This week we are thrilled to be joined by Mark Erlich. Mark retired as Executive Secretary-Treasurer (EST) of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters (NERCC) in 2017 and is now a fellow at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program. As a member of Carpenters Local 40 since 1975, he worked at his craft as an apprentice, journeyman, foreman, and superintendent. He continues to serve as a member on the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals, MassINC board, and the Federal Reserve Advisory Council.

The conversation was interesting throughout and covered a lot of topics including, the great recession (depression?) of 2008, the current perceived labor shortage, how labor unions function as a key to climbing out of poverty and into the middle class, the seeming rise of labor strikes (“striketober”), the surprising trend in NYC towards open shop labor on large projects, thresholds or tipping points that may trigger union involvement in a project, advantages of using union labor (skilled tradesman, safety, quality, schedule), the growth of misclassifying people who are employees as independent contractors. Finally, we get Marks take on modular construction and his skepticism of tech evangelists who avow to ‘disrupt’ the industry (i.e. Katerra) and Mark’s impression of the positive changing dynamics of the Union Workforce.

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