Welcome aboard, Iron Workers 340
The Welcome Wagon goes out to Iron Workers Local 340, a Battle Creek-based local union that is subscribing to The Building Tradesman for the first time.

Our paper has been publishing local union articles, union and labor news, as well as construction-related articles since 1952.

Local 340 members have joined the rest of the 48,000 or so unionized construction workers around Michigan who get the paper. We're glad to have you with us.

Construction material prices up - and may stay
Construction materials prices have moved to a higher plateau - and may stay there for a while.

"Two years of relentless materials price escalation has pushed construction costs into new territory," said a report in March by the Engineering News Record. "Contractors and owners are dealing with the reality of a permanently higher cost structure, especially for steel, concrete and petroleum-based products. Materials with a high-end use in the residential market, such as lumber and plywood, may get some price relief later in the year with the expected slowdown in housing. But this will be countered by higher energy costs that will prop up a broad range of prices and a weak dollar that is cutting off cheap imports."

According to the Turner Corp. Building Cost Index, construction materials costs in the first quarter of this year are projected to increase 10.85 percent over the same period in 2005.

"Construction materials costs are outpacing overall consumer and producer prices by a wide margin," said Ken Simonson, chief economist for The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).

According to Karl F. Almstead, the Turner vice president responsible for the Cost Index: "The volume of construction activity, cost pressure on materials associated with global demand and the availability of skilled labor are the primary elements driving the cost escalation in the domestic construction market."

For all of 2006, he forecasts that construction materials costs will go up between 8 and 10%, after increasing 9.7% last year.

Road workers' week approaches
Road construction workers have their own national day of recognition, of sorts, with National Work Zone Awareness Week, scheduled April 3-9.

"Safety is a daily concern in work zones," said Laborers International Union General President Terence O'Sullivan. "But many injuries and fatalities are caused by outside agents, that is, by the driving public. Indeed, many of the victims are the drivers, themselves. National Work Zone Awareness Week is a concerted, national effort to raise public awareness of this danger. We need the public's help in making our work zones safer."

The idea of Work Zone Awareness Week came from Allan Sumpter, an engineer in the Virginia Department of Transportation. Virginia tried his idea in April 1997, at the start of the construction season. It went nationwide in 1999, and a public relations campaign is held every year during the first week in April in the effort to get drivers to slow down and be aware of their surroundings in construction road work zones.

Despite the PR effort, work zone fatalities have increased 48 percent since 1997. In 2003, work zone accidents claimed 1,028 lives, rising from 872 killed in 1999. Four out of five people killed in work zones are either drivers or passengers.