 24, 2014
Even though the humanitarian crisis along the border has complicated the issue and certain political setbacks have caused pundits to proclaim that immigration reform is dead, business leaders at the state and national levels are pushing as hard as ever for comprehensive reform.Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Sheldon Adelson – three men who could not be more different in their politics – contributed an op-ed article to the New York Times last week stating that time for reforming the system is long past due. The trio argued that it is ridiculous for Washington to grind to a halt simply because one member of congress lost a Republican primary election and the reason for it may have been that lawmaker's support for comprehensive immigration reform:“The three of us vary in our politics and would differ also in our preferences about the details of an immigration reform bill. But we could without doubt come together to draft a bill acceptable to each of us. We hope that fact holds a lesson: You don’t have to agree on everything in order to cooperate on matters about which you are reasonably close to agreement. It’s time that this brand of thinking finds its way to Washington.
July 18, 2014
The Austin School Board recently voted to adopt Davis-Bacon federal wage rates on construction of facilities under the district's new $490 million bond package. While some have hailed this as a historic step, it is seen by many as merely a short-term fix for attracting workers into the skilled trades. In short: more needs to be done.After a hot debate, the board narrowly voted 5 to 4 to adopt Davis-Bacon wage rates. The crowd in the board room erupted into applause. It's good news for some, but not for all. As public radio in Austin pointed out, pay will go up for those in trades like electricians and security technicians, but others like general laborers will actually see their wages go down to the point where they will be earning less than $8 an hour.Trustee Cheryl Bradley joined with three others in voting against Davis-Bacon wage rates, arguing that it made no sense. “You’re not going to be buying food for your family on $7.75 an hour,” Bradley said. “You’re not going to be paying rent. You will be on government subsidy.”
July 09, 2014
The Construction Citizen team has been tracking the progress of worker misclassification laws across the country, including the newly minted crackdown in Tennessee. Elizabeth McPherson wrote about that when it was first passed last year. Now we get word out of Nashville that a drywall contractor based in Music City has agreed to pay more than $300,000 in penalties for understating his payroll and misclassifying workers to avoid paying the required taxes and workers compensation insurance.
July 03, 2014
The injury rate on construction sites in Texas over the last decade has fallen 50 percent, according to numbers released this week from the Associated General Contractors. “While construction activity is on the rise in Texas, injury and fatality rates are on the decline,” said Austin AGC President Phil Thoden. “That's good news for Texas workers, and is concrete evidence that construction companies here take jobsite safety very seriously,” Thoden said.AGC Houston President Jerry Nevlud agreed but took it one step further. “We are always very happy to see safety numbers trending in the right direction, but our members’ commitment to safety is not so much on the movement of rates, but simply that every individual on a job site goes home safely each day to his or her family,” Nevlud said.Many AGC companies in Texas further demonstrated their commitment to workplace safety this past week by participating in the National Safety Stand-Down on Fall Protection organized by the federal Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA). Our industry insider Jim Kollaer reported on that earlier.
June 12, 2014
This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to members of the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees about the Construction Career Collaborative (C3). As a journalist who's covered the program’s development in Houston, I felt the board should at least know about it as they consider how to improve the lives of the workers on AISD construction projects.
June 04, 2014
