President Joe Biden has been credited with being one of the most pro-union presidents in U.S. history, and many construction industry labor and management sources say Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris would take a similar approach if she wins the november
The vice president “has always been a pro-labor, pro-construction elected official,” says Jim Brewer, director of government affairs for the North American Building Trades Union (NABTU).
Harris cast the tie-breaking votes in Congress for both the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 De-Inflation Act. Each contained important pro-labor provisions, including an estimated infusion of $86 billion fund dollars in the first to sustain the media union struggle. -Floating employer pension funds, and greater tax exemptions and credits for employers under the latter if they pay prevailing wages and employ registered apprentices in clean energy projects.
Harris also chaired a multi-agency White House task force in 2021 to support employee rights across federal projects and programs that made more than 70 recommendations on how the executive branch could use existing authority to advance the workers and unions.
President Biden approved them all in 2022.
At Harris’ rallies and speeches, including accepting the Democratic nomination in August and in the Sept. 10 debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump, he has consistently emphasized his middle-class roots and support to create opportunities for workers, workers and small businesses. , including entrepreneurs. Trump’s campaign has dismissed those promises as nothing more than “crumbs” without substance.
Construction unions and AFL-CIO members have almost all endorsed Harris. However, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters released a statement on September 18 stating that the union would not endorse either candidate in the upcoming election, the first time it has refrained from doing so.
Polls among union members favored Biden before he dropped out, but support for the Democratic ticket among Teamsters has waned since then, with no majority support for Harris and no universal support for Trump among members. But recently, 11 Teamsters locals and joint councils representing more than 1 million workers endorsed her for president.
A seat at the table
While a Kamala Harris/Tim Walz administration would be a boon for unions and their members, some construction industry groups worry that many member companies that choose not to unionize could miss out on opportunities to assess and shape the regulatory policy that affects their companies and workforce. .
“We believe the Trump Administration would be much more interested in welcoming the entire construction industry, whether it has union agreements or not, to rebuild America,” said Ben Brubeck, vice president of Regulatory, Labor and States of Associated Builders and Contractors. , which represents one of the few industry groups that has formally endorsed the former president.
According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 10.7% of construction workers in 2023 were union members and 11.4% were represented by unions, down from 11.7 percent and 12.4 percent, respectively, in 2022. The federal agency’s data also shows that union-represented workers earned nearly $200 more per week than non-union workers in 2023.
ABC and other industry groups have tried to litigate the regulation, which they see as harmful to their members. One is a Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council rule finalized in 2023 that requires prime contractors and subcontractors working on federal projects valued at $35 million or more to sign a project labor agreement. ABC and one of its chapters filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, and is awaiting a decision on the case.
Focused on training
Unions expect Trump to roll back many pro-labor executive orders and regulations on prevailing wages, misclassification of independent contractors and other protections enacted during Biden’s tenure and could try to revive a program to expand registered apprenticeships to include other programs of workforce development training. NABTU brewer says. “We are very concerned that this would be a reality if he were re-elected,” he says.
Industry groups support a wider network for different types of apprenticeship programs. “Anytime an administration is supporting and encouraging people to pursue careers in construction is a good thing, but we shouldn’t limit the size of the funnel to get people in, and we should appreciate that there are multiple roads for construction,” he says. Brian Turmail, vice president of government affairs and labor at Associated General Contractors of America, which does not endorse political candidates.
The National Association of Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors and other allied signatory contractor groups will reject efforts to “water down” the current criteria for registered apprenticeship programs, says Stan Kolbe, executive director of government and policy affairs.
He says existing registered apprenticeship programs represent the “gold standard” in training. “Projects are incredibly complex, and the days of assembling manpower on a project-by-project basis in the hope that skilled labor will show up in sufficient numbers is not a model for megaprojects of the highest complexity,” says Kolbe . Group members are signatory contractors of the Sheetmetal, Air, Rail & Transportation Union.
Immigration policy
Beyond labor policy, the two candidates also have significant differences in their approaches to the workforce in general, including the hot-button issue of immigration policy. Trump has made immigration and border security central to his campaign, characterizing undocumented workers as “migrants” and criminals who take jobs from legal citizens.
Harris noted during his acceptance speech in August that when lawmakers earlier this year reached a bipartisan deal on one of the strongest border security packages negotiated in recent history, it was Trump who convince his loyalists not to support it for fear of giving the White House a victory. .
For years, construction groups have advocated for comprehensive immigration reform as a way to address the labor shortage by pushing for legal status, if full citizenship.
AGC’s Turmail says the fact that immigration is such a divisive and emotional issue indicates that “our current system is broken” and that in construction, with a significant and ongoing labor shortage, “we have to much more to rebuild our domestic pipeline. to recruit and train people [careers in] the industry While we’re doing that, we should be looking for ways to allow more people to come into the country legally to work in construction.”
He adds that having large numbers of undocumented workers in the United States does not benefit “workers who are easily exploited, and it does not benefit responsible contractors who were not outbid by irresponsible contractors who exploit undocumented workers.”
While there appears to be bipartisan support for congressional action to address the problem, so far it’s been more talk than action, Turmail says.
