Study: Union trades more productive
Construction projects that use union labor are 17 percent more productive than those that use nonunion labor, a new study has found.

The study is significant because it is one of the few that has tried to evaluate construction worker productivity, a notoriously difficult subject to examine because of all the variables involved.

The study was also significant because it was presented to the annual construction conference of the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT), which represents major corporations that are the largest consumers in the construction industry. And CURT is hardly known as a bastion of union lovers.

Presented by Dean Findley, regional director of the firm Independent Project Analysis, the study focuses on "understanding effective contractor contribution to owner capital project performance and understanding effective team performance." The study was titled, "Understanding Labor Productivity in High Wage Regions," and surveyed 1,185 construction projects in the U.S. and Europe.

The results: In the U.S., union jobs are almost 17% more productive on average than open shop projects. Mixed union/non-union jobs are slightly less productive than fully open shop jobs and much less productive than all-union jobs. The study also found that subcontractor-supplied labor is 13% more productive than direct-hire, on average.

The importance of studying construction productivity for owners was based on five key reasons:

• About 25% of all construction is field labor.
• Labor is usually the largest non-material cost on a project.
• Very little is really understood about how to best measure field productivity or how to influence it.
• In developed economies, construction labor shortages will become more common as the population ages.
• In low-wage countries, poor labor productivity is the primary obstacle to low cost manufacturing facilities.

Candidates endorsed for Sept. 9 primary
Some communities across Michigan will conduct primary elections on Tuesday, Sept. 9. A limited number of candidates endorsed by the Greater Detroit Building Trades Council are on various ballots, and they appear below.

Building trades union members are urged to research and vote for candidates who support organized labor.

• City of Allen Park, Mayor: Beverly Kelley
• City of Dearborn Heights, City Council: Ned Apigian
• City of Eastpointe, Mayor: David Austin
• City of Lincoln Park, Mayor: Steve Brown
• City of Warren, Mayor Mark Steenburgh; City Council: Charles Busse, Donna Kaczor Caumartin, George Dimas, Cecil St. Pierre
• City of Westland, City Council: Eleanor Pulido, William Wild