On April 25, the New England Carpenters Training Center hosted a graduation ceremony for the 2012  New England Carpenters Training Fund Apprentice Graduates. 101 members, representing 15 Locals, completed their training in the apprenticeship program in 2012.  Keynote speakers included: Mark Erlich, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, NERCC; William Irwin, Executive Director, Carpenters International Training Fund; David Powell, Director, Associated General Contractors of Massachusetts; and Larry Carr, Dean, Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Congratulations to all of the graduates! 

Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 New England Regional Council Scholarship Program. Last year 148 students applied and a total of $50,000 was awarded, including the top prize scholarship of $5,000.

To be considered for an award, a completed application package must be received by 5:00 pm on April 12, 2013.

Please review the Eligibility and Guidelines for the program before completing the application. Applicants will be required to write an essay of between 500 and 1000 words on the following topic:

What impact does “Right to Work” legislation have on labor unions, economic development and the standard of living in a state that adopt the law?

To eliminate bias, the scholarship committee is blind to the identity of the applicant. Essays are numerically coded to prevent any reader from having knowledge of the writer. Winners of the top two prizes will be asked to read their essays at the June 2013 delegate meeting. Persons awarded first or second place in a prior year are ineligible for first or second place in subsequent years.

Bryan Bouchard, who serves as Business Manger of Local 1996 in Vermont, Regional Manager for Northern New England and a member of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters Executive Board has announced his retirement, effective March 11. Bouchard is a 36-year member of the UBC.

Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mark Erlich is appointing John Leavitt to fill Bouchard's unexpired term on the Executive Board as well as his role as Regional Manager for Northern New England.

"Bryan served the members on staff for the Carpenters Union for 26 years," Erlich said. "He has been a quiet but effective leader who always carried himself with dignity and integrity. He will be sorely missed by his members and the Council. We wish him a long and happy retirement."
 

The 5th Annual New England Carpenters Ice Fishing Derby will be held Sunday, February 17 from 7am-2pm at Singletary Lake in Millbury, Massachusetts.

Organizer Joe Broderick will be set up at 5am at the lake, which can be accessed by West Main Street in Millbury. Look for a banner with the carpenters emblem by the boat ramp. There is a $20 fee to enter. Twenty-five percent of proceeds will be donated to the Valley Tech Educational Fund

Power augers will not be allowed before 7am and no tickets will be sold after 9am. Awards and a shore drawing will be held at the boat ramp at 2pm. Prizes will be awarded to the heaviest fish of any species, with 40% of proceeds going to the winner, 25% to 2nd place and 10% to 3rd place. Ties will be broken by fish length. All fish must be brought in alive.

For questions, please call Joe Broderick of Local 535 at 781-983-1383.

On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti, devastating an already impoverished nation. With much of the country's medical infrastructure destroyed, plans that were in place to build a 110-bed community hospital had to be revamped. The Ministry of Health, along with Partners In Health, launched a far more ambitious plan to build a 320-bed state-of-the-art teaching hospital in Mirebalais, which is located thirty-five miles north of Port-au-Prince in the Central Plateau.

Haiti's building industry, however, was simply unable to meet the needs of the new building design. Massive donations of time, materials and skills would be needed for the project to succeed. Union carpenters and contractors stepped up to the challenge to help secure materials and volunteer their time and labor to help build the hospital while teaching Haitian workers valuable craft skills 

To learn more, check out the piece NERCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mark Erlich wrote for Commonwealth magazine about this amazing project following a trip to Haiti in 2012.

Registration is now open!

Registration is now open for 2013 Spring Semester. All training is provided FREE to UBC members. Classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, so register early!

To register, log onto the training website NECTF.org by using your UBC number (found on your union card) and your date of birth.

Check out nercc.org/training2013 for more info. 

Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 New England Regional Council Scholarship Program. Last year 148 students applied and a total of $50,000 was awarded, including the top prize scholarship of $5,000.

To be considered for an award, a completed application package must be received by 5:00 pm on April 12, 2013.

Please review the Eligibility and Guidelines for the program before completing the application. Applicants will be required to write an essay of between 500 and 1000 words on the following topic:

What impact does “Right to Work” legislation have on labor unions, economic development and the standard of living in a state that adopt the law?

To eliminate bias, the scholarship committee is blind to the identity of the applicant. Essays are numerically coded to prevent any reader from having knowledge of the writer. Winners of the top two prizes will be asked to read their essays at the June 2013 delegate meeting. Persons awarded first or second place in a prior year are ineligible for first or second place in subsequent years.

Misclassification has been a serious problem in the construction industry for years, and something against which the Carpenters union has led the fight locally, regionally and nationally. Union efforts resulted first in greater understanding and awareness among elected officials and now regularly lead to enforcement and publicity on the issue that is either directly a result of union action or an indirect result of efforts initiated by the union.

Two items broke this week that reinforce that point. In Worcester, Telegram and Gazette columnist Clive McFarlane wrote about efforts by NERCC Organizer Manny Gines to chase down employers who cheat by misclassifying workers as independent contractors or cheat them out of their wages.

McFarlane's column ties into an announcement earlier in the week by the Executive Office of Labor in Massachusetts that more they had found more than 2,300 workers misclassified by just three employers. Though the three companies were not involved in the construction industry, the eye-popping $11 million in unreported wages and millions of dollars the state should have received for unemployment insurance payments generated new stories that put the issue in front of the general public.

To all staff and local unions:

Yesterday was a good day for union carpenters across New England. Amazingly, all of the Council’s endorsed candidates won election. Obama swept the six states, including winning swing-state New Hampshire by a larger-than-expected margin. In the critical races -- Warren in Massachusetts, Murphy in Connecticut, Hassan/Kuster/Shea-Porter in New Hampshire, King in Maine, Cicilline in Rhode Island – our picks were all winners!!

There is no doubt in my mind that some of the credit for these outcomes belongs to all of you and our members. We worked as hard as we ever have in an election season. We used all the tools available to us – new and old techniques – to educate and mobilize our members. And they responded. Door knocking, phone banks, rallies, visibilities, robo-dials, tele-Town Halls. We had a good story to tell…and we told it well and often.

But it’s important to keep a clear-eyed perspective on where we stand the morning after Election Day 2012. In many ways, we “held serve”. We helped fend off the right wing Republican assault on the middle class. There should be a clear message to the nation’s anti-union forces that their philosophy is not welcome, that the voters do not buy an agenda that favors the wealthy over working families. Yet we still have a divided Congress; we still have a Republican Party that attacks unions. We have some new articulate champions but we also have some old foes. Paul Ryan is still chair of the House Budget Committee and there are no signs yet that the House leadership is prepared to move forward in terms of solving our country’s problems as opposed to scoring political points.

So, as much as all of us deserve to take a deep breath and feel a justified sense of pride in our efforts, we will need to remain vigilant. The economy will not fix itself; it will require more federal and state action to invest in jobs and people. And it will require our continued involvement. Our members need to work; that’s why we endorsed the candidates who understood that the best social program is a job.

Thank you all for your efforts these past weeks and months. It was worth it. Congratulations.

Mark Erlich
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
New England Regional Council of Carpenters
 

United States Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren visited the Carpenters Center recently to speak with members about issues of specific interest to union carpenters. She took questions from members and spoke individually with members before and after the event. Thank you to Elizabeth Warren for coming by and thank you to every member who cared enough to come out and get involved.

In new report card, Republican Scott Brown fails to support new jobs and Massachusetts’ middle-class

Today, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters issued a report card on Senator Scott Brown’s failing efforts to support job-creating programs and middle-class families across the Commonwealth. Senator Brown received an F on today’s report card for opposing numerous jobs bills that would have supported thousands of good-paying jobs in Massachusetts, opposing the extension of essential unemployment benefits, and failing to fight for fair wages for working men and women.

"Try as he may, Scott Brown cannot run away from his votes along national Republican Party lines,” said Mark Erlich, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the New England Council of Carpenters. “Whether it's unemployment benefits, jobs bills, or standing up for fair wages, Scott Brown is not on the side of working families right here in Massachusetts. The attempts to re-make his image cannot mask his record. He sides with huge corporations and Wall Street instead of the thousands of Massachusetts families still looking for jobs.”

Today, the New England Carpenters gave Senator Brown an “F” for failing to stand up for working families. The grade was based on the following key votes: 

NERCC has reached a tentative agreement with contractors on a new collective bargaining agreement for Boston and Eastern Massachusetts. Details will be given and votes will be taken at meetings for members this Thursday night. Members who have not received a phone call with the time and location, should contact their local union hall.

Local 1305 member Dan Rego, who is a NERCC Organizer and Fall River City Councilor, is shaking things up in the Southeastern Massachusetts city. A few weeks ago, he raised concerns over issues with work being done by the Fall River Housing Authority. Since then, the sparks have started flying.

Rego spoke at a Housing Authority meeting and reported on conversations he had with workers on several FRHA projects in the city, some of which were receiving federal funding. Several workers had reported being misclassified as independent contractors, not being paid the legally mandated prevailing wage or not being paid at all. Rego told the Board that he had referred all of the allegations and evidence to proper state authorities.

 The Housing Authority went into immediate executive session, during which they appointed their own independent investigator. The story quickly hit the Fall River Herald News. The paper then followed up with a vicious attack on Rego, questioning not only his motives, but actions by Rego and the union in the past to protect industry standards. This in a city where legal violations on public construction projects are not unheard of.

This week, Rego spoke out in his own defense in the paper, reminding readers that his knowledge of and experience in the construction industry are a benefit to the city and its residents.

Please take a moment to read Rego's "Letter to the Editor" and consider weighing in with a respectful comment on the Herald News site.

Dan Rego, a union carpenter and organizer who successfully ran for City Council in Fall River, is starting to shake things up in the Southeastern Massachusetts City. At a Monday night hearing for the Fall River Housing Authority, Rego raised questions about the agency's awarding of construction contracts and the payment and treatment of workers.

The Fall River Herald News reported on Rego's questions in today's paper. The Housing Authority cut off Rego's statement and went into Executive Session, ultimately voting to begin an independet investigation of the allegations, according to the paper. Rego has already discussed improprieties he has found on FRHA sites with Fall River Mayor William Flanagan as well as the offices of Attorney General Martha Coakley,  Inspector General Gregory Sullivan and State Auditor Suzanne Bump.

Rego told the Housing Authority that he has found issues with projects that are valued at less than $10,000, which are done with very little oversight.

Massachusetts Democratic Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren was in Washington this week where she visited UBC headquarters and met with General President Doug McCarron, Secretary-Treasurer Andy Silins, UBC Political Director Tom Flynn, NERCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mark Erlich and NERCC Political Director Steve Joyce.

Warren will be meeting rank-and-file union members at a Town Hall meeting next week. The event will be held Wednesday, May 9 at 5:30 PM at 1199SEUI's Union hall on Mount Vernon Street in Dorchester. All carpenters are encouraged to attend and bring their families to this important event. Warren will talk to members about herself and where she stands on issues important to us.

Our future is in our hands!

Local 1305 member and Business Manager Ron Rheaume was interviewed as part of Boston National Public Radio affiliate WBUR's coverage of a casino proposal in Taunton. The Mashpee Wampanoags unveiled their proposal for a $500 million 150,000 square-foot resort-style casino last week. It is expected to create 1,000 union construction jobs.

Legislation legalizing casino gaming in Massachusetts passed last year allows for up to three casino licenses and one slot parlor licencse to be granted. The state was divided into three geographic regions, within which one of the licenses can be granted. The license designated for southeastern Massachusetts is being reserved for a period to allow Native Americans to propose and negotiate with the state for that region's license.

The Boston Globe also covered the presenation of the Mashpee Wampanoag proposal.

 In recognition of Earth Day 2012 the New England Carpenters Training Fund is sponsoring a FREE electronics Recycling on Monday, April 23, 2012 at the New England Carpenters Training Center (NECTC), 13 Holman Rd, Millbury, MA 01527.

Items may be dropped off between the hours of 7:00 AM and 2:30 PM (any day this week or on Monday, April 23).

Please call the NECTC at 508-792-5443 to let them know if you will participating so they have an idea of when you will arrive and the items you will be bringing.

The following items will be accepted.

• PC’s/Laptops
• Monitors (CRT & LCD)
• Terminals
• Servers
• Wires and Cables
• Fax Machines
• Printers
• Power Supplies
• VCR, DVDs, CD’s, floppies, camcorders
• Electrical Equipment
• Stereo Equipment and components
• Server Racks
• Projectors
• Photocopiers
• Communication Equipment
• Networking equipment
• Cell Phones
• Telecom Equipment

****We will not accept TV’s as there is a charge for them

The New England Regional Council of Carpenters and other industry groups are calling on the Massachusetts legislature to make it a felony for employers to fail to purchase workers compensation insurance for their employees. Senate Bill 915, sponsored by Senator Katherine Clark (D-Melrose) and Majority Whip Ronald Mariano (D-Quincy) also has the backing of Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Operating without workers' compesnation insurance is currently a misdemeanor, punishable by upt oa year in prison or a find of up to $1,500. The new law would make the felongy punishapble by up to five years in state prison, two-and-a-half years in jail or a fine of up to $10,000.

NERCC Political Director Steve Joyce said that although union carpenters are always covered by workers' compensation insurance, they are still hurt by those who cheat.

"In an industry where work most often goes to whoever submits the lowest price, any contractor who does not purchase workers' compensation coverage has a competitive advantage right from the start over contractors who follow the law and have coverage," he said. "That negatively impacts any carpenter that works for a legitmate contractor. We're not looking to hurt all employers, we value the role they play in creating jobs. We just want everyone to comply with the law when they do it."

Even the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), a group that lobbies for businesses, support the bill. In a story by the State House News Service, John Regan, AIM's Executive Vice President described the current situation as unfair to too many.

"Their faliure to have that insurance in place means that if workers working for them get injured, the rest of the employer commnity pays the bill" and that making failure to have coverage a felony "reflects the seriousness of the issue, and conveys how important it is that coverage be in place."

According to the SHNS story, the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents has reported more than 1,000 cses costing the worekrs compensation fund $26 million in the last five years becuase their employer didn't have worers' compensation coverage. In recent years the department has routinely issued Stop Work Orders against more than 3,000 employer found to be operating without workers' compensation coverage.

Information sessions are being held for members who would like to learn more about degree programs available through the union at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Two sessions are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Saturday, April 21 at 10AM: 750 Dorchester Ave., Boston, MA

Saturday, May 5 at 9 AM: 13 Holman Rd., Millbury, MA

Learn more general information about the program by clicking here.

While we love the convenience and immediacy of sharing news and information through the “Council Update” and on NERCC.org and social media platforms, we know not every carpenter is active online. So the New England Regional Council is committed to continuing to produce the New England Carpenter magazine and deliver it to every member’s home.

The latest issue of New England Carpenter magazine has rolled through the presses up in Salem, Massachusetts at Deschamps Printing. You’ll notice some changes in this issue, including some new design elements and more (and bigger) pictures of union members and union projects!

We’re featuring a cluster of stories about member involvement in area standards demonstrations and introducing the Union Participation Program, which will plug active members into ongoing union efforts to protect standards and win more work opportunities.

Keep an eye on your mailbox or check-in at the media center on NERCC.org

See additional images of the Brayton Point Cooling Towers project in our portfolio by clicking here. 

Despite the legal fist pounding and finger pointing recently, Mayor Flanagan and the City Council should be applauded for their efforts to support a Responsible Employer Ordinance in Fall River.

As a lifelong resident of Fall River, I was raised to believe that if you worked hard in America you could earn a living wage, have health care, own a home, maybe send your kids to college and retire with dignity. Now we are expected to sit idly by while every last part of the American dream is sacrificed on the altar of low prices and high profits?

REOs can and do play an important role in screening bidders seeking to build with taxpayer dollars. They allow cities and towns to pre-empt embarrassing investigations and slap on the wrist sanctions against bad actors after the damage has already been done to the industry. It was passed after construction at four schools in the city were the subject of complaints, investigations and violations by contractors.

As a union, we believe our training programs create a skilled workforce that builds higher quality projects. We believe health care is an important benefit for workers, and also reduces a future financial burden of all taxpayers. We believe these factors, combined with the relationships and mutual understanding developed between our union and union contradictors through collective bargaining, provide a better value for the construction dollar.

To the extent that municipalities believe in craft training, health care and other values, they may set certain standards for those who want to bid on work. Unfortunately, that effort was challenged and thrown out by people who do not live in Fall River, do not invest in Fall River’s future and have not experienced the steady decline of opportunity for Fall River natives.

Make no mistake; the REO did not prohibit nonunion contractors from bidding on or performing work. Simply reading the ordinance makes it clear that the intent was to protect standards for construction workers and Fall River taxpayers. That’s why it received such widespread support from both Mayor Flanagan and Ms. Viveiros, when it was proposed.

As a Fall River native and someone who has make his living in the construction industry, I thank Mayor Flanagan and others for continuing their support for decent standards in our city.

Ron Rheaume
Business manager, New England Regional Council of Carpenters
Local Union 1305
Fall River

This letter was published in the Fall River Herald News on November 1 and is open for comments.

Dan Rego, a member of Carpenters Local 1305 and a full-time Representative working for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, has qualified for the general election for Fall River City Council after results were announced for the preliminary election last night.

The election was contested by 22 candidates, vying for 18 general election positions on the ballot that will elect nine members to the Council. Rego finished eighth, defeating two incumbent Councilors, including the Council President and a 28-year member of the Council.

Rego is seeking public office for the first time and was encouraged by the results, but said a seat on the Council will still require a fight.

"The results were very close and there are a few candidates who have been around a long time and may be able to pull some votes for the general election," he said. "But I'm very excited about the results and plan to work really hard to do even better in November."

To say every vote will count in the general election is not an exaggeration. With just over 10,000 ballots cast, Rego earned 3,039 votes, only 400 votes from finishing second, but also less than 50 votes from tenth.

Members that would like to help Rego's campaign by volunteering or making a donation, may contact him through Local 1305.

Congratulations to members of Local 1305, who are getting a well deserved pat on the back from the Fall River Herald News for their volunteer work to build a concession stand and restrooms for Durfee High School. The paper featured the union's work in a front page story and praised them in an editorial piece.

The New Bedford Standard-Time is reporting today on an increase in building permit applications in area towns, which it cites as possible signs of recovery for the area. The increase in activity is chalked up to numerous factors, including hungry bidders pushing down bid prices and the influx of stimulus money.

Carpenters Local 1305 Business Manager Ron Rheaume was a source for the story, and is quoted in it: "We're finally getting people back to work after what I call the Great Depression. The last two years have been the worst I've seen around here in my 36 years on the job. The last two years, it's been so depressing it's ridiculous."