Resolving to Grow Our Industry

From Bill Adams, MCA-KC President:

I hope you enjoyed your holiday and New Year celebrations.

I enjoy New Year’s Eve not only because I get to spend time with family and friends, but also because it gives me a chance to think about the year that’s passed and the year that’s coming up.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to make a speech right now. I’ll save that for our Kansas City Night Dinner on January 20. Reminder – be sure to RSVP this week. (link). However, I did want to share a few New Year thoughts.

Last year around this time we were all thinking about a new contract. We had three key goals: 1) create competitive crew rates, 2) improve the health of our pensions in the long term and 3) protect wages by better managing benefit costs. 

We made a lot of strides toward these goals and I know you’ll tap into MCA-KC’s staff to learn about our new tools.  We continue to work toward these goals.

What excites me about 2012 in these early days is that we don’t have to think about negotiations, but rather how we grow our industry. We’ll soon have an update on the residential and light commercial contract talks.

We also have to be vigilant in tracking our non-union competition. MCA-KC will be developing some easy reporting tools for you this year so we can get a better sense of our true market share. We’ll also need you to keep us posted on any developments you hear about non-union shops using new technologies or enhancing services.

I don’t need to tell you it’s a competitive world. But, I’m full of optimism for 2012. Let’s make one MCA-KC resolution: We will work together with our union teammates to get to more union mechanical contracting projects that translate into more union jobs and hours. That strengthens our entire industry, our contractors, our unions and our workforce. That’s a resolution worth keeping.

Wishing you the best in 2012.

Bill Adams
President, MCA-KC