As Congress negotiates billions of dollars in potential federal funds for construction through the economic stimulus bill, President Barack Obama moved to bring project labor agreements back as an option on federally funded projects. The president issued an executive order Feb. 6 overturning a Bush administration ban on federal PLAs and opened the door to such pacts on projects of $25 million or more. Photo: Obama Campaign President Barack Obama Related Links: Full text of the Executive Order Three Executive Orders Good News for Labor Photo: New York State Huge infrastructure projects, such as the planned replacement of New York’s
At the first-ever ACE Mentor Program national conference, more than 125 executives and participants were optimistic that the industry recruitment group could still meet ambitious growth goals for both students and sponsors even in an increasingly uncertain economy. ACE seeks to attract high school students into architecture, engineering and construction careers through industry mentoring. ACE Vice Chairman Peter J. Davoren, also chairman and president of Turner Construction Co., said the group aims to have 100,000 student participants and 204 local industry affiliates around the U.S. by 2012. The group now has about 25,000 student participants. ACE may also add a
As construction jobs tumble in the credit crisis, thousands of U.K. workers downed tools recently to protest the use of foreign crews on a $290-million refinery project on England’s east coast. Unofficial supportive action spread from the Lindsey refinery in North Killingholme to unrelated powerplants and even the Sellafield nuclear fuel facility. Underlying the dispute at the oil refinery, owned by Total U.K. Ltd., are growing concerns that Europe’s free market is working against British workers’ interests. What triggered the unofficial Lindsey strike was December’s arrival of a Sicilian specialty firm on the refinery’s desulfurization project. Main contractor Jacobs Engineering
Thousands of British workers put down their tools recently to protest the use of foreign crews on a $290-million refinery project on the English east coast. The strikes, an unofficial message of support for the refinery protest, spread from the Lindsey refinery, North Killingholme, to unrelated powerplants and even the Sellafield nuclear fuel facility in Cumbria. Underlying the dispute at the oil refinery, owned by Total U.K. Ltd., are growing concerns that Europe’s free market is working against British workers’ interests. What triggered the Lindsey unofficial strike was December’s arrival of a Sicilian specialty firm on the refinery’s HDS-3 de-sulfurization
The American Society of Civil Engineers has issued its third report card on the state of the nation’s infrastructure. The “poor” status reported in 2001 and 2005 is unchanged, while the five-year, $2.2-trillion investment needed to correct it has increased by half a trillion dollars since 2005. The ASCE released its 2009 Report Card for Infrastructure two months earlier than planned, hoping to influence the national discussion over infrastructure funding now taking place in Washington, D.C., officials from the group said. The report card, which gives the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of “D,” or “Poor,” synopsizes the findings of
Mid-January layoffs at Autodesk took 750 jobs. Each of the San Rafael, Calif.-based firm’s seven sectors lost 10% of their workforce, says spokeswoman Colleen Rubart, responding to reports that the architecture, engineering and construction unit—and particularly Constructware, acquired in February 2006—was disproportionately hit. Each division leader determined how to cut, Rubart says. Constructware lost roughly the same 10%, although co-founder Kenneth Scott Unger, director of construction for Autodesk AEC Solutions, was let go.
Caterpillar Inc. is laying off about 20,000 workers, equal to more than 10% of its global workforce, and is planning for an expected 25% drop in sales volume this year as it attempts to wrangle in costs. The Peoria, Ill.-based heavy-equipment manufacturer informed investors on Jan. 26 that a rapidly deteriorating global economy and plunging commodity prices “whipsawed” the company’s otherwise bullish sales year in 2008. Cat posted record earnings for the fourth quarter, thanks mostly to booming Asian and Latin American markets. For the year, it raked in a record $51.3 billion in revenue, up 14% annually, with profits
Liability and litigation are the biggest barriers overseas firms face in accessing the U.S. engineering and construction market that are not similarly faced by American firms seeking work abroad, says a survey by the Construction Industry Round Table, a McLean, Va., group of 100 CEOs of major U.S. firms. “The U.S. still owns the market in this,” said CIRT President Mark A. Casso at a meeting last month in Paris of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is studying construction trade barriers among its European country members. The study found tax regulation is a barrier for U.S. firms
The role of people rather than process in boosting both project and corporate results in the construction industry is gathering momentum as an emerging area of study called “social network analysis.” Researchers are now studying projects and companies to determine how poor communication and too much focus on an “engineering approach” undermine more stellar performances. Some say development of the SNA concept could transform the industry. Photo: CH2M Hill / IHC Strong project-team collaboration brought high profile runway repave job in early. Photo: CH2M Hill / IHC Team had to build alternate runway and then rebuild the original. One researcher,
President-Elect Obama’s selection for the top post at the Labor Dept., Rep. Hilda Solis, a U.S. congresswoman from California, is a cause for celebration by unions. In making the announcement Dec. 19, Obama said the California Democrat, a renewable energy advocate who was critical in the passage of a green jobs training bill in Congress, would play a key role in developing policies to fulfill his stated goal of creating some 2.5 million jobs. Labor advocates describe Solis as a strong union supporter with a decidedly pro-labor voting record. “We’re ecstatic,” says Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers International
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