New legislation has been introduced in Congress designed to prohibit the presence of union professionals in the workplace whose sole purposes are to organize workers. “Imagine a scenario where an employee, without the knowledge of their colleagues and employer, is receiving compensation from a union while advocating for its interests within the workplace,” Utah Republican Representative Burgess said in introducing the legislation. “This deception not only breeds suspicion, but also erodes the very foundation of trust and transparency between employers and employees,” Burgess continued in a statement. The legislation is officially called the Start Applying Labor Transparency Act, or SALT Act. If passed it will effectively amend the historic Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. Employers have for decades complained about the practice of labor unions recruiting people who end up getting jobs in a given workplace and then begin to talk to fellow workers about joining a union. The process is commonly called “salting.” A person engaged in such practices, notes the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation, “may be overtly direct about their intentions or may use more subtle techniques.” Either way, the person’s role is to “gather information as a company insider and use it in the union organizing campaign.” According to the New York Times, successful labor organizing at such companies as Amazon and Starbucks was in part due to salting. “They typically begin by establishing themselves as loyal colleagues, and then quietly raise the topic of unionizing with co-workers," notes the paper. Last year the publication Labor Notes defended salting, arguing that “when organizing is a de facto illegal act, when workers are fired and victimized by the tens of thousands for exercising their paper right to unionize, salting is the completely justified response.” The SALT Act is now under review in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. By Garry Boulard
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Growing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Announces Big Facility Plans for Metro Phoenix4/15/2024 Already comprising a major presence in the southern Arizona semiconductor manufacturing world, the company Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing appears to be on the verge of adding yet one more factory to its Grand Canyon State footprint. The growing Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company, founded in 1987 and with annual revenues in excess of $35 billion, has in recent months been in the process of building a second manufacturing facility in metro Phoenix. Now, owing to federal funding in the neighborhood of $6.6 billion, the company has announced plans for yet a third facility. Construction of the new plant, remarked White House economic adviser Lael Brainard to reporters, will make Arizona a “hub for innovation,” while also “positioning it to be a world leader for decades.” The funding is coming via the federal Commerce Department and is part of the massive 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The new plant, to go up on the north side of Phoenix near the intersection of Dove Valley Road and 43rd Avenue, will help push TSMC into the upper stratosphere of chip manufacturing. Work on the second $40 billion TSMC Phoenix facility has not been without challenges. A dispute with the Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council, which was finally resolved last year, has been thought to delay the anticipated completion of the facility by at least a year from 2026 to 2027. Other reports have said the plant may not be done until early 2028. TSMC chairman Mark Liu has also pointed to a lack of skilled workers as an additional reason for the second factory’s delayed construction schedule. President Biden has hailed the new federal funding for the third TSMC plant, remaking in a statement from the White House: “These facilities will manufacture the most advanced chips in the world, putting us on track to produce 20% of the world’s leading-edge semiconductors by 2030.” By Garry Boulard Built in 2018, a one-story Starbucks on the growing northeast side of Albuquerque is being listed for as a net-leased single tenant opportunity with an asking price of around $2.1 million. Located at 6707 Jefferson Street NE, the structure is designated as a Class B building and sits on a less than one-acre site. The building, which is located one block from the Lovelace Medical Group facilities, was built during a time of significant Starbucks location growth in the Duke City. The Seattle-based corporation oversaw the construction of five new Albuquerque stores between 2017 and 2018, and today has roughly a dozen locations in the city. With the average Starbucks location measuring anywhere from 1,500 square feet to 2,000 square feet, the Jefferson Street store is on the large side at 2,025 square feet. The listing is being offered by realtor Renz & Renz, which specializes in investment and commercial brokerage and is based in Gilroy, California. Starbucks locations are regularly listed on the market as investment opportunities, with the famous coffee company maintaining operations, no matter who owns the building. Current listings are seeing a 10,600-square-foot Starbucks store for sale in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, with an asking price of $5.4 million; and a 2,400-square-foot Starbucks location in Santa Clarita, California at $3.8 million. By Garry Boulard The Phoenix metro area saw the most construction jobs nationally between February of 2023 and the second month of this year, notes a new industry analysis. According to the Associated General Contractors of America, the Phoenix area, which for the purposes of the study includes the cities of Mesa and Scottsdale, added 7,300 new jobs during that one-year period. Those numbers were far and away the strongest when compared with any other area or region of the country, although the Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas area saw 6,300 new jobs; followed by Baton Rouge with a construction employment gain of 4,400. Altogether, according to the analysis, construction employment was up in 227 metro areas out of a total of 358 studied. In a statement, Ken Simonson observed: “Construction employment has posted steady increases nationally and in most metro areas, but the industry will need even more workers to meet the demand for nearly every project type.” Continued Simonson, who is the AGC’s chief economist, “Construction spending increased more than 10% from February 2023 to February 2024, suggesting the industry will want to hire more workers in many markets.” Among the other big gainers: the Austin-Round Rock region, with 4,300 new jobs; and the swath between Riverside and San Bernadino, California, up by 4,300 jobs. Overall, Arizona saw a 4% increase in construction jobs in the last year, while Colorado was down marginally by 1%, and New Mexico saw a 4% gain. While the most significant job growth was seen in the states of the West, parts of the East coast and Midwest recorded rather startling construction employment losses. New York City was off by 9,800 jobs, followed by a 7,000-job loss in the metro area shared by Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Gotham City decline was partly explained earlier this year by the New York Times, noting that many of New York's most ambitious office building projects are “on hold for the foreseeable future,” resulting in the city potentially not seeing a “significant number of large office towers opening their doors until the 2030s.” Another Midwest construction employment downer was seen in Columbus, Ohio, with a decline of 3,000. Interrupting the East coast/Midwest decline pattern was Denver, which, combined with the cities of Aurora and Lakewood, recorded a loss of 3,100 jobs. By Garry Boulard Work may soon begin on the building of a new and greatly needed station for the Denver Police Department about half a dozen blocks from the Colorado State Capitol. The City of Denver has released a Request for Proposals for the new District 6 station. The current station is located at 1566 North Washington Street and was built in 1959, originally housing medical offices. The Denver Police Department moved into the structure in 1995. In recent years the building has been subject to criticism for not being up to date. The publication Westword said it might be the “crummiest” such police station structure in the city, noting its tight hallways and small offices, not to mention “holding cells that would almost look medieval if it weren’t for the white paint.” According to city documents, the station also lacks community space and is not Americans with Disabilities Act compliant. A city safety operation assessment report has additionally indicated that the structure is 145% over capacity. In November of 2017 voters in Denver approved a $937 million general obligation bond program called Elevate Denver. Of that amount, $77 million was set to target six police department facility projects, with $25 million going for the District 6 station work. Although city officials initially considered upgrading the building, it has since been deemed more cost effective to build an entirely new structure. Location for the new station is 1331 N. Cherokee Street, roughly just over a mile to the southwest of the Washington Street facility. The new station, to be built adjacent to the department’s main administration building and crime laboratory, will provide enhanced office and community space and, according to the city, will “address capacity, accessibility, and efficiency concerns.” The RFP submission deadline for the project is May 7. By Garry Boulard North Central New Mexico Economic Development District Gets Federal Funding for Facility Work4/11/2024 A group devoted to economic development in New Mexico has received funding out of Washington for the upgrading of an historic structure in residential Santa Fe. The North Central New Mexico Economic Development District is devoted to spurring community development projects in the northern counties of the state. The organization's headquarters are located at 644 Don Gaspar Avenue in a two-story, more than 75-year-old structure. The group, which some years ago had its offices on the campus of the College of Santa Fe, was formed in 1967. The Don Gaspar building, a former residence, has been used as office space for any number of businesses and organizations in recent decades. The structure is within the borders of the Don Gaspar Historic District. A grant coming from the federal Commerce Department totaling $1.3 million will now allow for the renovation and upgrading of the Don Gaspar Avenue structure. In announcing the funding, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo characterized the grant as an investment spurring the efforts of the Development District in "supporting economic opportunity and growth for the future." In a statement, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham predicted that the new Don Gaspar offices for the Development District will prove a "beacon of progress, offering vital resources to local governments, fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and prosperity across our communities." By Garry Boulard In a move designed to counteract local zoning laws that may be seen as too restrictive, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown has introduced a bill making it easier for faith-based groups to build housing. The legislation, called the Yes, In God's Back Yard Act, aims at reducing what Brown is calling "barriers to housing." "Housing is too expensive and too hard to find in almost every community in America," said Brown, who is also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. The challenges are equally apparent for religious groups who want to build housing, even when it’s on land they already own: "By helping these institutions cut through red tape, we can lower the costs of housing and expand options in Ohio and around the country," Brown remarked. The acronym for Brown's legislation, YIGBY, is an obvious reference to the ongoing Not In My Back Yard movement, otherwise known as NIMBY, which has seen opposition to any number of new housing projects in communities across the country. If approved, the legislation would provide assistance to both faith-based groups as well as institutions of higher learning that want to use land they own for housing development. The bill would also make available to local governments assistance to "learn best practices and how they can facilitate the production of affordable rental housing" on privately owned land. An additional feature of the legislature calls for the establishment of challenge grants for communities, removing barriers to the building of affordable housing. Brown's proposal has received support from a diverse array of groups including the United Church of Christ, National Association of Evangelicals, the National Housing Law Project, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, among others. The legislation is currently under review in the Banking Committee. It is not known when it will move to the full Senate. By Garry Boulard The next step in the construction of a hyperscale data center in northeast El Paso has been taken with the final purchase of the site where it will be built. The company Meta Platforms, Incorporated indicated late last year that it was buying just a little over 1,000 vacant acres off Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue to build what will be a five-phase campus. Based in Menlo Park, California, Meta Platforms was formerly called Facebook, and logged revenues last year of nearly $135 billion. Always on the search for new data center property, Meta put down $8.5 million to buy the City of El Paso-owned land, while announcing that it expected to spend upwards of $2.8 billion on facility expansion and upgrade work between now and the year 2050. Meta Platforms, which also operates the hugely popular Instagram and WhatsApp services, has not released a construction schedule for the new center and, according to a sales contract, may take up to five years to develop the property. With just under two dozen data centers across the globe, Meta Platforms in 2022 announced plans to build a new $800 million facility in Temple, Texas, some 600 miles to the east of El Paso. That Temple project was temporarily put on hold while the company recalibrated its design, a design geared to support Artificial Intelligence systems. Work re-started on the Temple facility around six months ago. The company also announced earlier this year that it is building a 700,000-square-foot facility in Jeffersonville, Indiana, along with a structure of similar dimensions in Rosemont, Indiana. As part of its agreement with the City of El Paso, Meta Platforms may be eligible for up to a total of $110 million over time in tax rebates. By Garry Boulard Members of the El Paso City Council may decide this week whether to approve a new site for the construction of a multi-purpose center. Approved by voters nearly 12 years ago as part of a sweeping $473 million Quality of Life bond, the project was derailed when city officials announced that the facility would be built in the historic downtown neighborhood of Duranguito. Legal challenges over a span of nearly eight years opposing that site and emphasizing the cultural importance of the largely Hispanic section of the city finally prompted the City of El Paso to announce it was actively looking for another place to build the structure. In February, the city council announced it was considering selecting a 13-acre site near the city's old Union Depot station, which is located at 700 W. San Francisco Avenue. A rendering presented to the city council has shown an oblong-shaped site for the arena, with both extensive retail and open space. The site is currently home to a bus maintenance facility requiring an environmental cleanup that would include soil excavation and the removal of underground storage tanks. That process, according to the publication El Paso Inc., could cost anywhere from $600,000 to $2.7 million: "The cost of the cleanup would be added to the project total." According to city documents, if the Union Depot site is selected, the project will embrace "multi-modal transit, and encourage mass transit as a main point of access for what is imagined to be a pedestrian-oriented development." By Garry Boulard In the wake of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, a growing number of Americans are expressing concerns about the stability of bridges both in their communities and across the country, according to a just-released survey. Polling more than 1,800 people, the survey site YouGov found that a sizable 37% defined the nature of bridges nationally as either bad or terrible, compared to only 17% who rated such structures as either good or great. The numbers were a little bit less alarming when respondents were asked to grade bridge infrastructure in their own communities, perhaps suggesting that a personal familiarity with certain structure tempered the answers. In this category, 25% rated their local bridges as either bad or terrible, while 36% regarded such structures as either good or great. According to a narrative attached to the YouGov survey, residents of suburban areas were the “least likely to see problems with their community’s infrastructure,” with only 20% characterizing local bridges as bad or terrible. A larger 27% of urban residents, however, thought their local bridges were in bad shape. Indicative of the more common truck and long-distance vehicle use in rural areas, some 43% of residents in those areas judged their bridge infrastructure as bad or terrible. The main spans of the Key Bridge in Baltimore swiftly broke and fell into the waters of the Patapsco River after being rammed by a Singapore-registered container ship on the afternoon of March 27. At least six workers, part of a pothole patching crew on the bridge, fell into the river as a result of the crash and died. While not a common occurrence, the last year has seen two significant bridge failures in the U.S.: the collapse of the northbound lanes of an Interstate 95 highway overpass in Philadelphia last June; and the collapse of a rail bridge crossing the Yellowstone River near Columbus, Montana, also in June. In a greatly publicized survey conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2021 it was noted that some 42% out of a total of 617,000 bridges in the U.S. were at least 50 years old, with 7.5% classified as being structurally deficient. Perhaps not surprisingly, 47% of respondents to the YouGov survey said they were in favor of increasing federal spending for bridge and road projects, with 26% wanting to keep funding levels the same, and only 5% expressing opposition. By Garry Boulard |
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