Book-Cadillac work expected to resume
Construction workers are expected to be back in the Book-Cadillac hotel beginning the week of Jan. 5.

Hazardous materials abatement work started at the historic Detroit hotel in October, then stopped because of site problems and concerns. Dan Somenauer, business manager of Asbestos Abatement Workers Local 207, said some union representatives met with the project's abatement contractor on Dec. 17, and issues seem to be resolved. Future meetings with Local 207, the laborers and the contractor are planned to ensure a timely and safe project.

"It looks like a go," Somenauer said.

The $146.8 million renovation will feature 483 guest rooms, 76 apartments and a 186-car parking deck. The deal to undertake the renovation of the hotel, built in 1924, was made with a very complicated financing plan. Walbridge-Aldinger is the project's general contractor.

Somenauer said that in order to finish the project in time for the Super Bowl in January 2006, plans now call for hazardous abatement crews to release abated areas to the rest of the construction trades as they are complete. Ideally, abatement workers would get the entire project completed before the rest of the trades follow.

Building trades seek pension relief 
The AFL-CIO Building Trades Department is lobbying Congress in an effort to provide some relief for union pension plans.

Even with the upswing this year in the stock market, Building Trades Department President Edward Sullivan said three straight years of negative investment performance has created a situation where "even the best-funded plans are at the risk of failing to meet their minimum funding requirement."

Possibly one-third of all U.S. multi-employer pension plans are expected to encounter a funding deficiency sometime in the next few years, he said. Sullivan added, "the implications of such an event for our contributing employers are dire, including the imposition of excise taxes and the need for fund trustees to pursue and collect additional contributions - above and beyond those agreed upon in the collective bargaining agreements."

Such plans cover 9.5 million Americans. The plans are typically conservatively invested - but the three straight years of losses in the stock market from 1999-2002 have been the longest such streak since World War II.

When the U.S. Senate reconvenes on Jan. 20, they will be considering pension legislation designed to help single-employer plans - but not the multi-employer plans that cover building trades unions.

The Building Trades Department is seeking an amendment that would allow fund managers to amortize losses over an additional period of time - three years - in order to give both side of the bargaining table additional time to negotiate contribution increases, reductions in future accruals (benefits already earned cannot be reduced) or a combination of the two, "to address the problem before it reaches a crisis state," Sullivan said.

A rebounding stock market would help, too.