PRIDE of St. Louis, Inc.

As seen in the St. Louis Business Journal December 1, 2006

Commentary: Mutual Gains Bargaining

Sheet metal union leaders prevail in ‘growing the pie’
By Jim LaMantia, PRIDE Executive Director

When is the last time you went to a labor-management contract negotiation and saw consensus break out?

It happened this summer when the Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) Local No. 36 met with the Sheet Metal and Air-Conditioning Contractors National Association (SMACNA), St. Louis Chapter. And it didn’t happen by accident. This was progressive union construction industry leadership at its best.

At a time when fractious elements nationally are pulling the labor movement apart, here in St. Louis, we are advancing our own model for labor’s future. The local union sheet metal construction industry calls it “mutual gains bargaining.” I call it “growing the pie.”

For years, contentious new contract negotiations were the norm. They were runaway freight trains fueled by agendas in search of a stalemate or a forced strike. At stake was a thinner slice of an ever-shrinking pie of work as more owners turned to cheap, under-skilled labor.

With this in mind, the leadership of SMWIA Local No. 36 and SMACNA St. Louis met last December - months before their contract was to expire - to connect and commit to creating a platform with the potential to lead to long-term gains in market share. Together, they developed a business plan that would generate more opportunity for union contractors and more hours for union craftspeople.

“Mutual gains bargaining” didn’t mean caving on issues important to each side. But it did jettison the antiquated adversarial approach that can poison negotiations from the start and leave mistrust in its wake.

It was a visionary approach that advanced a stewardship of quality and safety – two big reasons why union sheet metal constructors are highly competitive.

The union sheet metal workers came away with a three-year contract with an average annual total pay package increase of about 3.2 percent. To help recruit the future workforce, which benefits both sides, apprentices also received a healthy pay boost.

And initiatives were approved to help union signatory contractors gain market share.

St. Louis has been a union-built town for decades. But we would be deluding ourselves if we didn’t recognize that the call of cheap, unskilled labor is influencing buying decisions that fail to connect construction quality with trained skill. The visionary negotiating team - led by David Zimmermann, business manager for SMWIA Local No. 36, and George “Butch” Welsch, co-chairman of the SMACNA St. Louis negotiating committee and president of Welsch Heating & Cooling - has charted a new course for bargaining that benefits both union and contractor.

Welsch and Zimmermann correctly identified their common enemy. It was neither a signatory contractor nor a union local. It was economic pressures that open opportunities for unskilled labor and that threaten our region’s legacy of quality, safe and highly productive construction.

Jim LaMantia is executive director of PRIDE of St. Louis, Inc.