REGAINING MARKET SHARE CONFERENCE FOCUS

    Partners in Progress was the central theme of the SMACNA Annual Convention organized under the overall title “Seeing the Future, Leading the Way” held March 30-April 1, 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Partners in Progress represents a singular collaboration between the forces of union and management, a joining of forces to support a common goal.  The program is a comprehensive initiative aimed at regaining market share through education and training from a fresh perspective.  Concentrating on a vision of the future, Partners In Progress scrutinized contractors’ ability to increase market share by seeing through their customers’ eyes.

The entry of non-union contractors and sheet metal workers in unprecedented numbers to the construction industry beginning in the mid-nineties forced the unionized sector of the industry to take stock from a broad perspective in protecting the quality on which it has built its name.  Proud of their stellar track record in the area of apprenticeship training and its adherence to an ethic of excellence in the workplace, leaders from management and unions alike, have responded with a series of initiatives to regain their previous pre-eminence.  The OSM delegation to the conference report that some of the initiatives put on the table as recommendations exist in the planning stage in Ontario already.  The delegation brought back a series of useful ideas summarized below:
Partners in Progress* investigated ways that owners of businesses and their employees might better respond to the needs of the customer through a series of related strategies reflected in the conference presentations delivered by industry experts.  Topics for discussion included such issues as:
Fit for Life: Protecting Your Most Important Asset,
Lean Production, Tools for Recruiting the Future Work force,
Train the Trainer for Safety
Future of the Sheet Metal Industry
Owners Talk About Revolutionary Changes in Construction Contracting
Promoting Continuous Training and Career Opportunities
Impact of Union Mergers on the Industry
Recruiting Your Most Important Asset
Best Practice Market Expansion Efforts
* www.sheetmetalpartners.org contains detailed summaries of each presentation.
    Participants heard a hard-hitting message regarding market share from SMWIA General President Michael Sullivan and SMACNA President Keith Wilson.  The bottom line: contractors need to make themselves more competitive in the market. The industry must present a strongly professional face; workers need to be at work on time, professionally dressed and putting in a full eight-hour day for the unionized sector is to be successful.
 
    Executives from General Motors emphasized that companies must all move faster and work smarter.  “We have the ability to create the future,” they predict.  The innovation of 3-D drafting delivers projects 15 percent faster, better, at a lower cost and using safer methods.  With 3-D, everyone operates as a team, coordinating every aspect of the collaborative project.  According to Sullivan, 3-D represents “a huge cultural shift and a window of opportunity for any contractor who gets on board.”  Training apprentices in lean contracting concepts will also respond to customer needs.  These two factors in combination become powerful means of delivering projects on time, under budget and with a minimum amount of waste.  This will clearly help contractors regain their industry lead.

    For its part, the labor movement has lost no time in entering into discussions with other unions regarding mergers between unions, both for their very survival and as a way to consolidate their strengths.  Unions are concentrating on heightening worker productivity and efficiency in the shop and on the jobsite through more effective training that extends through the career of a journeyman.  In other words, education and training emerge as issues of critical importance for the union in the face of a growing non-union sector. 

    The head of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association General President Michael Sullivan made a personal appeal to the rank and file sheet metal workers through a DVD presentation appealing to workers’ sense of pride “We won’t get our message across unless we have the backing of rank and file membership as well as the international and the local unions; no matter how much we preach productivity and efficiency to our workforce,” Sullivan argued.  “Contractors need to look to our union workforce to make certain that everything we do in the shop and on the jobsite is safe, productive and the highest-quality.”

The message from the Partners In Progress Conference is clear: Contractors and their employees play leading roles in taking responsibility for getting jobs and for completing them on time and under budget, and for maintaining a professional job site manner.  The experts agree, “The market place is very unforgiving right now so we must exceed our customer’s expectations. Our customers look for contractors and workers who solve problems, not cause them. Our workforce must understand that there is a new era of expectations now – and union and contractor – must deliver it together.”

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