Building Trades Workers Take It to the Hill: ‘Now Maybe We Can Do More Than Fight to Protect the Things We Have’

by Mike Hall, Mar 27, 2007

Chicago Bricklayer Susan Huyke says the new Democratic-controlled Congress has to focus on one major issue during the next two years: rebuilding the middle class after years of corporate-centric legislation that created the largest gap between the very rich and the rest of the nation.

“We’ve got to close the gap in income and support the middle class, because without a strong middle class the country could well fall,” Huyke says.

The tile and trim worker from Bricklayers Local 67 is one of the nearly 3,000 delegates to the annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C., of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD).

In bright T-shirts—Bricklayers orange, Ironworkers red, Electrical Workers green and Sheet Metal Workers black—they gathered today on the sunny West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to rally and hear a series of senators and representatives pledge their support for vital working family legislation—the Employee Free Choice Act, fair trade, affordable health care, prevailing wage laws and more.

BCTD President Edward C. Sullivan told the crowd the hard work of union members last year built the foundation of the November election victory that ended more than a decade of Big Business-beholden control of Congress. But that, he says, was just a start:

It’s up to us to translate that victory into action.

Jim Bell, from Ironworkers Local 67 in Canton, Ohio, says:

We really needed this new start in Washington. Now maybe we can do more than fight to protect the things we have, and expand things like Davis-Bacon [prevailing wage laws].

On March 9, the House passed a $14 billion Water Quality Financing Act (H.R. 720) that requires projects financed through the bill to pay the local prevailing wage. The requirement—known as Davis-Bacon Act wage protection—prevents contractors from low-balling bids by undercutting wage levels for skilled workers.

President Bush has threatened to veto the water quality bill because of the Davis-Bacon provisions. Of course, that’s nothing new for Bush. One of his first actions after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast in 2005 was to suspend Davis- Bacon wage protections for workers taking on rebuilding projects.

Every lawmaker who spoke at the rally today described the need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to level the playing field for workers who want to bargain for a better life by joining unions. Click here to read about this morning’s Senate hearing on the bill.

Says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio):

We need to change the laws so we can have real democracy in the workplace and rebuild the middle class, and that won’t happen until every worker who wants to join a union is free to join a union.

For more coverage of the Capitol Hill rally and the BCTD conference, click here.