A View From Labor's Perspective

It's a relief to see a strong effort being made in America to bring labor and management together as a team rather than as adversaries. In the South Bay Area, this kind of cooperation has been manifest for years, embodied in the form of the South Bay Piping Industry Labor Management Trust.

The Trust was officially established in 1990, but several years before that we had been meeting informally to discuss issues of importance to our industry. Both labor and management realize that our worth lies in the superior quality provided by our union workers and contractors.

Our focus is on training and education. I cannot emphasize this enough to our customers and the community as a whole.

Labor doesn't always see eye-to-eye with management, but we respect one another's right to their opinion. By bringing divergent points of view to the table, everyone benefits. We learn about business through our contractors' eyes, and they get a look at things from our perspective.

The centerpiece of our cooperative efforts is the Pipe Trades Training Center, which is funded by union members and the contractors who employ them. Apprentice- and journey-level classes prepare our members to operate in a highly competitive construction and service market and meet the ever-advancing demands of their high-tech industry.

Such training is the key to our success. If our country is to remain competitive, it must ensure that its work force is highly trained and skilled. To guarantee this level of excellence, labor and management must work together. As the Constitution of the United Association, our parent union, states: "Labor IS capital and is the ONLY capital with the power to create capital. Labor is the interest underlying all other interests."

We believe the Labor Management Trust has helped our contractors to understand the value of their union plumbers and steamfitters.

More than a decade ago, Robert Reich, then a professor, later to become U.S. Labor Secretary, wrote: "America's place in the evolving economy will increasingly depend on its workers' skills, vigor, initiative and capacity for collaboration and adaptation. Our future wealth lies with our human capital."

As does Secretary Reich, the South Bay Piping Industry Labor Management Trust believes its future lies with our "human capital." We've learned firsthand that labor and management can take great strides together. This type of cooperative venture can work. It is working here in the South Bay, and it can work for America.

By Loyd Williams, Business Manager of Local #393, 1992-2003.