More than 40,000 members of building trade unions are professionally trained and available for work in Western Pennsylvania. They are used to help build projects ranging in all sizes and complexities throughout the area, whether they are commercial, industrial or residential in nature.

“It’s critical that a contractor has access to a workforce that is well trained and knowledgeable in all facets of construction,” said Clifford R. Rowe, Jr., President of the Master Builders Association of Western Pennsylvania (MBA) and Chief Executive Officer of P. J. Dick, Inc., the general contractor for 3 PNC Plaza and ot other new buildings in the Pittsburgh area. “When P. J. Dick employs union building trade workers, I know that we will have the best talent the industry has to offer.

“I know, for example, that we won’t have to worry about whether they have been properly trained in workplace safety, in the use of tools or equipment, or in reading blueprints,” Mr. Rowe said. “I know that training has already been provided. It’s standard operating procedure at all state certified union training centers and it is demonstrated every day on the job by apprentices and journeymen alike.”

The MBA, which represents the area’s leading commercial, institutional and industrial general contractors, has labor agreements with four building trade unions including Cements Masons Local Union #526, the Greater Pennsylvania Regional Council of Carpenters, the Laborers’ District Council of Western Pennsylvania and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local #66.

Its members along with contractors from the National Electrical Contractors Association and Mechanical Contractors Association, among others, and the help of all building trade unions have built such outstanding local facilities as PNC Park, Heinz Field, Alcoa’s Corporate Headquarters, Seagate Technologies Research

Center, the O’Reilly Theater, the University of Pittsburgh Biomedical Science Tower 3, Duquesne University’s Vickroy Hall, and Upper St. Clair High School, among many other great facilities.

In addition to Children’s Hospital, the North Shore Connector, 3 PNC Plaza and The Gates Center, union affiliated contractors and building trade workers are currently working on such

projects as the Allegheny River Bridge replacement ($190 million), the new Interstate 79/Parkway West ramps ($67 million), and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture ($36 million), among others.

The proliferation of union contractors and building trade workers is a tribute to the talents and skills of local workers, and to the confidence and commitment the area’s leading construction contractors have in the area’s workforce.