Bill Wachtel, founding partner of Wachtel Missry, said construction workers should be paid only when they get to their workstation.
Crain's columnist Greg David's blog post on the low percentage of African-Americans in the construction sector triggered four letters to the editor pointing to unionized construction as an exception. The latest comes from Robert Bonanza, business manager of the 17,000-member Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York and Long Island, who noted that more than half of Laborers' International Union of North America members are black, and 75% are minorities.
"The unionized sector of the construction history has made great strides in being more inclusive," he wrote. "Its apprenticeship programs are providing training and skills to thousands of young men and women of color, so that the next generation of construction worker will enjoy the same middle-class standard of living that the current and previous generations enjoyed. … It is the nonunion sector that is feeding the race to the bottom."
As another labor leader, Gary LaBarbera, noted in his letter, Mr. Bonanza pointed to a 2013 Economic Policy Institute finding that blacks represented 23.3% of the overall city workforce and 21.3% of the unionized construction sector, but held only 13.8% of nonunion construction jobs.
Other responses to Mr. David's piece were submitted by Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers' Association, which is an organization of contractors who use union labor; and Denise Richardson, executive director of the General Contractors Association of New York.
While blacks have been increasing their share of union construction jobs, it doesn't necessarily follow that their share of construction jobs overall has increased. The reason: Unions' share of the construction pie has been falling as developers gain confidence in nonunion contractors, who charge less.
An oft-cited figure in city real estate circles is that union labor adds 30% to construction costs. Organized labor has been reluctant to accept lower wages, saying the speed and quality of its work more than compensates for the cost differential.