The "Temporary Workers Deserve a Permanent Voice at Work" campaign waged by the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, since April 2000 has led to a host of legal battles in several states for Labor Ready, the country's largest employer of temporary workers in the construction trades. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries (LI) ordered the company to pay $734,000 for underpaid premiums, interest, and late penalties for the years 1998 and 1999. Questions over Labor Ready's wage and hour policies also loom.
Washington, D.C., police last December charged Virginia contractor Walter Thomas Godbey with second-degree murder in the death of AOL executive Douglas Small. Small had hired Godbey to remodel his Washington home months earlier, the Washington Post reported. According to a series of articles by various Post staff writers, police stated that the two met at Small's home on the morning of November 6, 2001, to discuss Small's complaints with Godbey's work on the renovation of his home.
The International Code Council member organizations -- BOCA, ICBO, and SBCCI -- are working to develop a merger plan to present for a vote at their Joint Conference in the fall of 2002. "We can only proceed at a pace that will result in the strongest possible single organization," says Jon S. Traw, CEO of ICBO. "A projected implementation date in January 2003 is still realistic."
Home improvement is one of the top sources for consumer complaints. That's according to 70% of consumer protection agencies that responded to a survey from the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators (NACAA) and the Consumer Federation of America. "It's always in the top three," NACAA executive director Wendy Weinberg says, referring to the home remodeling industry.
The NAHB's Executive Committee last November approved an agreement to sell the Remodelers' Show to Washington, D.C.-based Hanley-Wood, LLC, REMODELING magazine's publisher. Under terms of the agreement, Hanley-Wood has assumed management of the industry's largest trade show and will partner with the NAHB in a 45-year agreement that makes the NAHB and its Remodelors Council the official sponsors of the event. "This is a great opportunity to leverage the strengths of both organizations and greatly expand the Remodelers' Show," says NAHB president Bruce Smith.
