Like so many in the flooring installation community, David Winkler, regional director of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 5, got his start working alongside his uncle doing construction during the summer. Winkler attended college for accounting and after several years, he decided sitting behind a desk was not for him.
“I've always enjoyed working with my hands, building things,” he said.
Winkler approached his uncle, who was a member of the local trade union, for career advice, “He told me about the apprenticeship program, and so, I looked into it and I thought that would be an awesome career idea for myself and my family. I wanted better wages, better benefits than what I was earning doing the bookkeeping work that I was doing. The apprenticeship seemed like a perfect fit. I applied, and I went through the four years of the program, got my journey level certificate from the state of Oregon, and now here I am.”
A 28-year member of IUPAT and chairman of the Floor Covering Craft Committee—the craft committees are in place to work together to move the trades forward across the country—Winkler works with the other leaders from the different district councils to advance the floor covering craft. Here, he discusses the importance of training, provides insight into the inner workings and benefits of IUPAT and dispels some common misconceptions about trade unions.
The following are excerpts of our conversation, which you can listen to in its entirety below.
Floor Trends & Installation: What made you choose union versus non-union?
David Winkler: There wasn't really a choice because the union has the only apprenticeship for floor covering in the Northwest. Looking back, even if there had been the option to do non-union, I really wanted the wages and benefits that came from a union contract to be able to raise my family and get ahead in life. I think even if there was an option, I would have chosen the union option for those reasons.
Floor Trends & Installation: Tell me a little bit about IUPAT, first of all, and what all trades are involved?
Winkler: IPUAT was founded in 1887. We represent approximately 140,000 members across the USA and Canada, and we cover four main construction trades: paint, drywall, glass, and then obviously floor covering. We've also got a lot of other trades, and for that reason, it's painters and allied trades. There's kind of the structure of the union. There's the international, that's all of the USA and Canada. Then, under the international, there's different district councils and then smaller locals under there. So, for us, I come out of District Council five, which covers the Northwest. We cover Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Alaska. My local is Local 1236 out of Portland, Oregon. We were chartered back in 1938.
Today, the IUPAT represents over 3,000 floor covering installers. Just on the floor side, we represent installers from St. Louis to Hawaii and from San Diego to Alaska. We've got at least ten—there might be a few more world class training centers all up and down the western region. In those training centers, we've got pretty much every tool and material that you can think of so that our apprentices and our journey level installers that want to increase their skill can go and practice that.
Our apprenticeship programs are four years long. The apprentices go through 144 hours of classroom training each of those four years, and then approximately 2,000 hours a year of on-the-job training before they finish their apprenticeship. Every area is a little bit different. In the Oregon apprenticeship, we do block training, so they come four weeks a year. We spread that out during the slower time and they come for a 40-hour week to practice their trade. Where else can you go and practice heat welding for 8 hours straight or be able to pattern a mockup of a cove bathroom? Folks do get to practice a little bit on the job, but you can't do that over and over, except in this kind of setting.
Floor Trends & Installation: How have trade unions changed over time? What's different now versus then? What myths would you like to dispel?
Winkler: We have a new signatory employer here in the Portland, Oregon area. I asked them this question. What misconceptions were there about the union that you had that you see differently now that you're signatory? One of the owners told me that originally unions were formed by the workers against the companies. Maybe that's not exactly the right way to explain it, but it's true. Unions were formed by workers to stop the exploitation of those workers and to give them a little bit of power against that employer. That's still true today. The unions still do protect from workers being exploited, but we also have a true partnership with our signatory employers. We realize that the more successful our signatory employers are, the more our members are going to work and the better wages and benefits we're going to be able to negotiate for those members. So, I think that's a big difference.
I would say a factory union is much different than a construction union, which we are representing in the trades. For the most part, across our trades, there is no seniority. Our employers keep the workers busiest that do the best job, get along with everybody, and that are the most skilled. We don't necessarily get involved with our employers' hiring practices unless there's something discriminatory going on or something in violation of the contract that we've negotiated. For the most part, they're still able to run their business the way they see fit as long as it's within the contract that we've negotiated. So, I think that one of the misconceptions is protecting bad installers. That does not happen in our union.
We have employers that come to us and want to sign agreements with us. We're not forcing employers, like in the old days, into union contracts. Most of the employers that we sign are them wanting to work with us because of our commitment to training because of all the other things that we do to help make our employer partners successful.
Floor Trends & Installation: I think it's really important to make this distinction, and this is why I keep asking this question, because just as you pointed out, the manufacturer unions, I think, are what have really put the negative stereotype out there, and then it just unfortunately gets placed across the board no matter who you are or what type of union you are. It's a collective mindset.
Winkler: I don't have a ton of experience in that arena, but I can tell you with what I have dealt with in construction unions, it's just not like that. Those misconceptions and that kind of what you call the hive mentality is even further amplified now by social media. I see this on some of the floor covering pages where you get installers that talk about, oh, yeah, I worked next to some union installers and they were milking the job. In most of our areas, our union installers have the highest wage and benefit package of any of the other installers in the area. So, our employers are not going to be successful and they're not going to win projects using installers at the highest paid wage and benefit package that are milking projects—not going to happen.
Floor Trends & Installation: How has IUPAT evolved over time?
Winkler: I've been a representative in one way or another with our union since 2000, so 24 years, and what I've really seen evolve over that time is our commitment to training and that true partnership with the employers that I talked about. Yes, we represent workers and that's our main focus, but when our employers come to us and say, hey, I've got this project coming up and there's a material that we haven't installed a lot of, we need some help getting some training on this. We then go work with the manufacturer to either get a seminar put on or a certification, and we make that happen. I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've seen, is that true partnership and that commitment to training. It's huge.
Floor Trends & Installation: What are some of the challenges that you guys face currently? What are your biggest issues?
Winkler: When you talk about challenges in the floor covering industry in general, the biggest thing that we hear about is a skilled labor shortage. While it is more of a challenge than maybe it has been in past years, I think we have a little bit less of a challenge. I know that's not exactly answering your question, but I think because of the wage and benefit packages that we negotiate with our employer partners and the training that we offer, we're not having as much trouble attracting folks as the open shop or non-union contractors are.
When you have somebody either trying to enter into a career as an apprentice coming through one of our programs or a seasoned installer that's looking for something different, what I've seen throughout my experience is kind of the family minded and career-minded installers are the ones that are the most desirable. They're coming to us because they want a decent retirement, right? They want to be able to retire someday with dignity. They want good healthcare so that they can take their kid to the dentist when they've got a toothache and not have to wait until they can go do a couple more jobs to make enough money to be able to take them. So, I don't think we're facing the same challenges that some of the other non-union side of the business is [facing].
Floor Trends & Installation: Generally speaking, how old are these people when they come to you? Are they coming right out of high school or are they doing a couple years of college and then saying, “Oh, this is not for me, I'd rather work with my hands”?
Winkler: It’s all over the board. For our apprenticeship programs, a lot of them are younger folks, but that's not even the rule. I've had folks apply for our apprenticeship that were in their mid-forties and fifties. [They] just want to do something different. One of the really neat things about our apprenticeship program is you don't even have to have construction experience, let alone floor covering experience, to come into that program. We're going to take somebody that's never stepped onto a job site from that point to four years later. They're going to be a journey level installer. They're not going to be an expert, but they're going to be journey level and they're going to be on their way to be able to run work and do some really nice projects.
Floor Trends & Installation: How do you recruit them? How do you attract these folks? Do they come to you or do you have a program in place where you are recruiting actively?
Winkler: It's a little bit of both. The state of Oregon in particular has a really good apprenticeship website where they lay out all the different programs that are available, the wage rates and a little bit about how the training works. So, folks get information from places like that and word of mouth from other installers. We have members and contractors that are out getting a Starbucks and telling the barista about the apprenticeship program. But we also go out and we do recruit at different job fairs, and some of those job fairs may be geared towards women in particular.
For example, here in Oregon, there's one called Oregon Tradeswomen, and they do a two-day job fair where they bring women in as young as middle school to learn about all the different construction trades. Then there are job fairs that are high school specific.
The other thing that really just works when we talk about our training is our funding model. I'm watching some of the other training entities out here, and they're having to either ask for donations or installers are having to pay their own way through the training. We've got a negotiated amount per hour that we negotiate into each of our contracts that covers all the training. So, it's all privately funded within the union. We're not having to go out and ask for money from the government or from other entities. We've got a built-in funding method that works.
Floor Trends & Installation: At the 2023 CFI + FCICA Convention during the panel discussion, this question was posed: How important is it to the manufacturers to have qualified installers performing installations and what should their role be in helping to ensure training is available to everyone that needs it? What did you learn from that conversation?
Winkler: I learned that there's a lot of passionate folks on every side of that issue. We have people almost standing up on the tables, yelling out their opinions and their thoughts. It's a tough one, and I get it. There's not an easy answer.
For us, ultimately, because of the training that we do, what we would love to see is all the manufacturers say, nobody's going to install our product unless they're certified or they have gone through either our union training program or another union or CFI or one of the entities out there that does this type of training. But I also understand that that would then limit their ability to sell material because not everybody can go out and get trained or get certified. It's super tough on the installers, especially on the non-union side, but on both sides, whether it's union or non-union, the installers are doing this training on their own time, and that's no different for us.
What we do in the union, though, is we incentivize them through what we call our STAR Program. STAR stands for safety, training, awards, recognition. Our members, and it varies a little bit in the different areas, have to go through a certain number of hours of unpaid safety or floor covering installation-related training every year. Then, they're given cash and prizes the following year for having completed those hours of training. We incentivize them to do it that way.
On the non-union side, not only are they having to do it on their own time, but a lot of times they're having to pay for that training also. So, you've got a couple real problems, access to training, how it's paid for and getting folks to go. But I think, and hopefully this isn't oversimplifying it, there's a way this could work for everyone, and maybe what it would be is a separate tier warranty, for example, where the manufacturers could say, if you do use a certified trained installer, then you're going to get an extended warranty on the product. Then, you wouldn't be cutting folks out, and they wouldn't be limiting who can sell and install their material, but there would be an advantage for the installations that were done by certified trained folks.
I know that we have the attention of some of the [manufacturers]. Some of them already have in their specs that their preferred method would be to be installed by us or CFI. Other ones we've still got to get on board. I think it's just continuing to have those conversations.
Floor Trends & Installation: What would you like for our audience to know about IUPAT and its role in supporting the installation community?
Winkler: Installers want the training, right? They want the training, and we know they want better wages and benefits. We, along with our employer partners, offer that. And so we're always looking for seasoned installers and also just folks with a good work ethic that want to become a trades person. So, we're looking for both. Once they join with us, they've got access to all of that training. They've got access to all of those benefits. For the employers out there, one thing folks don't know about the union is we basically become their HR department.
You've got employers that are out there now trying to bid work, trying to get training, trying to do all these other things, and then also trying to administer benefit programs so that they can attract and retain good installers. We will administer their training programs. We will administer the health insurance programs, the retirement programs. We do all of that for them. Now, when they've got an issue, instead of, Joe installer going to the boss and going, hey, I got a problem with this, in my case, they say call Dave. Dave will take care of that.
Being part of the IUPAT is like being part of a large, supportive family. Whether you're an installer or an employer partner, we're there to help them succeed. Whether it's that brand new installer working their way up through the trade, whether it's someone that's got ten years residential experience and they want to make the switch to work on the larger commercial work and gain more skills, or whether it's the employer trying to grow their business, we're there to help them succeed.
