2 min read November 2022 — Invest: spoke with Samantha DeAlmeida, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of New Jersey, about the evolving landscape of construction in the state and how opportunities for open shops will be critical to growth in the future. “Statewide, all of our members are doing well and there’s more than enough work to go around,” she said.
What have been your key takeaways and milestones over the past year?
We aren’t slowing down. As the largest chapter in the country, we are continuing to grow our membership and expand our staff and resources to support members. The biggest milestone on our radar is substantially growing our apprenticeship program, which now includes 19 Department of Labor registered trades. We want to grow these efforts in diverse communities at free and discounted rates, so residents have the best opportunity to pursue lucrative careers in important trades that are demanding a new workforce.
Could you tell us more about the apprenticeship program and the opportunities for it to expand?
It’s an interesting time. We are seeing more young people coming into the industry, but the demand is centering around journeymen and skilled workers with 10 or more years of experience. A great percentage of the industry is on the verge of retirement, so it will take some time to fill those vacancies. Our apprenticeship program will help bridge that gap. Much of the success of the program comes down to working with school counselors and teachers to communicate with students that there are incredible opportunities to earn a living through careers in the trades.
What has been the impact of Project Labor Agreements on the New Jersey construction industry?
PLAs have been around in New Jersey since 2002 when a state law was passed that states a public works project in excess of over $5 million in state money has the discretion to place a PLA on a job. These are exclusionary to open shop workers and inherently exclude 73% of the construction workforce and make projects essentially union-only. Provisions within the PLAs make it extremely difficult for open shop contractors to comply, so in turn, they don’t bid these jobs because they can’t use their own workforce. Provisions have been included to unionize long term, but 73% of contractors in the state don’t want to be in a union. Additionally, 98% of minority contractors are non-union. There tend to be hollow promises around diversity, where the workforce is not reflective of the community. PLAs are not good for the economy or taxpayer and remove competition as well as being inefficient. Studies have shown that projects with PLAs placed on them are 30% more expensive and take approximately six to eight weeks longer to complete. It stops people from working in their own communities. By law the state is mandated to issue a study into the effectiveness of PLAs yearly. However, this has only been done once in 2010 with 2008 data where the results did not favor the use of PLAs.
Which areas are you seeing the most growth in?
As a statewide organization, we service members throughout the entire state of New Jersey. If someone moves from Camden County to Bergen County, they don’t have to worry about joining a different chapter, it all falls under one umbrella. Our membership is spread evenly statewide. Prior to the apprenticeship program, we had a heavier presence in the south, but we have over 1,200 members across the state now.
All of our members seem to be doing well presently and there’s more than enough work to go around. There’s so much infrastructure work that we’ve received investment from the federal government. Even with supply chain and labor issues, I don’t see a slowdown coming. There’s a backlog of the amount of work needed to be done and quality contractors to do the work. The goal will be to get more people trained in the trades and have them grow into skilled workers on these jobs.
Everyone has a healthy concern about the economy after living through the 2008 recession. While we could have another recession on the horizon, the construction industry was booming during the pandemic and hasn’t really stopped. We were deemed essential and the work kept on. Regardless of changes in the market, buildings need to be built and roads need to be paved.
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