IBEW's Stephens runs for U-M regent

Greg Stepens, business manager of IBEW Local 252 in Ann Arbor, will be on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot as one of two democratic candidates for University of Michigan Board of Regents.

Stephens sought and received the nomination of the Michigan Democratic Party during their Aug. 24 caucus, along with Ish Ahmed.

Stephens said that one of his priorities will be to bolster union hiring at the university.

"There's currently over $1 billion in construction work at the University of Michigan," Stephens said. "We're talking jobs for our members. Right now, we have to go through a chain of command when we approach the university, and with me in there, we'll have someone there who can get things done."

U-M is governed by the Board of Regents, which consists of eight members elected at large in biennial state-wide elections. The regents serve without compensation for overlapping terms of eight years. According to the Michigan Constitution of 1963, the Regents have "general supervision" of the institution and "the control and direction of all expenditures from the institution's funds." The Regents meet once a month in a public session.

Michigan State and Wayne State also are governed by boards of regents, who are elected in a like manner.

"We almost never get much help from boards of regents," said MBTC Secretary-Treasurer Tom Boensch, "so it would be great for us if we could get Greg elected."

New way to resolve Jurisdictional disputes

For the first time in more than a generation, the unionized construction industry is changing jurisdictional policies and procedures to meet the demands of a modern economy.

The Governing Board of Presidents of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department on Oct. 17 voted to adopt significant changes to jurisdictional policies.

Over the last century, the resolution of jurisdictional disputes between construction trades unions has probably been the top sore point. In January 2002 Building Trades President Edward Sullivan established a Committee on Jurisdiction comprised of Governing Board of Presidents members to consider and recommend specific jurisdictional plan changes to more effectively resolve disputes.

"Decisions of record dating back to the early 1900s were being used to guide resolution of today's jurisdictional problems," Sullivan said. "Some may not be relevant to today's construction industry. The changes adopted by the Governing Board are a great improvement in the jurisdictional plan and clearly make it more effective."

The most significant change made to the jurisdictional plan provides for a mechanism that for the first time considers "area practice" as a major determining factor in dispute resolution. Under the old criteria, decisions of record were given the heaviest weight in jurisdictional hearings. Under the new policies that were adopted, decisions of record may be challenged by an affected union citing area practice.

The accepted changes will now be considered by the contractor members of the Jurisdictional Plan Board for approval and are expected to be adopted.