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Ad campaign points out union advantage

Date Posted: July 9 2004

SAGINAW – What do union trades workers have that their nonunion counterparts don’t?

How about higher productivity, a better safety record and as a result, a savings to the bottom line of owners and contractors?

Spreading the good news about union trades is the aim of a new advertising campaign – “Promises with Proof” – undertaken by Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 85 and its affiliated Mechanical Contractors Association. Ads have appeared in recent weeks in newspapers across the middle and upper parts of the Lower Peninsula.

“The campaign is aimed at proving the superiority of Local 85 members and the Bay Area contractors signatory to Local 85, as proved by the hard evidence of the five-year training programs and the actual 17 percent higher productivity records,” said Local 85 Business Manager Kris Shangle.

The concept for the ads was developed in a collaborative effort between the United Association of Plumbers, Pipe Fitters and Sprinkler Fitters and the Mechanical Contractors Association. They sponsored studies and collected testimonials that highlighted the good news about union trades workers. The ads can be localized for better effect, and the first slate of ads from the Bay area include references to local contractors and trades workers.

“One of the really outstanding things about the campaign is that even in tough economic market we are in,” said Bob Barcia, president of the Bay Area Association Industry Steering Committee, “we on the committee felt it was important to keep our name visible to users and specifiers who had work to let – as well as those who have projects when the economy would be turning around.”

The information for the campaign is based in part on an independent study done by Dean Findley of Independent Project Analysis, Inc., which found that union workers are 17 percent more productive than nonunion. As a result of the higher productivity, the study said project costs are reduced because of higher efficiency.

Other information points to the better safety record of union trades, the five-year-long United Association apprenticeship program and specific projects that we built on time and on budget.

Quarter-page ads have appeared in the Saginaw News, The Petoskey News-Herald, the Bay City Times, the Alpena News and the Midland Daily News.