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...
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...
April 14, 2011
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
April 03, 2011
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.
March 27, 2011
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...
March 23, 2011
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.
March 17, 2011
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...
March 16, 2011
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...
March 09, 2011
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:
March 07, 2011
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?”
February 25, 2011