Helping Newcomers Feel at Home in Sheet Metal

SMART Locals and SMACNA Chapters champion multicultural initiatives to bring immigrants into the labor pool.

By Sheralyn Beleau

When Winnipeg-based Price Industries first came to the Atlanta area in the 1980s, 80% or 90% of its workforce belonged to Local 85. “From the very beginning, it was important for us to have the union in our walls,” says Aaron Schoonbaert, chief operating officer for Price. “In fact, we invited the union in.”

Like other in other areas of the United States, union membership dropped over time. “Over the years, we went down to about 30% union density,” says Local 85 Business Manager Steve Langley. “We lost membership because the organizer and the business agents at Price Industries were English speaking, so we couldn’t get through to the Vietnamese population.”

“We have informal leaders on the floor who help translate,” Schoonbaert says. “But if you can’t speak English, you are forced to go through them.”

While this system can smooth the workday, Price needed a more sustainable solution that would ensure all employees had access to the functions of an international union, like annual negotiations. “We needed the union’s help,” Schoonbaert says. “We wanted to make sure all employees had a chance to bring forward any challenges or concerns they had.”

SMART International stepped up with an offer of support.

“The chief international organizer for production and I started talking about hiring a Vietnamese organizer,” Langley says. “Per our constitution, Smart International provides 50% subsidized wages and benefits for organizers.”

Because of the drastic fall in union density, the International provided a special 100% subsidy for Vietnamese-speaking organizers in Local 85. It sounds like a simple solution, but finding the right organizer was a long process.

“We went through Price Industries, through three or four different members that said they wanted to do it, and they didn’t work out,” Langley says. “Most of them quit within the first two weeks. One quit the same day. They didn’t like the way that people talked about them, and they were afraid for their jobs.”

Langley soon realized that language wasn’t the biggest barrier for these workers. “Vietnam is 100% unionized, but the union is part of the government there,” Langley says. “So, they didn’t trust the union.” Even people who had been in the United States for many years had suspicions, worrying that union leaders might not have their best interests at heart.

Langley shifted strategy, looking for an organizer from outside the company. “We needed somebody who understands the contracts, understands the constitution of SMART, and isn’t scared to do the job,” Langley says. “We had Donson Ha, a Vietnamese member, working for one of our big companies in the building trades. I brought him into the office to explain his responsibilities, and we hired him.”

Donson Ha started working with Price in February 2023. A little over a year later, he had signed over 400 new members at Price Industries.

“Now we’re back up to over 50% union density,” Langley says. “That’s the quickest gain of market share that we’ve ever experienced in Price Industries. Over a third of the members at Price now speak Vietnamese or something similar. Donson has turned that place around. The International was going to subsidize his work at 100% for one year, but he does such a good job that they did it for a second year.”

“I see trust improving greatly,” Schoonbaert says. “He’s not just a translator. Donson tells people it’s worth contributing their voice to the union. They can go straight to him with concerns, he goes to the plant manager, and he will continue to follow up until those concerns are addressed. They see change, and trust in the union is going to come from seeing that membership is a tool for good.”

Donson Ha works with 400-500 international workers at three or four locations. “They don’t immediately know the benefits of unionization,” Donson says. He’s working hard to educate them on everything from contractual benefits to discounts on AT&T plans. Google Translate and other AI services do not write well in Vietnamese, so Donson personally translates union posters and bulletin boards.

Price also prioritizes quality translation, keeping Spanish and Vietnamese speakers in the HR department and on the safety team. “When folks from the front line have a concern that is safety or HR related, I want to make sure that they can directly express their concern to the folks that can make the difference,” Schoonbaert says. Other departments, such as quality control, share bilingual staff as needed.

English, Spanish, and Vietnamese are not the only languages spoken at Price. “We have Burmese, we’re starting to get some French, and even some folks from the Middle East,” Schoonbaert says. To meet these needs, Price uses an external translation service.

Safety messages are the highest priority. “Those communications are posted in all the languages, because we have to make sure that everyone can directly see and understand them,” Schoonbaert says. When 401K providers and insurance vendors come in to train employees, Price requires them to bring translated documents and translators. “Any medical program is already complicated, so we make sure that the translation is left to us, not to the employee,” Schoonbaert adds.

Welcoming immigrants into the sheet metal industry is building Local 85, and it’s paid off well for Price. “We’ve expanded considerably over the last 30 years,” Schoonbaert says. “We have facilities in Georgia, Phoenix and Arizona, and a warehouse in Texas. Of course, we still have our campus up in Winnipeg and facilities in Toronto, and we have partner companies in Dallas and California. Now we’re majority market share with the products that we make, and we continue to grow.” ▪

A Colorado native, Sheralyn Belyeu lives and writes deep in the woods of Alabama. When she’s not writing, she grows organic blueberries and collects misspellings of her name.