| WE GOT IT! |
 Local 429 Contractors Secure the Music City Convention Center Project
Local 429 members have reason to celebrate. Our signatory partners at Conti Electric in a joint effort with our newest signatory contractors, Marine Electric and Universal Electronics Inc, have been awarded the most desirable construction project in Middle Tennessee, the Music City Center. The $685 million dollar Convention Center will be the largest project in the downtown area in several years. Electrical contractors have had their eyes set on the Music City Center for the last 24 months. In February of 2010 members of Metro City Council approved the funding for the 1.2 million square ft building and began the bid process.
A large profile project of this magnitude will have everyone in the construction industries attention. Now IBEW members will have the ability to show this city, and the rest of the Middle Tennessee area, that we can complete any project in front of us and have the skills to install it right, the first time. This construction project will speak volumes of what our membership is truly capable of, including the showcase of state of the art green technologies, like the planned green roof and a solar panel installation the size of a football field. The Music City Center will set a standard in large-scale green building.
The Music City Center is planned as an architectural masterwork, capturing Nashville's style and complementing the city's unique character. It will be a world-class convention center and it will educate convention goers from all over the world about green buildings who will take those ideas home with them. This project is the soon to be standard of new construction in Nashville with plans to receive the highest LEED certification available in construction.
Conti Electric has estimated 325,000 man hours will be needed to complete the Music City Center in the 36 month time frame being handed down from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). In contrast, Local 429’s signatory partners turned in just under 580,000 man hours across our entire jurisdiction for the entire year of 2009. Estimates also show a peek of around 200 electricians needed, and an average of 100 to 150 electricians throughout the majority of the project. Marine Electric has already provided a few men to the project and will be looking to put Journeyman and Apprentice calls in as early as next week.
Local 429 would like to thank everyone that has made this opportunity a reality for our members and congratulate Conti Electric, Marine Electric, and UEI on their ongoing success, and thank them for being such gracious partners throughout this entire process.
Check out the video on Local 429's youtube channel to see the efforts of union members in action at: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibewlocal429
| | GOP Candidate Wamp Says Jobless Benefits Keep Tennesseans From Seeking Work. |
Saying he believes extended jobless pay is a disincentive for people to find jobs, Republican Zach Wamp told small-business executives today that “we want people out there scraping and clawing and looking for work and not just sitting back waiting.”
Wamp also charged that he believes a state income tax will be “on the table” for consideration next year if his rival for the GOP nomination for governor, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, is elected governor.
The Chattanooga congressman’s remarks were made in a teleconference call conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business for its members to hear from and question the candidates for governor. Reporters were allowed to listen in.
Wamp, Haslam and Democrat Mike McWherter pretty much offered their standard fare. Haslam was on the hour-long call only to deliver opening remarks and left his campaign’s policy director, Will Cromer, to respond to questions.
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a Republican candidate, tried repeatedly to call in as scheduled but both NFIB and Ramsey’s campaign said technical glitches kept him off the conference.
An NFIB member asked the candidates what they would do to combat fraud and abuse in Tennessee’s unemployment insurance programs.
Wamp, speaking off the floor of the U.S. House in Washington where he had gone for key congressional votes today, said small business, the NFIB and he as governor “must resist… any more mandates to small business to help the unemployed -- that we have continued to extend on a federal level, I think, unemployment compensation so long that there’s disincentives for people to actually re-enter the workforce or go out and look for a job.
“And this is creating a culture of dependence which we do not need. We want people out there scraping and clawing and looking for work and not just sitting back waiting. And so we’ve got to not allow any more mandates.”
Those remarks brought an immediate response from Mary Mancini, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, a public-interest and consumer-watchdog organization.
“If Mr. Wamp sincerely believes that the people of Tennessee are ‘sitting back waiting’ instead of looking for work then he clearly doesn't know the people of Tennessee…. Unemployment is 10 percent statewide and close to 20 percent in some counties. That's not because Tennesseans do not want to work. It's because there are no jobs available,” Mancini said.
Tennessee AFL-CIO Labor Council President Jerry Lee also reacted with dismay at Wamp's remarks about the jobless.
We’ve got people out there scraping and clawing and looking for jobs already and there are six applicants for every job. If it wasn’t for these extensions on unemployment, we’d have people not just losing their homes, their families and cars, their families would be going without food and they wouldn’t have gas to go to a job if they found one. The culture was created on Wall Street. Working people didn’t create this situation.
It's okay with these conservatives to extend the tax breaks for the wealthy and for weeks and weeks it was not okay to extend unemployment. I don’t know where the double standard comes from. The (jobless benefits) extension is federal dollars, it's not putting the burden on NFIB folks.
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