What is TAUC?

January 23 2007

If you’ve read past editions of The Construction User magazine, or attended the NEA’s 37th Annual Meeting this past March in Florida, you will have heard or read that NEA, The Association of Union Constructors transformed into The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC) as of January 1, 2007.



So what is TAUC? TAUC is an association of concerned contractors with a vision of enhancing and advancing the union construction industry! Made up of the current NEA regular contractor members, NEA Local Employer Organizations (LEOs), NEA affiliate members (vendors to the construction industry), and the current signatory contractors to the National Maintenance Agreements (NMAs). The association will represent close to 3,000 union contractors ranging in size and from locations spread out across the country.

Through this association, we will be working together to educate and provide an action driven association that will promote labor-management cooperation, safety and health of our members employees, and collaboration with industry partners, such as the owners, users of union construction labor, and the unions themselves.

At the end of July of 2006 we sent out an electronic survey to all current NMA signatory contractors, requesting their feedback on potential services offered by this new association, TAUC. The response rate was through the roof, and I’d like to spend some time highlighting some of the results we received.

The survey included twelve questions, the first eleven of which asked the NMA signatory contractors the level of usefulness they found in the various services we suggested, with the twelfth question being a catch all where we asked for any other input they had on potential products and services that weren’t previously mentioned.

The results, based on the feedback we received, ranks the eleven potential services of TAUC like this:

1. Online Training

2. 1-800 Help Desk

3. (TIE) Work Opportunity Search Tool/Contractor Qualification Program

5. Industry Studies

6. Support and Reference Materials

7. Hands On Training

8. Legislative Affairs

9. Contractor Support Groups

10. Discount Program

11. Conferences

We will be finalizing the types of products and services we’ll be offering under TAUC in the near future, and will publicize them accordingly on our new website www.tauc.org.

With this new association we have a unique opportunity as an all union contractor association, to effectuate positive change in the union construction industry by working together on specific issues and concerns we can make a difference on the national level.



In conclusion, our new association has a wonderful foundation with what the NEA was able to accomplish over the past 30+ years, and I for one am looking forward to the new era that has already begun as of January 1, 2007 with the realization of The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC).