By Mark Breslin
(Sixth in a series)

How much sympathy would you have for a guy who complains about his own body odor? Or maybe someone who goes on about their weight problem as they chow down two Big Macs and super-size fries? Or finally, the guy who tells you with a straight face that it angers him that he is balding but the reason is that he pulls his own hair out?

Simply put you'd tell them to do something different wouldn't you? You'd tell him to take some responsibility, show some backbone and stop the complaining. Well, consider this column strong medicine for our contractors with the same themes. It is time for contractors to stop whining and take responsibility for workforce quality and accountability.

Look I know every contractor is busy. I am part of a fourth generation contracting family and I've seen it up close. Not just busy every day, but slammed. More work than time. More daylight than bodies to work the hours. More promises to be honored to owners and developers. More projects to man-up and more money to be made.

And so when the work and the pressure to perform gets like that, we reach a stage I like to call the: "send-me-anyone-as-long-as-they-are-breathing" jobsite dispatch model. And worse, this is also the time that the friend, brother-in-law, superintendent's kid, or dude-who-walks-your-cousin's-dog gets a referral from the contractor to join the union and get a try-out.

Unqualified. Unprepared. Unskilled. Unacceptable.

The contractors, union and associations are fighting against an ongoing erosion in the skills, attitudes and behaviors of union rank-and-file workers. You will not find anyone who thinks the general talent pool is on an upswing. Beyond this, unions are retiring thousands of top hands and veterans each year; to be replaced with, who? What to do as a result?

Here is the deal. The union contracts all explicitly state that the contractor is the "sole judge of qualifications." What this means is that the ultimate screen and filter is the contractor. What this means is that the pattern of layoff or reduction in force of poor performing apprentices or journeyman perpetuates a system that erodes accountability.

What this means is that the quality of the overall workforce depends entirely on contractors pro-actively addressing workers who lack the skills, attitudes or behaviors necessary to compete. What this means is that contractors complaining about the quality of hands being dispatched solves no problems and is pretty damn hypocritical if they too are not getting their part of the job done.

Contractors need to take the management rights granted to them and exercise them to the maximum extent possible. The union is providing Codes of Excellence and codes of conduct, but it is the contractor who has to take the initiative to make them work. End-game? We need the most productive, professional and profitable workforce on every job, every day. It is not going to happen by chance.

There are solutions however. And these are just a few for the contractors:

• Filter the existing workforce. The union cannot do this for the industry due to "duty of fair representation". Every contractor has the right to reject or terminate employees based on their being unqualified. The agreements permit contractors to write letters to the unions so that they can re-assess these employees and even restrict or eliminate their dispatch eligibility. What do contractors do now? RIF. Reduction in force. Make that guy someone else's headache. Spin him, replace him and move on. Foremen won't play the heavy or the company does not care enough to document a poor performer. How does this serve our competitive interests?
• Build a reputation for zero tolerance. There are quite a few contractors who operate like this. When you get to a job, you are assessed immediately. If you don't cut it, you go right back to the hall. Every job, every time. Guess what? Poor performers will often not take dispatches to those companies.
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• Contractors cannot refer someone to the union based on a relationship unless they are sure they are suited for this industry. Maybe that brother-in-law belongs at an In-and-Out Burger instead of the jobsite. Pre-assess attitude, work ethic, transportation, skills, personality, willingness to learn and more. Contractors need to think carefully so they do not create another drain on the competitive system out of obligation or desperation.

In the next ten years the Baby Boomers are going to start retiring. The huge bell-shaped curve that represents the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of union contractor employees over the age of 45 is going to start moving out. And these are the money-makers. These are old-school work ethic guys. These are in many instances, irreplaceable. So it is the responsibility - no the OBLIGATION - of every contractor in this industry to make damn sure that any hands who come onto a jobsite are worth that premium wage and fringe total package. Anything less is just a slow death at our own hands.

Labor and management are together at last in raising the jobsite performance bar and the plan is simple. Use whatever terms apply, but it comes down to a ruthless and efficient means of ensuring our future, that is fair but uncompromising.

Mark Breslin is a trainer and author specializing in labor-management challenges and solutions. He is the author of the recently published Attitudes and Behaviors: Survival of the Fittest curriculum for apprentice training centers. The curriculum is now being used by union training centers, and has been established as standard course programming by other International Unions and apprenticeship programs. Instructional material including books, CDs, workbooks, instructor guides and support media information is available at www.breslin.biz