PRIDE of St. Louis, Inc.

As seen in the St. Louis Business Journal August 5, 2005

COMMENTARY

Complacency Is the Enemy
By Jim LaMantia, PRIDE Executive Director

There was a time when the challenges facing the region’s union construction industry were obvious. More than 33 years ago, the industry was in disarray, settling its differences at the point of a gun, the grip of a club or by dramatic shouting across bargaining tables. Labor and management didn’t talk much and when they did, no one listened. Construction projects shut down constantly and development dollars fled town. We were killing ourselves.

But from this crisis came sensible compromise that forever changed the dynamics of an industry that depends so much on teamwork. Visionary leaders from both labor and management formed PRIDE of St. Louis Inc. in 1972. It was nation’s first and oldest voluntary construction labor-management organization. Trust, which did not come easy, was forged with the common goal of reinvigorating economic development to benefit all stakeholders in the local construction industry and our home community. We communicated for the betterment of the industry and region.

Today, 33 years after the founding of PRIDE, building in harmony has become the industry standard. But now we face another challenge, one more insidious than the blatant confrontations that once marred construction progress. Complacency has become the enemy. As an industry, we yearn for a supercharged economy to drive construction. But when we get it, as we did in the mid-to-late-1990s, we begin taking for granted the bridges of harmony we had built. Rather than considering the common good, we gravitate toward selfish, private agendas. If necessity is the mother of invention – as expressed at the birth of PRIDE – complacency is the mother of discord.

Union labor, contractors, owners – all stakeholders in the construction industry – must continually work as a team to make St. Louis the best place to build. Otherwise, competitive pressures will force development dollars elsewhere. The loss of Lambert St. Louis-International Airport’s hub status continues to cast a cloud over business development in the region. That’s especially true in the wake of the recession and tragedy of 9/11. Businesses were already proceeding cautiously and watching bottom lines when the drastic reduction in flight service was announced at Lambert. That’s a huge economic development challenge to overcome. It can be overcome, but only if we get rid of agendas and work together.

I make no apologies for what union construction workers earn – because the cost of our labor is the cost of foresight and advancement. The union construction industry locally spends $26 million annually in apprenticeship and journey worker training and is reaching out to attract a more a diverse and a better educated work force. No other industry devotes as much money and energy to keeping pace with the new technology and innovations that drive the immensely complex projects that we help build. But we also have a duty to recognize that even the highly skilled can have that security taken away when economic pressures on the building industry are ignored. Productivity should be as much a priority on all of our projects as safety and quality.

Thirty-three years ago, we reinvented labor-management relations out of desperation. Today, there is a gritty irony in the fact that the hard-won foundation established by PRIDE is so easily taken for granted – even discarded by some.

Labor-management relations should not require a “crisis atmosphere” to thrive. It demands zeal. It demands passion. Always. That doesn’t mean we roll over on issues. What it does mean is we talk AND we listen so we can continuously look for common ground to achieve our greatest potential – and help advance economic development objectives that benefit us all.