Union 4 Life events aid cancer research

ANN ARBOR – A single golf outing sponsored last year by IBEW Local 252 apprentices has grown into multiple fundraising events this year to support breast cancer research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The events are sponsored by Union 4 Life, a charity started by apprentices at the IBEW Local 252-Ann Arbor JATC. The group also includes many other unions and family members. The group’s aim is to “help find a cure to help save our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.”

This year’s slate of events will include a golf outing (Saturday, Aug. 23), sporting clay shoot (Sunday, Sept. 28) and a 5K run/walk (Saturday, Oct. 4).

IBEW Local 252 Training Director John Salyer said apprentices at the school have done thousands of hours of community service, “but wanted to really do something big as a group. They thought just about everyone knows someone who is touched by breast cancer, and the University of Michigan has always been a big supporter of the union trades. So that’s how this came together.”

This year’s golf outing will take place the Lake Forest Golf Club in Ann Arbor on Aug. 23, with registration starting at 7 a.m. Cost: $100 per player or $400 per team.

The sporting clay shoot will take place on Sept. 28 at the Island Lake Shooting Range in Brighton. Cost: $100 per person, $400 per team. Registration starts at 9 a.m.

The 5K run/walk will take place on Oct. 4 at Gallup Park in Ann Arbor, with check-in starting at 8:30 a.m. Cost: $35.

For more information, contact Salyer at (517) 214-2060. Or via e-mail, jsalyer@aaejatc.org. Registration forms and more information are available at the Ann Arbor Electrical JATC website, www.aaejatc.org.

Support DAD’s Day fundraising effort

The annual Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council’s All-Trades Softball Tournament hits a milestone this year, celebrating 25 years of raising money for diabetes research.

This year the Dollars Against Diabetes (DAD’s Day) tournament will be held May 17-18 at Gier Park in Lansing, pitting building trades teams from across the state against each other in the effort to “find a cure” and fund work at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami

Donations can be made online at www.mb.

Construction pacts rise 3.1 percent

First quarter 2014 U.S. construction industry wage first-year wage increases rose 3.1 percent from the previous quarter, the same increase compared to the same period in 2013. And, second- and third-year wage industry wage increases were both 2 percent in the first quarter of 2014, the same as a year ago.

For all U.S. labor contracts, first-year wage increases dropped 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2014.