Loading...Competing in Idaho – CW/CE Program on ElectricTV
Hi. Welcome back to ElectricTV.net. Thanks for your time today. We’re in Boise, Idaho, where the city’s become synonymous with winning, thanks in large part to the Boise State Broncos and their signature blue turf. But another winning team has burst onto the scene recently – the NECA/IBEW team. They’re beating their competition in the electrical construction industry thanks to new, innovative ways of bidding work.
But this success hasn’t happened overnight. For years it was tough sledding for the union team of NECA contractors and their IBEW craft professionals to win work.
Idaho is one of 18 states without a prevailing wage law, and as such, the market sets the price for what an hour of work should cost.
Deric Stith – Vice President of Construction, Tri-State Electric
“Our economy in Boise is strictly cost-driven. The relationships have thinned out with general contractors over the last three years through the recession, and it’s turned to if you’re 20 dollars high, it’s not your job.”
Despite the many advantages that come with hiring the best electrical team money can buy – training, safety, productivity, professionalism, pride, you name it – historically, customers and owners were choosing based on price alone and getting what they paid for. A dangerous situation, electrically speaking.
This left local union contractors at an impasse of what to do: trying to find ways to win work, keep customers happy and turn a profit or going out of business.
Max Stith – President/Owner, Tri-State Electric
“The market here in Boise is pretty tough, from a standpoint that the economy is down, there’s not a lot of work, private money is not available.”
Brad Hoots – Vice President of Estimating, Enterprise Electric
“Right now in Treasure Valley, it’s very competitive with union and non-union contractors.”
Spencer McLean – Account Executive, Tri-State Electric
“The Boise market’s tough, it’s tight. You’ve got to be smarter, you’ve got to be able to think on your toes and look around the corner before you before you hit that corner.”
So, Tri-State Electric, Enterprise Electric and others implemented a new program designed to do put them on a path to recovery, to profitability – centered upon two new classifications of workers and wage-rates, designed by their local labor partners, IBEW Local 291, to address the area’s construction climate.
Aaron White – Business Manager, IBEW Local 291
“The CW/CE Program is some new classifications that we haven’t experienced in the past.”
“A CW is an apprentice that maybe is enrolled in a state school, working for a non-union contractor who is interested in becoming IBEW. We can register them, make application for the JATC, our apprenticeship program, and at the same time have them work for a union contractor.”
“And then a CE would be, similarly, a Journeyman electrician who has been working non-union.”
Brad Hoots – Vice President of Estimating, Enterprise Electric
“If I take a CE and a CW and I mix that wage in, that will allow that share of labor to really drop. We can drop it probably 30 percent overall and be aggressive.”
Deric Stith – Vice President of Construction, Tri-State Electric
“CW/CE Program has helped us. I think we’d be in a much worse place than we are right now.”
Spencer McLean – Account Executive, Tri-State Electric
“Our goal is to sell quality, not bottom-line price. But the CW/CE Program helps us get a little closer where we can compete better.”
Deric Stith – Vice President of Construction, Tri-State Electric
“It means jobs. I’d probably have to say that out of the work we have right now, 75 percent of our backlog and everything, the projects that we have right now, we wouldn’t have without the CW/CE Program.”
Essentially, by utilizing the already superior IBEW craft professionals and hiring the best non-union electricians away from non-union companies, their competition is left with very little experienced, available man-power.
Spencer McLean – Account Executive, Tri-State Electric
“It’s making it more difficult for the non-union contractors to hold on to their key employees because we’re able to bring them in here. We’re able to give them some benefits, we’re able to give them some hope that they might retire one day. We’re able to bring them in and show them that there’s another side of the coin, just like I saw that there was another side of the coin when I came over to Tri-State.”
Josh Mangum – Electrician, IBEW Local 291 (Former CE)
“I’m not a huge fan of doing things twice. I’m not billed as the fasted guy on the job, but I really like to put out a quality product and we’re not spending all of our time fixing things. With people that I teach, I try to bring that home. Rather than being the guy that’s running the whole time, to be the guys that does it right the first time and gives a good union product.”
Brad Hoots – Vice President of Estimating, Enterprise Electric
“What we have seen that it’s really done is that it has created more work. And looking abck at our numbers, our journeymen and IBEW members, we have increased that in the past year, probably by 25 percent. So we have more IBEW electricians working to help support the CE/CWs. And that increases our bottom-line.”
Clay Freinwald – Electrician, IBEW Local 291 (Former Non-union Electrician, now CW)
“We’ve got some young kids that are coming through that actually care about what they’re doing, and they want to improve, and do the best at what they do.”
Max Stith – President/Owner, Tri-State Electric
“The last three years we’ve increased sales probably 20-30 percent per year. We’re a mid-sized contractor, a small contractor from the national standpoint, but we’ve gone from 50-60 employees to right now we’re over 100 employees at the current time.”
The owners in Boise and the surrounding areas, those who are building and deciding whom to hire to complete their electrical work have taken note of this new business approach by the NECA/IBEW team, to their benefit, and the benefit of Boise citizens at large. They’re getting a superior product for a more competitive price. Sounds like a win-win all around.
It’s a new day in the electrical construction industry, and the NECA/IBEW team in Idaho is doing what it takes, in an especially hard hit area, to remain the right choice.
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