Union agent Merriman dies
Jim Merriman, a business agent with the Greater Detroit Building Trades Council and Operating Engineers Local 324, died of cancer on Nov. 16, 2004. He was 77.

Jim's booming voice and occasional bursts of temper, together with a good sense of humor, an interest in history, and a deep, genuine concern for organized labor, made him a colorful character. An Operating Engineers Local 324 member since 1951, Jim served as a business agent with Local 324 and later as an agent with the Greater Detroit Building Trades Council until his retirement in the early 1990s.

Working for the building trades, he played a major role in opening the door for labor-management cooperation between construction unions and major companies like DTE Energy.

"Jim quieted down a little after he retired, but he never lost his passion," said Patrick Devlin, the council's secretary-treasurer. "Behind a gruff exterior he was a good man who cared about what he did, and there's no doubt he cared about organized labor."

Local 324 Business Manager John Hamilton said: "It was a privilege to have known him so well, and we will never forget his knowledge and strength. Jim was well respected by all of his friends in the construction industry and will be greatly missed."

First construction forecast: partly sunny
With the end of 2004 looming a little larger, what kind of prospects do 2005 hold for the U.S. construction industry?

The forecasts are starting to trickle in - and they're fairly positive. According to the Engineering News Record, "construction economists are proving an optimistic lot this year, judging by a review of several industry forecasts for 2005. Cheered by this year's robust growth rates, the strongest since the late 1990s, economists appear confident that 2005 will set a new record for overall construction volume."

While all that sounds positive, the news needs to be seasoned with a dose of reality for unionized construction trades. The "robust growth" for 2004 was primarily in the residential market - hardly a bastion for union workers.

However, some good news is that the construction sectors of "non-residential building" and public works are expected to improve in 2005. And some potentially great news is a predicted rebound in the industrial sector - an area dominated by building trades unions.

McGraw-Hill Construction is predicting a 14 percent increase in the industrial market, while the Portland Cement Association thinks there were be a whopping 53 percent rise in that sector.

These predictions are obviously wildly different, and past predictions have hardly been ironclad. McGraw-Hill Construction and the U.S. Department of Commerce both predict that construction activity will rise by 9 percent by the end of 2004, even though most predictions a year ago forecast only modest growth. The vehicle fueling much of the growth in 2004, said the ENR, is double-digit growth in single-family housing.