NM Building Trades Wellness Coalition on Mental Health in the Trades

Bill McCamley, Director of the New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss a crisis in the construction industry that is taking far more lives than conventional workplace accidents.

According to McCamley, in the most recent year with available data, roughly 1,000 construction workers died from workplace accidents, while approximately 5,000 died by suicide and 11,000 died from drug overdose, primarily fentanyl. That means construction workers are approximately 16 times more likely to die from suicide or overdose than from a fall, an electrocution or a vehicle accident on the job.

McCamley, who has personal experience with a mental health crisis and shared his story openly on the podcast, described the wellness coalition model being built in New Mexico as a framework that he believes every building trades council in the country should adopt. He made the case that contractors have a direct financial stake in getting this right, that peer support is the most effective tool available for reaching workers and that the stigma around men asking for help is the single biggest obstacle standing between workers and the resources that could save their lives.

If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988, free and anonymous, 24 hours a day.

CONTENT NOTE: TODAY'S EPISODE CONTAINS FRANK DISCUSSIONS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

• McCamley cited figures from the most recent year of available data showing that approximately 5,000 construction workers died by suicide and approximately 11,000 died from overdose in the same year that roughly 1,000 died from workplace accidents. That makes suicide and overdose deaths collectively about 16 times more likely to claim a construction worker's life than a conventional workplace injury. He argued that the labor movement applies intensive training and toolbox talks to fall prevention while largely failing to apply the same seriousness to the issues causing far more deaths.
• The New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition, formed in March 2026, is modeled on the Massachusetts Recovery Council and the St. Louis Wellness Coalition. It is focused on three core outcomes: increased awareness through coordinated marketing across all trades rather than each Local working independently, cross-trade sharing of best practices including the Sheet Metal Workers' SMART MAP program, the Elevator Constructors' Mental Health First Aid classes and the Ironworkers' proposed Wage Replacement Fund for members entering recovery, and a unified front with contractors who McCamley said receive roughly a 50-to-1 return on investment for every dollar spent on mental health and substance use programs.
• McCamley described the cultural barrier among men in the trades as the root of the problem, arguing that the message promoted by online figures that real men do not get depressed or ask for help is actively contributing to worker deaths. He pointed to public figures who have spoken openly about depression and mental health struggles as examples of the kind of male permission-giving that is most effective at reaching workers. Further, peer support programs – where workers with lived experience speak directly to their colleagues on job sites – are the most powerful tool available for breaking through that stigma, he added.

An Unconventional Path to a Critical Role

Bill McCamley spent more than 20 years in New Mexico politics, serving as a county commissioner, state representative and Secretary of Labor under a pro-labor governor. He earned a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and spent years promoting apprenticeship programs, prevailing wage protections and worker safety standards. Then COVID hit.

As New Mexico's Secretary of Labor, McCamley oversaw the state's unemployment system at a time when it grew from fewer than 10,000 recipients to more than 150,000 in a matter of months. The system, McCamley said, was designed in 1937 for an economy that no longer exists and was completely unprepared for either the volume or the complexity of the filers. Workers juggling multiple jobs, gig-economy positions, and contract work created complications that the system was not built to handle. He was on local television explaining the delays every other week, absorbing public anger that had nowhere else to go. He received serious threats. When someone obtained his home address and his mother's address, he left New Mexico for Texas.

In January 2021, McCamley said he experienced a mental health crisis that brought him to the edge of ending his life. He shared his experience openly on the podcast, describing the weight of receiving thousands of emails from people in desperate circumstances, combined with the feeling that no matter how hard he worked, it would never be enough. The next morning, he called his supervisor in the governor's office and asked for help. She connected him with a first responder therapist through a contact in the firefighters' union. He credits that conversation and the help that followed with being the reason he is alive and doing the work he does today.

He spent the next several years working through his own recovery, eventually writing a book called, which includes a chapter on men and mental health that he said took him three days just to begin. A conversation with the president of the New Mexico Building Trades Council about two apprentices who had died by suicide in the previous year led directly to the work he is doing now.

The Numbers Behind the Crisis

McCamley opened the second half of the conversation with the data that frames the coalition’s objectives. In the most recent year with available numbers, roughly 1,000 construction workers died from workplace accidents. Falls, vehicle incidents and electrocutions account for the bulk of those deaths and represent the categories the industry focuses on most during OSHA training, toolbox talks and job site safety protocols. Those efforts have had a positive impact.

In the same year, approximately 5,000 construction workers died by suicide. Approximately 11,000 died from drug overdose, primarily opioids and fentanyl. Combined, that is about 16 times as many deaths as conventional workplace accidents. McCamley said if the industry is not treating mental health and substance use with the same intensity it brings to fall prevention, it is not addressing the things that are actually claiming the most lives.

He also noted that overdose deaths in the construction industry have come down in recent years, from a peak of around 16,000 to 17,000 to the current figure of roughly 11,000. He attributed that improvement to naloxone becoming more widely available on job sites, reduced overprescribing of opioids and growing willingness among workers to seek help. Deaths by suicide, however, went up last year. McCamley pointed to social isolation, excessive screen time among younger workers and the rapid expansion of legal sports gambling as contributing factors, noting that gambling addiction carries one of the highest risks of suicide of any addiction.

The Wellness Coalition Model

The New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition was formed in March 2026. McCamley said it is built on two existing models: the Massachusetts Recovery Council, which has been operating since around 2021, and the St. Louis Wellness Coalition. He visited both organizations in recent months to learn how they operate before building the New Mexico structure.

The core idea is that each building trade’s Local has its own national programs and resources, but there is very little coordination between Locals at the state or regional level. The result is redundant effort, inconsistent resource availability and missed opportunities to share what is working. The coalition brings Local Unions together to address those gaps in three specific ways.

The first is marketing and awareness. When all trades coordinate on messaging, job-site posters, joint websites and community outreach, these efforts become far more effective and far less burdensome for any individual Local to sustain.

The second is sharing best practices across trades. McCamley highlighted several programs he described as worth replicating. The Sheet Metal Workers' SMART MAP program provides regional training for business managers and agents on addiction, naloxone use, emotional recognition and suicide awareness, followed by two-day peer support trainings at the Local level. McCamley described it as one of the strongest national programs in the labor movement on this issue. The Elevator Constructors have incorporated mental health and suicide awareness into their safety manual and operate a Mental Health First Aid class that travels nationally. The Ironworkers are developing a program that would allow health and safety fund dollars to provide wage replacement for members who need to enter a 30-day recovery program, removing the financial barrier that keeps many workers from seeking that level of care. The UA's VitalCog program, which McCamley is certified to teach, has been delivered to Insulators Union, Iron Workers Union and LIUNA apprentices in addition to UA members.

The third benefit is the ability to engage contractors as a unified front. McCamley said every dollar a contractor invests in mental health and substance use programs returns roughly $50 to the bottom line through reduced absenteeism, lower turnover, less time spent training replacement workers and higher on-site productivity. Making that case as a coalition rather than as individual Local Unions carries more weight with contractors and creates the possibility of jobsite-wide stand-down events where workers with lived experience tell their stories directly to crews.

Why Peer Support Works

McCamley returned repeatedly to one theme: construction workers are far more likely to talk to a coworker standing next to them on a job site than to call a professional helpline or walk into a therapist's office. That makes peer support programs the most effective tool available for reaching construction workers before a crisis becomes fatal.

He described the format he uses in his own talks, including sharing his personal story, as a deliberate form of male permission-giving. When a man who has carried himself in traditionally masculine ways stands up in front of a crew and says, “This happened to me, and I got help,” it signals to every worker in that room that getting help is something men do. He cited athletes and other public figures who have spoken openly about depression and mental health struggles as examples of the visibility that makes that message land for workers who might not respond to anything else.

He was equally direct about the messaging promoted by certain online figures, which he said tells men that real men do not get depressed and that discomfort should be conquered through willpower rather than addressed through support. McCamley said that message is contributing to worker deaths by suicide and substance misuse, and that one of the most important things the wellness coalition can do is put a different voice in front of workers before that message takes hold.

A Call to Every Building Trades Council

McCamley closed with a direct invitation to building trades councils across the country. The wellness coalition model works in any state. The problems are the same everywhere, the workers are the same, and the solutions are the same. He encouraged anyone in a building trades council to reach out to him through nmbtwellness.org, to David Scott with the Elevator Constructors Local 3 in St. Louis or to Danny McNulty with the Massachusetts Recovery Council in Boston.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free, anonymous and available 24 hours a day. If your Local has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), that number is available on posters in union halls and is there specifically for situations like this, not only for you but for the worker standing next to you who may need it.

More information on the New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition is available at nmbtwellness.org.

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