There is an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) court case moving through the legal system that potentially could have major impact on every building site, general contractor and subcontractor in the country. It concerns the “Joint Employer” concept and Discrimination under Title...
This Week's Second Look
Career Development
The construction industry stands alone in its diversity of occupations, crafts and breadth of opportunities for learning and leadership. Career development choices include crafts training, apprenticeships, advanced equipment operations, supervising, information technologies, project management, engineering and general management. Good educational systems should build awareness and prepare students of all ages for selecting among the many options for getting started.
On a sunny morning this spring, I stopped by the Brittmoore Field Office Trailer to visit with Roberto Sanchez, a project manager from Reytec Construction Resources, about a massive reconstruction project that they are working on. The project involves installing 5900 feet of new storm sewer,...
The 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,...
This past week, the Austin Chapter AGC Safety Committee visited with Marco Ramos, who was recently hired to enforce the City of Austin's rest break ordinance for construction workers. Ramos discussed his new compliance role and said he proactively visits sites and also responds to complaints...
Occasionally we take a look out to the horizon to satisfy our curiosity about what might be headed our way and what might be a major disruptor to the construction business as we do it today. We have introduced you to BIM, robots on the job, driverless dump trucks, driverless cars, driverless...
So, you’re a regular reader of Construction Citizen and you’re thinking, “I already have 141 ideas for solving the construction industry’s labor shortage!” Stick with me because not only am I going give you 141 hot-off-the-press ideas that our local leaders recently developed; I’m also going to...
A few weeks ago, Saied Alavi, Director of Operations at Marek Brothers Houston, and I visited an active construction site on the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) campus. The new Jennie Sealy Hospital is scheduled to be completed later this year and open for patients...
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...
The following was originally published in Cornerstone, the quarterly magazine of AGC Houston. Reprinted with permission.In a year when most professional sports fans in Houston have not had much to cheer about, there was a brief shining moment for Astros fans earlier this year. No, I am...
