Chris Carlough, director of wellness and mental health support for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, and Ben Cort, CEO of Union EAP, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast as part of the Labor 132 series presented by the National Labor Office of Blue Cross Blue Shield. The pair discussed the evolution of mental health support in the building trades and why many employee assistance programs were consistently failing union members when they needed help most.
Carlough described more than a decade of mental health education work with SMART that grew from a small component of business rep training into thousands of peer trainings and direct member engagements annually. He also explained how a systematic audit of existing EAPs revealed a fundamental gap: programs that marketed mental health services but did not actually deliver them.
Cort described how Union EAP was built specifically to fill that gap by providing licensed therapists who answer the phone directly and understand the culture of union construction work. Carlough claims the result has been utilization rates between 300 percent and 1,000 percent higher than those of previous EAP providers used by local unions.
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.
Chris Carlough has been in the labor movement for more than 40 years, spending the bulk of that time with the Sheet Metal Workers Union as an organizer and then as education director. About 14 to 15 years ago, mental health started appearing as a topic inside SMART's training programs — a segment on anxiety, a discussion of substance use disorder and some guidance for business reps on how to help members in crisis. Every time that segment ran, people came back and said they needed more training.
More is what they got. Over the following decade, mental health education became peer training. Peer training then multiplied. The union began going directly into Local Union halls and job sites, doing education on everything from recognizing anxiety and depression to using naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses. By the time Carlough was appointed as SMART's first-ever director of wellness and mental health support — a position created by the incoming general president and his leadership team who recognized the scope of the work had outgrown its slot inside a broader education role — the program was touching thousands of members, elected officials and appointed staff annually. The Sheet Metal Occupational Health Institute Trust, known as SMOHIT, now serves as the vehicle for much of that peer and mental health training. SMART Local Unions can sign up for peer training programs directly through smohit.org.
About 10 years ago, Carlough met Ben Cort at a conference of the Labor Assistance Professionals organization, a long-running group of members and advocates dedicated to helping workers in the trades access support. Cort was brought in as a subject matter expert. He has stayed for a decade.
The harder realization that emerged from years of education work was that the union was doing the work of reducing stigma, training peers and telling members that help was available. But the help was often not what it claimed to be.
Carlough and Cort conducted an audit of the employee assistance programs being used by SMART locals across the country. What they found was troubling. Programs that marketed comprehensive mental health services frequently fell apart when presented with a complex case. In one instance, an EAP told a caller seeking help for a member navigating a situation involving mental health needs and a child abuse element. The member was told, “We don't do mental health. Not in that way.”
Cort described the structural problem from the perspective of the person in crisis. Navigating insurance to see a primary care physician is already complicated under normal conditions. Now make the issue psychiatric. Add in the time pressure of a crisis. Add in the stigma that keeps construction workers from asking for help in the first place. Ask that person to navigate the full complexity of the mental health system in that moment. The system, as it existed, was not designed for what members actually needed.
Union EAP was built to solve that. The premise is simple: when a union member in crisis picks up the phone, a licensed therapist answers. Not a menu system. Not a callback queue. A person. Someone who understands construction culture and the specific stressors that union workers carry, including the physical demands, the job site culture, the financial pressure of making pension credits and the isolation that comes with traveling work. Carlough said member locals using Union EAP are seeing utilization 300 percent to 1,000 percent higher than their previous EAP providers.
Carlough described a training exercise that opens every peer training session. Participants stand on cards placed around the floor, each labeled with a different emotion. The facilitator asks everyone to go stand on the card that best describes how they felt the night before, knowing they were coming to a two-day mental health training. Big tough construction workers, in his words, go stand on frustrated, sad, scared and anxious. And then they talk about it. That conversation, he said, is the beginning of something the industry has long needed.
He addressed whether younger workers entering the trades are put off by conversations about mental health. His experience is the opposite. The 18- to 24-year-old demographic has been living with mental health awareness in ways that older generations did not, and they have also seen the consequences up close, Carlough said. The suicide rate among that age group has been rising sharply in recent years. When young apprentices walk into a local and see the union taking mental health seriously, Carlough said they tend to view it as evidence that their union cares about them, not as a warning sign about the job.
Cort has been in recovery for 30 years, having gotten sober at 18. He is open in professional settings about his own experiences with depression and suicidal ideation, and said that openness matters in certain conversations. There are people who will only accept help from someone who has been where they are. His personal history opens those doors.
He was equally clear that lived experience is not a prerequisite for helping someone in crisis. What matters is empathy, genuine understanding, proper training and walking in with love and respect for the person in front of you. The knowledge that someone else has felt the same darkness can be profoundly connecting. So can a person who has simply learned to show up with real presence and care, he said.
His message to anyone listening who is struggling was to reach out and keep reaching out until you find someone who can help. The help exists. Sometimes finding it requires persistence. Union EAP was built to make that persistence unnecessary.
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. For peer training resources for SMART locals, visit smohit.org. For more information on Union EAP, visit unioneap.com.
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