A Sustainable Workforce Starts With You

Reshaping the Construction Industry

According to an article in the Insurance Journal Online, advocacy groups and government organizations in Florida are bombarding lawmakers with suggestions for litigation which could curtail a rampant practice by disreputable contractors to defraud the state of workers’ compensation premiums.  This occurs when individuals set up fake subcontracting companies with workers’ compensation certificates and use those fake company names to get paid with checks payable to the non-existent companies.  They then cash the checks at check cashing stores, and pay the actual workers “off the books” with the cash.  The scheme has effectively become the status quo for doing business in some areas, and is estimated to cost the state of Florida millions of dollars in unpaid
Elizabeth McPherson's picture
November 14, 2011
One of our bloggers, Pat Kiley, CEO of Kiley Advisors LLC and former president of the AGC in Houston, attended the recent screening of the Houston 2040 Scenarios presented by the Center for Houston’s Future.Here are his observations and comments.I think all Construction Trade Associations and their members should see this presentation, and simultaneously learn about the Construction Career Collaborative (C3) and the Immigration Reform efforts.Either of the two scenarios, or something in between, creates enormous opportunity and enormous challenge for our industry.  The opportunity is to create the built environment required
Pat Kiley's picture
November 10, 2011
An article in Fuel Fix, an online source for energy business news, features a video from ExxonMobil with artists’ renderings of its future campus, also known as "project delta", which is currently under construction in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston.  In the video, Mike Brown, project executive for the US Real Estate Strategy Study, talks about the design of the campus.  The desire was to create a pleasant place to work which feels like a community, or a college campus with an “urban vibe”, yet also feels close to nature since it is set in a heavily wooded area.  The facility will be a “pedestrian friendly” campus with “opportunities for people to come across each other by foot” as they move between conference rooms, training rooms, office space, a fitness center, a child-care center and dining facilities.  
Elizabeth McPherson's picture
November 09, 2011
Governor Jerry Brown recently signed two new bills into law that will address the misclassification and wage theft issues in a much stronger fashion.  According to an Advisory received by Construction Citizen and issued by the law firm of Epstein, Becker, Green, the two bills are:“SB 459 directly impacts employers that classify workers as independent contractors.”  This bill imposes steep civil penalties ranging from $5,000 – $25,000 per incident with the upper levels reserved for those firms that exhibit a pattern of violations.  Additionally the penalties include the posting on the company’s website of a statement saying that they have been found guilty of a “serious violation of the law”. 
Jim Kollaer's picture
November 08, 2011
In Jim Kollaer’s blog Your Scenario or Mine?, he told you about a gathering hosted by Marek Brothers Houston on October 19 for a presentation and conversation about two alternative scenarios of what Houston may look like by the year 2040.  The 2040 Scenarios are the result of research and analysis by the Center for Houston’s Future.  The purpose of the evening was to use the possible scenarios to start a dialog about the future of a sustainable workforce, particularly for construction.  
Elizabeth McPherson's picture
November 03, 2011
According to an article posted in the DesignBuild section of Australia’s Architecture Source, civic leaders of Mexico City, as part of an effort to “uplift and modernize” the significant buildings of the city, may soon offer a building that “throws the very concept of a skyscraper, on its head.” The article reads:“Architectural team BKNR Arquitectura of Mexico have inverted all the standard architectural rules for skyscrapers, in fact they have inverted the idea of a skyscraper in its entirety. What they hope to uplift [in] the city’s centre is not in fact an overwhelming skyscraper, but a 65 storey earth-scraper. This is a concept that does not even have an associated vocabulary. It is the concept of a world class building that doesn’t deal in height, but depth, a completely revolutionary idea.”City ordinance prohibits buildings taller than 8 floors in the area, which inspired the design team to
Jim Kollaer's picture
November 02, 2011
Last Monday morning on the NBC TODAY show, Jane Pauley of AARP’s Your Life Calling interviewed structural engineer and educator Charlie Thornton, a veteran and advocate of an industry in which he clearly takes enormous pride.Thornton was brought up with tremendous respect for construction by his dad, a bricklayer who taught his trade to Charlie and to other young people from the neighborhood.  Charlie’s dad got other contractors to hire Charlie, and told the contractors to make him work hard so that he would be inspired to go to college.  Charlie ended up earning a bachelor’s degree
Elizabeth McPherson's picture
October 31, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters have set up their makeshift camp in Zuccotti  Park in New York in the shadows of the construction of the new World Trade Center Towers.  We find it interesting that while there is a growing shortage of skilled craftspeople in the USA who could work on building projects like the World Trade Center Towers, there is a growing number of people
Jim Kollaer's picture
October 27, 2011
This week, on the Sunday morning news programs, I heard the first real indication of what is “coming down the pike” (as they say) for the construction industry, the economy and the country’s infrastructure after the presidential election next year.The AGC (Associated General Contractors of America) has noted over and over that the aging infrastructure, the highways, bridges, the underground piping and even the Big Dig are reaching a critical point
Jim Kollaer's picture
October 26, 2011
A favorite quote among training professionals is one from Zig Ziglar, “What’s worse than training your workers and losing them?  Not training them and keeping them.”How appropriate for our industry!  The ManpowerGroup’s 2011 Talent Shortage Survey lists “skilled trades” as one of the top 10 in demand jobs and the most difficult to fill.  You can look back to previous surveys and one of the top 10 occupations listed every year is skilled trades workers.  (See chart below from page 6 of the report.)In addition, construction, manufacturing, retail and technology industries are all competing for the same workforce which makes training no longer up for discussion or debate if we want to stay competitive.  Quite simply, our survival depends upon it.  
Katrina Kersch's picture
October 25, 2011