First 15 students complete four-year apprenticeship program in sheet metalOn January 16, fourteen men and one woman were celebrated by their friends, families, instructors, and employers for becoming the first graduates of a four-year apprenticeship program offered by the Houston Area Mechanical...
This Week's Second Look
Reshaping the Industry
Three actions are necessary to build a thriving, profitable and durable construction industry:
- Acceptance. Recognize current situations and challenges and accept they are real.
- Leadership. Embrace core values and principles as innovators and leaders.
- Solutions. Collaborate among owners, contractors and workforce for solutions.
Some lawmakers raised questions this week about whether school districts around Texas have the kind of resources they'll need to fully implement sweeping education reforms signed into law last year. Starting this fall, students will have several new options for which path they'd like to take...
I interviewed Patrick Jankowski, Chief Economist for the Greater Houston Partnership (GHP) after a recent AGC Outlook Breakfast in which Jankowski labeled the current cycle as the “New Normal.” He stated that this cycle is different in that the past cycles have rocketed from Boom to Bust and...
A research report that was published last month by the Foundation of the Wall and Ceiling Industry (FWCI) has industry leaders talking about their workforce development programs. TitledAttracting Young People into Construction Field Positions, the report focuses on the need for employers to...
“It’s a ‘which comes first: the chicken or the egg’ issue.” That is how Pete Dawson, Senior Vice President of Facilities Services for Texas Children’s Hospital, expressed his thoughts as an owner working to advance the principles of the Construction Career Collaborative (C3). The dilemma for...
An unfortunate reality of the industry we cover is that there are many instances of worker abuse. We have documented much of this on Construction Citizen over the years. Terrible working conditions, worker misclassification, lack of health insurance and workers’ compensation insurance, denial...
According to Giles Lamberston in a recent post for Construction Equipment Guide, the recent AGC study on workforce studies points to both a short and long term need for more skilled workers.Lamberston makes a couple of great points that I think are important. He writes, “The larger truth is that...
In Texas political races all over the state, candidates are being grilled about what they think of sweeping education reforms passed by the legislature last year. While there is pretty much universal agreement that the big reductions in standardized testing were a positive step, there is...
We recently attended the signing ceremony for the first alliance between the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and MEMCO, a construction-oriented staffing agency. Why was it important for us to cover that signing?Worker safety is the most critical...
