Ayres elected new BCTD president
Mark Ayers, Director of the Construction and Maintenance Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) was elected as the new President of the Building & Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO (BCTD).

Ayers, who will succeed retiring BCTD President Edward C. Sullivan on October 1, was confirmed during a September 6 meeting of the BCTD Governing Board of Presidents. Sean McGarvey will stay on as secretary-treasurer.

"I look forward to addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities that present themselves to the union construction industry," said Ayres. "…I will do all that I can to enhance our stature as the world's number one choice for quality, skilled labor in the construction industry."

Prior to his tenure as director of the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Division, Ayres was the business manager and financial secretary for IBEW Local 34 in Peoria, Illinois. A Navy veteran, Ayres also served as secretary-treasurer of the West Central Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council.

The AFL-CIO Building Trades Department is an alliance of unions representing about three million members

Ayres elected new BCTD president
WASHINGTON (PAI) - Despite a Democratic majority in Congress, the anti-prevailing wage sentiment is never far from bubbling up.

By a 56-37 vote on September 12, the U.S. Senate killed a GOP attempt to ban prevailing wages on federal highway, bridge and construction projects. The attempt, by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), was an amendment to the Transportation Department money bill senators debated and approved.

The federal prevailing wage law has number of benefits, including leveling the playing field for bidding contractors and maintaining a living wage for construction workers. Senate Labor Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who helped lead the fight against DeMint's move, took another tack, calling the presence of prevailing wage laws a good safety measure.

"When you drive to work in the mornings, you want your roads and bridges to be safe. When your children ride the bus to school, you don't want to wonder if the bridges are safe. That's why our laws require workers for those jobs to be paid the prevailing wage--so it's not only fair for the workers but so we can assure the public that the work done is of highest quality.

"That's what the Davis-Bacon laws are all about….This amendment would do the opposite. Instead of making our nation's highways safer, it would endanger the lives of the public by attacking quality construction," he declared.

The Davis-Bacon Act, passed by a GOP-run Congress in 1931, orders that locally prevailing wages, measured by the Labor Department, must be paid to workers on federally funded construction projects such as bridges, highways and airports.

During the last 12 years of GOP congressional rule, anti-worker Republicans tried to get Davis-Bacon dumped, but lobbying by building trades unions and defections by moderates defeated them. And President George W. Bush tried to dump Davis-Bacon for post-Katrina reconstruction. Lobbying forced him to retreat, too.