From The Desk Of Al... Association President Sounds Off On Recession, What We Can Do To Help The Builders Association has served Chicagoland’s construction industry for over 100 years, but that history wouldn’t be worth much if the services provided by the BA didn’t adapt with the times. Strong, experienced leadership has aided the association in doing just that. Al Leitschuh has seen a number of economic downturns come and go. As a chief executive officer for associations since 1977 and the Builders Association’s President since 1997, he’s been able to help businesses in a number of different industries through those times and see that they prosper when the financial picture gets brighter. In a recent question-and-answer session, Al reviewed how the Association’s services can help members save money and spoke on a host of other relevant topics...in addition to a couple of irrelevant ones. Q: As the downturn for construction continues, what can the Association do to help its members persevere? A: The Association strives to improve its value to members every day. Through our labor contracts, industry relations activities, industry knowledge events and safety activities, we can help members confront the issues that face them, saving them time and money. In that way, we’re not an expense for our members but a tremendous resource. It makes financial sense to belong to our Association, never more so than when the financial climate is bad. Q: What do the coming labor negotiations mean to members financially? A: Agreements with the Carpenters, Laborers, Operating Engineers and a number of other major Unions expire in May. With active participation from a number of Association members on committees involving the trades, we’ve been able to get a jump on the game and have been getting ready for these negotiations for close to a year. Preparation is the key when dealing with this many contracts
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expiring at once. Our labor team has worked tirelessly to be in a position to negotiate contracts that can provide financial relief to our members in the long term. Q: There’s been a lot of talk about OSHA cutting back on its safety partnerships with businesses and increasing enforcement in the wake of a Democratic White House and Congress. How will these developments affect the Builders Association’s Partnership with OSHA and contractors working to build the city every day? A: We’ve heard from Seyfarth Shaw, our local OSHA office and a number of other sources that all employers should expect an increased amount of enforcement from OSHA. Contractors should expect a more aggressive application of the standards. This news makes things like our Partnership with OSHA even more important. That Partnership isn’t going away. In fact, it was just renewed through 2012 and is at an all-time high for number of companies participating. Members can fix non-serious violations immediately on inspection, saving them the cost and trouble of OSHA fines and reports. We understand the need for aggressive enforcement of safety standards, as exhibited through our comprehensive safety partnership and our safety awards program. Some of the strongest safety programs in Chicagoland and in the nation are at our member companies, and we’re committed to helping those firms maintain and improve those already strong safety and health initiatives. Q: One of the Builders Association’s goals has been strengthening industry relationships. How does that that benefit our members and through them the industry? A: Our industry relations activities bring us a significant amount of influence with a variety of community, government and industry sectors. The relationships we’ve built benefit our members with help on workforce issues, jobsite concerns and contractor relations. We’ve reached out to the communities our members serve through the Construction Career Opportunity Program and our involvement in Chicago’s bid for the Olympics was helpful in connecting us