Forty members of Laborers Local #113 joined hundreds of fellow building trades workers at a rally to kick-off the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades multi-trade organizing campaign.

The rally was called to bring public attention to the organizing efforts of the twenty-one building trades unions that are working together to bring non-union workers into unions, in an attempt to improve wages, benefits and working conditions, industry-wide.

John Schmitt, Laborers' Local #113 Business Agent, is a member of the building trade's committee responsible for the multi-trade organizing effort, and helped organize the May rally at Zeidler Park.

According to Schmitt, it is crucial for the building trades to work together to organize.

"Organizing non-union workers is something we're going to have to do together, if we are going to maintain any position of strength at the bargaining table," he said.

In the 1950's, about 85% of all construction work was done union. In Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin, high percentages continued well into the 1960's and early 1970's, helping to contribute to wage and benefit packages that continue to out-pace the wages and benefits earned by non-represented workers.

The Milwaukee rally allowed area Building Trades to publicly demonstrate their commitment to getting those numbers back.

But, according to Schmitt, the real organizing is less public, more nuts-and-bolts and requires a long term commitment to the project by every trade involved.

Every Tuesday for the past six months, Schmitt and other representatives from the various trades, working out of a mobile trailer, have hit different areas of the city, leafletting job sites and talking to workers about the benefits of working union.

Each representative has attended COMET organizing classes and other classes such as unemployment compensation or OSHA safety, and is prepared to assist non-represented workers with these issues as well.