Setting the Standard of Excellence

The Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) is an association of close to 50 major owners in the construction industry. Collectively spending over $95 billion annually, they are recognized as owners’ voice in the construction industry.

In January of 2003, CURT organized a never-before-seen discussion of industry leaders from organized labor, national contractor associations, and the owner community. These owners, contractors, and labor leaders assembled with the sole purpose in mind of bettering business for everyone.

MAJOR INDUSTRY ISSUES ADDRESSED

Resulting from the tripartite was the development of the CURT Tripartite Initiative (CTI). Recommendations to address three major industry issues – extended overtime, absenteeism, and work disruptions – were made. Each of the three participating groups came away with a plan of attack to address these issues with an end-result goal of securing more construction money for owners, creating more work for the building trades, and enhancing contractor competitiveness and profitability.

UA IS THE FIRST TO RESPOND

The United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) was one of the first organizations to respond to the CTI by establishing the UA Standard for Excellence (SFE). This first-ever joint labor/management roadmap for jobsite conduct and productivity emphasizes the UA’s mission to provide a performance standard for the bargaining unit as a whole, rather than just individual representation.

As the management partner to the UA, the Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA) and its contractor members have, as a whole, welcomed the UA’s SFE – recognizing that a change must be made in the approach to joint labor/management responsibility for jobsite productivity and conduct of the overall workforce.

Currently, a joint MCAA/UA task force is readying a revised Foreman Training Curriculum that will teach a detailed emphasis on implementing and enforcing the SFE at the jobsite. That curriculum will initially be taught in a “train-the-trainer” course in Ann Arbor, MI and will then be available for training apprentices and new foremen across the country.

THE BEST LABOR AND MANAGMENT PARTNERSHIP IN THE INDUSTRY

The UA has put in writing their pledge to maintain the highest standards of excellence in all that they do Through superior training, maintaining skills, working safely, increasing productivity, and improving workplace attitudes, the UA/MCAA will continue to establish themselves as the best labor and management partnership in the construction industry.