ABC member company S & B Engineers and Constructors Ltd. celebrated the grand opening this week of their new Craft Education and Skills Enhancement Center, a 12,500-square-foot education facility that includes three classrooms and five bays for hands-on craft education activities. Located in Baytown, Texas, the facility provides skill enhancement opportunities for S & B’s construction workforce across multiple disciplines, including welding, pipefitting, electrical, millwright, civil and rigging, carpentry, crane operating, ironworking, scaffolding and safety.
READ MORE
During its third annual Build Your Future Scholarship program, NCCER awarded scholarships of $2,000 each to 10 students who are pursuing craft professional education in the construction industry. NCCER and ABC’s Trimmer Construction Education Fund partner annually to present the scholarships to the top students attending an NCCER-accredited program or a state or federally-approved apprenticeship program in a merit shop training facility.
READ MORE
A study released by the University of Kentucky Center for Business and Economic Research concluded that West Virginia’s prevailing wage mandate, repealed by the state legislature in 2016, inflated the cost of public school construction. By comparing projects bid from 2013 to 2018 and using data provided by the West Virginia School Building Authority, the authors determined that the cost of projects bid without a prevailing wage requirement were 7.3 percent lower than those bid with government-mandated wages.
READ MORE
ABC of Florida signed on to President Trump’s “Pledge to America’s Workers” at an event celebrating career and technical education in Tampa, Florida, yesterday, committing to educating and developing at least 5,000 construction workers over the next five years. ABC members attended the president’s speech on workforce development at Tampa Bay Technical High School and participated in a roundtable discussion with area business leaders convened by the White House to highlight the need to expand apprenticeship programs.
READ MORE
On July 12, ABC Vice President of Environment, Health, Safety and Workforce Development Greg Sizemore participated in the first meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Bipartisan Apprenticeship Caucus. The caucus, founded by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Ranking Member Susan Davis (D-Calif.), was created this spring to expand apprenticeships in the United States and raise the prestige of the skilled trades.
READ MORE
ABC’s Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter and Orleans Technical College recently announced that they are working together on a new apprenticeship training center in Philadelphia County. Their goal is to help create more apprenticeships in the region and more diversity in the construction and trades community. The facility will also and provide employers with the chance to advance their employees’ skillsets through the state-approved NCCER merit-based training curriculum.
READ MORE
A study released by the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence found that the prevailing wage determination process utilized by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry leads to inaccurate wage rates on construction projects. A disproportionate 75 percent of prevailing wages reflected union rates in the period analyzed in the study, even though just 32 percent of private construction workers in Minnesota belong to a union.
READ MORE
Cianbro Corporation of Pittsfield, Maine, a member of ABC’s Maine Chapter and five others, has been awarded Accredited Quality Contractor (AQC) status by ABC. The AQC program recognizes and honors construction firms that document their commitment to excellence in five key areas of corporate responsibility: quality, safety, employee benefits, training and community relations.
READ MORE
On May 31, U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Acosta and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, visited a jobsite of Omega Construction, an ABC member headquartered in Winston Salem, N.C. Secretary Acosta and Rep. Foxx toured the Hotel Indigo renovation, guided by Omega Construction President Barry Hennings, and met with employees and apprentices.
READ MORE
ABC’s 1991 President, Johnny Barto Smith, passed away on May 19, 2018 at the age of 78. Smith owned and operated Lake Mechanical Contractors of Eustis, Fla., formerly called Lake Plumbing, a company his parents founded in 1954. Under Smith’s leadership, Lake Mechanical completed a number of impressive projects with Walt Disney World. Lake Mechanical also created the University of Central Florida Bright House Networks Stadium and the 34-story expansion of the Peabody on International Drive.
READ MORE