(BALTIMORE) – Baltimore City and the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council announced a pilot project labor agreement (PLA) today that will cover four upcoming water and waste treatment projects.
“I am so proud to announce we’ve reached a consensus on Baltimore City’s first-ever project labor agreement,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott, “This is great news for our workers, our union partners, DPW, and our entire city.”
Projects covered by the new PLA will include the Ashburton Pumping Station, the Quad Avenue Pumping Station, the Dundalk Pumping Station and the Back River Waste Treatment Plant.
“When it comes to projects that are as important as these,” said Scott, “we want the best-trained, most-skilled labor on the job — and that’s union labor. I want to thank all of the folks who have worked with us for so long to finally make this happen.”
“When it comes to projects that are as important as these, we want the best-trained, most-skilled labor on the job — and that’s union labor.”
– Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott
“When it comes to projects that are as important as these, we want the best-trained, most-skilled labor on the job — and that’s union labor.”
– Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott
PLAs standardize working conditions across trades, improve workforce coordination, streamline processes for resolving jurisdictional disputes and prohibit strikes and lockouts.
“Project labor agreements ensure projects are completed on-time, on-budget and with the highest of standards,” said Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council President Greg Akerman.
“Thanks to you,” said Akerman, addressing the mayor while speaking at a Monday press conference at Laborers’ Local 710 in Baltimore, “this city is undergoing a Renaissance. Baltimore is growing. And with this announcement today, you are continuing to make sure it grows in the right way — a way that prioritizes good local jobs with family-sustaining wages and with training opportunities that create careers.”
PLAs also advance collaboration with projects such as Raising the Bar Baltimore, a 6-week apprenticeship readiness program run by the Construction Trades Workforce Initiative (CTWI), a non-profit partner of the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council. The program offers participants an introduction to the unionized building trades and supports them as they apply to and enter local construction apprenticeship programs.
Kenyona Whitaker, an IBEW Local 24 1st-year apprentice who graduated from the Raising the Bar apprenticeship readiness program earlier this year, speaks at the Dec. 22 press conference.
“I am the success story of what it’s like to be hopeless, to not know where to go, to be crying in the middle of the night. And then to suddenly wake up and your life is changed because you have a job that you love.”
– Kenyona Whitaker, Raising the Bar graduate and IBEW Local 24 Apprentice
“I am the success story of what it’s like to be hopeless, to not know where to go, to be crying in the middle of the night. And then to suddenly wake up and your life is changed because you have a job that you love.”
– Kenyona Whitaker, Raising the Bar graduate and IBEW Local 24 Apprentice
“I get to wake up every single day and get to say: ‘Oh my goodness, I’m an electrician,” said Raising the Bar graduate and IBEW Local 24 Apprentice Kenyona Whitaker at the press conference. Noting that she is going to union trade school for free, she added: “I’m getting trained by the best.”
“I am the success story of what it’s like to be hopeless, to not know where to go, to be crying in the middle of the night,” said Whitaker. “And then to suddenly wake up and your life is changed because you have a job that you love.”
The new agreement will be finalized at the January 7th Board of Estimates meeting.