By Mike Matejka
As the hot summer days descend upon us, let’s not forget the construction worker out there fixing our roads, bridges and water systems.
As a Laborers 362 member, there is a lot about construction work that many people don’t understand. It is hot, exhausting and often physically demanding work.
Laborers 362 members make $31 an hour, plus benefits, which sounds like an outstanding wage – and it is. What most people don’t realize is how seasonal and fluctuating the work is.
Our average Bloomington Laborer worked about one thousand hours last year, which is an annual salary of $31,000. That doesn’t put one in the upper income range. With all the rain we’ve had these past two months, when a job is rained out, there is no pay. Thus a wise Laborer learns how to budget, because bad weather can leave you sitting home.
There are no paid vacations or holidays for Laborers. Holidays are days off, but they are days off without pay.
One reason the wage is $31 an hour is to keep workers coming back. That dollar amount is very attractive, but with it comes fluctuating work hours. Occasionally an outstanding job – a pipeline, a windfarm, a highway interchange or a major building – will come along, but usually workers move job to job, with many of those jobs lasting only a few days.
Finally, Laborers do not have seniority. Job calls are on rotation – latest one in goes to the bottom of the list. If you have taken advantage of the free union and management funded training programs, you can jump the list because of your skills. Or a contractor can call agood worker from within the list. But otherwise, you and your fellow workers are in rotation.
What are the rewards for working construction? Besides the good pay and benefits, there is an intrinsic satisfaction in completing a project. Any construction worker will drive by a bridge or building and let their family know, “I helped build that.” Every day is different, depending on the weather and the challenges, so new problems have to be solved, often in quite ingenious ways. That creates satisfaction for a job well done.
If your job has you in an air-conditioned office and you scramble to your car at day’s end to avoid the heat, remember the Laborer you’ll pass on the way home. It’s a different life, but one with its own rewards.
Mike Matejka is the Governmental Affairs director for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, covering 11,000 union Laborers in northern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He lives in Bloomington with his wife and daughter and their two dogs. He served on the Bloomington City Council for 18 years, is a past president of the McLean County Historical Society and Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.
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