SMACNA & SMART Mastering the Art of Difficulty

The great thing about a successful partnership is that in it, you’re never alone. Whether cruising along smoothly or facing new or difficult situations, in a well-connected partnership, you’ve always got a person, persons, or entity with whom to share the burden, rally ideas, and troubleshoot solutions. And in the sheet metal industry, when labor and management lead together, they deliver results. This is the theme of the 2026 Partners in Progress Conference, scheduled for February 16-18 in Orlando, Florida, at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin. The Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force has been hard at work on a great line-up of speakers, breakout sessions, and learning opportunities that will help labor and management continue to forge a successful path forward. Registration is open now at pinp.org/conferences/pinp26

This issue of Partners and Progress looks at new and sometimes difficult obstacles the sheet metal industry is facing—and tackling together. It showcases some of the creative and successful ways labor and management are leveraging each other’s expertise to find new opportunities, grow existing success, and lead together.

Megaprojects are taking up space—literally and figuratively— in the sheet metal industry landscape, presenting new and often complex opportunities for labor-management partnerships to connect and collaborate. These massive endeavors require immense labor and supply quantities, calling for coordinated planning, scheduling, and workforce procurement. In “Charging Head. Together.” on page 4, we look at a 500-acre EV battery plant in Michigan that required SMACNA contractor Allied Mechanical Services and Local 7 to leverage their strong relationship to make it a success.

Whether or not your organization is currently familiar with megaprojects, there is a good chance you will, at some point, be a part of one of these huge undertakings. Any time the scope and scale of a project exceeds labor requirements, and your organization requires assistance fulfilling said requirements, you’ve got a megaproject on your hands. SMACNA and SMART have developed a wealth of resources to help your organization run a successful megaproject while maintaining your core work—the backbone of the sheet metal industry. Check out “Megaproject Resources” on page 6 for some of the resource material SMACNA and SMART have produced, and be sure to visit smacna.org and smart-union.org to learn more and to connect with your local chapter or union.

Over 100 years ago, Welsch Heating and Cooling opened its doors, manufacturing and installing pot-bellied stoves. In the 50s it started dabbling in the residential market, and by the 70s and early 80s, this was the company’s bread and butter. Since then, it has worked alongside Local 36 to develop one of the most successful residential service contracting firms in St. Louis.

In an interview with SMACNA’s Seth Lennon, Welsch’s Paul Heimann and Scott Pires sit down with Chris Racherbaumer and Jake West from Local 36 to talk about how they’ve maintained residential market share and what the future looks like in this sector. Read all about it in “Rousing Residential Market Share” on page 8.

SMOHIT, the jointly funded health and safety arm of the unionized sheet metal industry, has provided many resources that protect workers across the United States and Canada, including automatic external defibrillators (AED), bleed kits, and CPR certification. In its most recent initiative, SMOHIT is providing naloxone (Narcan) cabinets to union halls and training centers and saving lives. See “Nalozone cabinets help union sheet metal workers save lives” on page 10 to learn more about the opioid crisis and how contractors and union representatives can work together to address this health crisis.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, toxic workplace culture has contributed to $223 billion in turnover costs in the United States over the past five years. Read that again. $223 billion in preventable costs to businesses across the country is a figure worth pausing to consider, especially in an economy sensitive to global forces and fluctuations. The truth is, bullying isn’t just hard on an organization’s culture and human resources—it is an absolute drain on the bottom line. In “The Real Cost of Bullying” on page 12, we look at some hard truths about the personal and financial burden of toxic workplace culture and address some important ways SMACNA and SMART are offering solutions by working together.

If you want to have any kind of conversation—difficult or otherwise—there are some basic rules: listen before you speak, maintain eye contact, stay level-headed. Communication expert John Millen shares another tip: stay away from CBD! No, he isn’t referring to the marijuana/hemp derivative. Millen shares six tips for avoiding complaining, blaming, and defensiveness, especially when the topic of conversation is uncomfortable. See “Six ways to stop blaming and complaining” on page 15 and change your conversation style forever. 