Thanks to members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 24 and other building trades Locals, a new full-service grocery store will be built in an underserved Dayton neighborhood.
When it opens later this year, Gem City Market will become Dayton’s first worker and community-owned co-operative grocery store.
A co-op is unique because it is owned and democratically governed by its members, the people who use its products or services or those employed by the business. Continue reading →
There appears to be plenty of work expected for Sheet Metal Worker Local 24 members in 2020.
Building trades leaders in Columbus and Dayton said collectively, their members worked record hours in 2019 and as of now, are predicting similar numbers for 2020. In Lima, major refinery work is set to wrap up, but members should stay busy thanks to numerous hospital projects.
In the Columbus area, major datacenter projects are currently underway or just about set to begin for internet giants Amazon, Facebook and Google. Continue reading →
Members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 24 made sure Cincinnati area’s homeless veterans were not forgotten.
Thanks to the generosity of Local 24 members and signatory contractors, more than 100 homeless veterans living in southwestern Ohio received personal care packages.
Volunteers from the Local 24 Women’s Committee and SMART Army assemble care packages for homeless veterans.
During September and October, members of the SMART Local 24 Women’s Committee and SMART Army collected personal care items in order to create care packages. Continue reading →
Four different Building and Construction Trades Councils received national recognition for safety on jobsites during the 19th Annual Zero Injury Safety Awards or ZISA.
According to their website, the ZISA are open to all contractors, industrial business owners, clients and building trades councils on projects performed under the terms of a National Maintenance Agreement or a National Power Generation Maintenance Agreement program.
ZISA is recognized nationwide as union construction and maintenance’s premier award for industrial safety. It showcases the best the industry has to offer, and reaffirms the union construction industry’s commitment to safety.
The awards honored the achievement of zero injuries on industrial construction and maintenance projects from the previous calendar year. Continue reading →
North America’s Building Trades Unions called effort to submit comments to the U.S. Department of Labor against Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, also called IRAPs, record setting.
In an Aug. 27 prepared statement, NABTU said nearly 325,000 Americans told the DOL they do not support IRAPs in the construction industry. The number of submitted comments broke the previous record of 25,000 submitted on changes to overtime pay.
According to a statement on the SMART website, SMART members submitted just over 18,000 comments to the DOL, with several thousand more comments submitted by friends and family members. Continue reading →
From the International level and down, unions are rallying their members to tell the U.S. Department of Labor Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, also known as IRAPs, do not belong in the construction industry.
With the potential fate of registered apprenticeships hanging in the balance, North America’s Building Trades Unions, SMART, other International Unions and are reaching out to all members and urging them to take action and comment against the implantation of IRAPs before the Aug. 26 deadline. Continue reading →
A recent study showed the repeal of Prevailing Wage laws in West Virginia negatively impacted the state’s construction workers and did not save taxpayers money.
The data in this study, conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI), validated the conclusion reached by the School Building Authority of West Virginia in 2017 that the “repeal of West Virginia’s Prevailing Wage law has had no statistically significant effect on school construction costs.”
This new UMKC-MEPI study showed the loss of Prevailing Wage resulted in minimal wage
savings on new-build school projects, which were outweighed by change orders and poor craftsmanship. Continue reading →
An outbreak of 15 tornadoes touched down in the Miami Valley area in late May, leaving a path
of destruction, affecting multiple communities, including the properties of some Dayton-area Sheet Metal Local 24 members.
A member of SMW Local 24 helps clean up tornado debris.
The tornadoes ranged in strength from an EF0, with winds between 65 mph and 85 mph, to an EF4, which the National Weather Service said had maximum winds of about 200 mph. The devastating storms struck between 9:48 p.m. on May 27 and 12:23 a.m. on May 28. Continue reading →
The Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council hosted an opioid summit in Columbus at the Hollywood Casino to address why and how Ohioans, including construction workers, are falling victim to opioids.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2017 there were 4,293 opioid deaths in Ohio, which equates to 39.2 deaths per 100,000 people. The Buckeye trailed only West Virginia, which recorded 833 opioid deaths – a rate of 49.6 deaths per 100,000 people. Continue reading →
Work in the City of Columbus to build a new recreation center and update a city park will be performed by affiliated members of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council under a Community Benefits Agreement.
The $25 million Linden Park project is expected to create between 60 and 80 jobs for members of the C/COBCTC and for members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 24. Continue reading →