Rome wasn't built in a day, and Michigan's ailing construction economy won't be re-built in a day, either.

"It took us 30 years to get into this situation," said Ed Haynor, consultant for the West Michigan Construction Alliance. "It's going to be many years before we're able to get out."

The newly-reformed WMCA - a consortium of building trades union reps, contractors and associations - is attempting to reverse a long, painful, downward spiral in construction opportunities that is creating severe unemployment in the union sector. A soon-to-be-completed merger of the WMCA with the Southwest Michigan Building Trades is expected to better coordinate union organizing, outreach and public relations efforts on the western side of the Lower Peninsula.

The West Michigan Construction Alliance was formed in 2003 with the mission to "promote and market the advantages of an organized construction industry in the West Michigan region in order to provide the highest quality, most cost-effective and safest delivery of our products and services to our customers/owners."

Now the alliance is getting bigger and will try to do more.

Bruce Hawley, business manager of Iron Workers Local 340 in Battle Creek and president of the WMCA, said the merger will eliminate duplication of services and "do more to bring labor and management groups together. There's a lot of room for improvement in getting more contractors participating."

Hawley said goals for the newly organized group include helping union agents track jobs, pool resources and reach out to owners. "I think it will help give agents the bigger picture," he said.

Haynor, a retired school administrator from the Newaygo County Intermediate School District, was hired in 2003 primarily to promote the concept of "responsible contracting" to local school districts who may be getting reading to take out a bond issue to pay for construction work. Responsible contracting refers to helping local school districts make good decisions on hiring contractors, by screening their work history, references, and pointing out that the lowest bid isn't always the best bid.

Making presentations to boards of education is still on Haynor's list of duties. But he said it's much easier to sell responsible contracting when there are local trades people willing to push the concept with school boards and make follow-up visits and phone calls.

Now, the committee guiding the alliance is steering Haynor's efforts in new directions, like taking part in career expositions, strategic planning, arranging meetings and seminars between union agents and academic experts and construction industry consultants who can help foster change in organized construction. Haynor is also working with the Helmets to Hardhats program, which steers military veterans into the building trades.

"Hopefully we're able to pass along techniques that organized construction can use to improve market share," Haynor said. "The (anti-union) Associated Builders and Contractors are highly visible, and very good at marketing themselves, while our guys seem to want to keep quiet, pick up their tools and go to work. We have to change that."

What's the plan?

A strategic plan adopted by the WMCA starts with several baseline acknowledgements for the unionized construction industry:

Strengths include: accepting that challenges exist, a better-trained workforce, a large labor pool, higher workforce retention, better quality of work, a predictable and stable cost structure and quality of life benefits.

Threats include: non-union market share advantage, negative attitudes toward union/nonunion contractors, the high cost of health insurance, bad previous construction experience, misinformation by opponents of organized labor, and lack of affiliate partners.

Weaknesses include: "Old school" thinking still dominates, inadequate representation from management/contractors, mistrust between members, jurisdictional disputes, lack of familiarity with labor-management collaboration, lack of sustainable finances, and poor attitudes.

Opportunities include: Lots of market share to recapture, industry growth and labor-management partnership opportunities, and members realize that something needs to be done.

The vision: "The West Michigan Construction Alliance will create a model for labor and management working together increasing its market share to a minimum of 25%. The Alliance will be viewed by the public as a professional organization in both the way it presents itself and the work it performs. The Alliance will develop a solid, pro-active, positive business plan that has 100% support from its members along with external and internal accountability from all participants."