Elizabeth McPherson's blog

As previously reported in the Construction Citizen series about the 2040 Scenarios event, the evening included a discussion between the group of industry leaders who attended about their thoughts and reactions following the presentation of the two scenarios.  The following is a transcript of the questions which Mike Holland led the discussion with, and the comments those questions generated.  This is the first of two posts on this discussion.

How would the construction industry be affected by each of these scenarios?  First, how would it be affected by “Learning to Live”?

“I think we will be increasing the number of educated employees in the construction industry.”   [node:read-more:link]

Connecticut newspaper The Stamford Advocate reported that subcontractor John Dosky, owner of American Building Group LLC, was recently arrested by Connecticut State Police for wage theft violations against three brothers, one of whom died from a fall while working for him.  Dosky was charged with three felony counts of “failure to pay wages” for owing the brothers almost $8,000 in unpaid wages.  The Department of Labor is also taking action against his company for misclassifying these and other employees as independent contractors, a practice known as payroll fraud.

The death occurred in October after 36-year-old Javiar Salinas fell more than 50 feet at the Chelsea Piers sports complex construction site in Stamford.  An article in The Danbury News-Times reported that Salinas’ estate is filing suit against each of his employers, including the developers (Chelsea Piers Connecticut LLC and Stamford Exit 9 LLC), contractor (Merritt Contractors Inc), subcontractor (AP Construction), and the sub-sub contractor (Dosky’s company, American Building LLC), because Salinas was not wearing a safety harness when he climbed to the roof that day, allowing a gust of wind to knock him off of the roof.

After the accident, Javiar’s brothers went to the Department of Labor to seek help in collecting [node:read-more:link]

One of the attendees of the 2040 Scenarios presentation and discussion was Hal Sharp, an architect with Gensler.  After the event wrapped up, Donna Rybiski from the Center for Houston’s Future asked Sharp what his reactions to the scenarios were.  Excerpts from the interview are included in the video below.

He stated that he had the strongest reaction to the second scenario presented, “Playing to Win” *, because that was the one that he believes Houston is more likely to be heading toward if the Houston community does not “take to heart” some of the messages which were discussed that evening, and take action.  He was most concerned about the “continuing growth of the divide” between the economic and social classes of citizens, as presented in the second scenario.   [node:read-more:link]

The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has a website with specific information about the issue of worker misclassification, also known as payroll fraud, and the measures being taken by each state to abolish it.  The website includes links to each Memorandum of Understanding which has been signed between the WHD and specific states’ Departments of Labor and Industry.  These agreements were created to promote compliance with laws already in existence within the states and to aid in communicating with employers and employees through training materials and coordinated enforcement actions in order to “protect the wages of America's workforce”.  Only eleven states have signed such agreements at this time.

The WHD website also contains links to each state’s Department of Labor, links to all WHD press releases categorized by region, information about related federal and state laws, workplace informational posters available for download in a variety of [node:read-more:link]

We have been bringing you a series of blogs on a presentation and discussion about possible scenarios of what Houston might be like 30 years from now.  We told you that after the group of community professionals from the construction and other industries had viewed two videos outlining two very different scenarios for Houston’s future, Mike Holland of Marek Brothers led a group discussion about the two scenarios.  During the discussion, the two representatives from the Center for Houston’s Future (“the Center”) who were on hand to present the scenarios took notes on whiteboards at the front of the room.

At the end of the evening, after most of the attendees had left the hall, Catherine Clark Mosbacher, [node:read-more:link]

This week, an article by Matt Dunning in Business Insurance lists some of the numbers which reveal the enormity of the combined projects currently under construction at the World Trade Center site in New York.  The article states that “there are 13 integrated megaprojects”  in progress at the site.  When the projects were initiated, details of risk management such as safety inspections and incident reports were maintained separately for each individual project, but in 2008, risk managers for the developers and their insurers implemented a system which integrates relevant [node:read-more:link]

Immediately following the presentation of the two 2040 Scenarios, Pat Kiley, CEO of Kiley Advisors LLC and former president of the AGC in Houston, spoke with Donna Rybiski from the Center for Houston’s Future.

She asked Mr. Kiley for his first impressions following the presentation and discussion.  Kiley felt that both scenarios were very plausible, and that both offered the construction industry in the Houston area a very positive prognosis, but also some very real challenges.  He noted that both scenarios indicated an increase in construction which would create a demand for a larger skilled workforce than Houston is currently prepared to provide.  Speaking about the decrease in training  and the lack of increase in wages which has trended over the past several years, Kiley pointed out that the industry will need to do a lot of work to provide what will be needed, even if there were not going to be an increased need for double or [node:read-more:link]

According to an article in the Insurance Journal Online, advocacy groups and government organizations in Florida are bombarding lawmakers with suggestions for litigation which could curtail a rampant practice by disreputable contractors to defraud the state of workers’ compensation premiums.  This occurs when individuals set up fake subcontracting companies with workers’ compensation certificates and use those fake company names to get paid with checks payable to the non-existent companies.  They then cash the checks at check cashing stores, and pay the actual workers “off the books” with the cash.  The scheme has effectively become the status quo for doing business in some areas, and is estimated to cost the state of Florida millions of dollars in unpaid [node:read-more:link]

An article in Fuel Fix, an online source for energy business news, features a video from ExxonMobil with artists’ renderings of its future campus, also known as "project delta", which is currently under construction in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston.  In the video, Mike Brown, project executive for the US Real Estate Strategy Study, talks about the design of the campus.  The desire was to create a pleasant place to work which feels like a community, or a college campus with an “urban vibe”, yet also feels close to nature since it is set in a heavily wooded area.  The facility will be a “pedestrian friendly” campus with “opportunities for people to come across each other by foot” as they move between conference rooms, training rooms, office space, a fitness center, a child-care center and dining facilities.   [node:read-more:link]

In Jim Kollaer’s blog Your Scenario or Mine?, he told you about a gathering hosted by Marek Brothers Houston on October 19 for a presentation and conversation about two alternative scenarios of what Houston may look like by the year 2040.  The 2040 Scenarios are the result of research and analysis by the Center for Houston’s Future.  The purpose of the evening was to use the possible scenarios to start a dialog about the future of a sustainable workforce, particularly for construction.   [node:read-more:link]