Building trade unions call for construction moratorium in Massachusetts

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That big news first. The 75,000-member Massachusetts Building Trades Council has asked Gov. Charlie Baker to suspend all non-emergency, nonessential construction activity statewide from April 3 through April 30 to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“The council reached this decision after exhaustive consultation with public and private health experts, union contractors, union officials, construction industry partners, training directors, and conversations with our members,” Francis X. Callahan, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council, said in a statement.

Support for the move was unanimous among the council’s executive board but not necessarily among its members, some of whom fear the loss of work or the introduction of shoddier standards on certain projects.

Also—and more concrete—the 10,000-member North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, the state’s largest construction union, announced that its members would be pulled off jobs on Monday, April 6, due to the coronavirus, per the Globe’s Tim Logan.

Baker has so far stopped construction on office buildings, retail, and hotels statewide—but not on infrastructure such as that having to do with transportation, or on construction related to health care and housing, all of which Baker deems essential. And the governor is notably at odds with local leaders in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville re: the need for any nonessential, non-emergency construction. Those cities have banned such work indefinitely.

Meanwhile, there is a similar debate raging nationally as construction workers and their allies push for some kind of work stoppage to stem the virus’ spread, including among the workers themselves.