Union members pay off $10 million in training center construction debt

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Iron Workers Local 512

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Barry Davies

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Barry Davies, Business Manager and Financial Secretary/Treasurer of Ironworkers Local 512, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and discussed how an hourly contribution by members paid off $10 million in debt taken out to construct several training centers.

With a jurisdiction that covers Minnesota, North Dakota and a third of Wisconsin, Local 512 represents 1,450 journeymen, 200 apprentices and 600 retirees.

Up until 2000, the JATC performed all of its training at local community colleges. In 2000, construction was completed on a training center in St. Paul, Minn. A second training center in Hermantown, Minn. opened in 2008 and a $3 million expansion occurred at the St. Paul facility in 2015. Two years ago, the JATC opened a training center in Bismarck, N.D. Davies then explained how a $1 per hour contribution from members’ hourly wages paid off all the construction debt by the fall of 2021.

He also spoke about changes to the Local’s retirement plan, which went from being 67 percent funded in 2009 to 99.6 percent funded this year. In order to improve the plan’s fiscal health, union leaders raised the retirement age, increased the penalty for early retirement and took $2 off the Defined Contribution Fund and added it to the Pension Benefit Fund.

Listen to the entire episode to learn more about these topics.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

Union members pay off $10 million in training center construction debt

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