Illinois Business Journal Illinois Business Journal
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Steel price hikes hammer commercial construction

Missouri-based K&R Log & Lumber Co. delivers structural steel for beams at the new High Mount Elementary School in Swansea. General contractors such as Holland Construction Services Inc. say soaring steel prices are making it tough to bid and construct commercial projects.		 By LORRAINE SENCI

   At the end of 2003, his vendors forewarned Doug Von Alst that steel prices could climb 8 percent during the first quarter of 2004. But by March 2004, his prices were running 80 percent to 100 percent higher than what he was originally quoted, and product availability and delivery had become as unpredictable as the prices.
   "A letter came saying that quotes were no longer being honored," said Von Alst, who is vice president [continue]

 Crews stand idle as state diverts
  30 percent of user fee dollars

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. By VICKI BENNINGTON

   In the wake of an additional $400 million in state road fund diversions and the end of Illinois FIRST dollars, smaller, specialized transportation construction companies have been among the hardest hit.
   Monty Docter, executive vice president at Maclair Asphalt Co. Inc. in Collinsville, said Maclair and many other highway contractors in Southwestern Illinois rely on work from the Illinois Department of [continue]
  
Tim Docter, president of Maclair Asphalt Co. Inc., has too many hot mix asphalt pavers and rollers sitting idle due to recent road fund diversions resulting in sluggish road work projects.
 

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Contractors recently given reins to settle job site trade duty disputes
By KERRY L. SMITH

   In the past 90 days, the means by which jurisdictional disputes can be resolved on a job site have changed dramatically. Rather than the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations ruling on which trade does what when skills and talents overlap (as of January) it is now up to the contractor's discretion.
   Tim Garvey, executive director of the Southern Illinois Builders Association, said labor unions are undergoing a marked transition in terms of who can approve which trade performs tasks that are considered in a "gray area" when it comes to overlapping skill sets.
   Until the start of 2004, when a question arose at a job site as to whether a carpenter or a cement mason, for example, could perform the task, many times all work halted on a project while the commercial contractor awaited a decision from a specially-called, three-person arbitration panel sanctioned by the AFL-CIO. The panel [continue]


 
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