New York City’s construction unions and contractors for years have negotiated labor deals at arm’s length, sometimes punctuated by strikes like the early July walkout by two operating engineers locals that halted big Manhattan projects for a week. Today, they are focused on a common enemy—nonunion developers thriving across the city. The upshot is closer labor-management relations, which this fall may usher in vastly more competitive work rules for some building sectors.
“Unions are waking up to the fact that their real market share is deteriorating around the city,” says Chris Ward, executive director of the General Contractors Association of Greater New York. The changes are in three new project labor agreements (PLAs) that local building trade unions and the Building Trades Employers’ Association negotiated this summer to streamline shift times, holidays, overtime pay and other rules across 40 construction collective-bargaining agreements. The pacts, governing megaprojects above $250 million, market-rate residential and affordable housing, also introduces no-strike, no-lockout clauses.