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Union trades re-gain voice on construction safety panel

Date Posted: November 14 2003

LANSING - Tom Boensch, secretary-treasurer of the Michigan Building Trades Council, was one of three new appointees who will serve on the state Construction Safety Standards Commission.

The appointments were made in September by Gov. Jennfier Granholm. The nine-member commission administers rules and establishes safety standards for construction operations to protect the lives and safety of building trades workers in Michigan.

Boensch was appointed to represent construction operations on the employee level for a term expiring March 18, 2004. "I'm certainly looking forward to providing more input from organized labor into the commission," Boensch said.

Besides Boensch, Granholm appointed to the commission Larry Redfearn, a Local 98 plumber and district skilled trades manager for Detroit Public Schools, and Timothy Wise, vice president of operations for Dumas Construction Services, a union contractor.

These were the first positions on the panel to expire and be filled by Granholm. The commission is set up so that members are supposed to represent various groups, including public employers, management and labor.

Incredibly, building trades unions have not had their own representative on the commission in a decade, when Gov. Engler replaced former Michigan Building Trades Council Secretary-Treasurer Tim Nichols with a "labor" representative who was a project superintendent for a company associated with the anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors.

"My replacement may have represented workers, but he sure didn't represent organized labor," Nichols said last week.