In 1960 almost eighty percent of the contractors doing commercial, industrial and even service work were union firms. Open shop contractors who tried to enter the market were burned out, beaten up, picketed by hundreds (in some cases, thousands) of chanting, threatening union workers.
ABC and its members in those days were under constant threat. But they stuck with it. In the very early seventies, after violence had become epidemic, the association filed a nation wide charge against every national union and most of the union locals. The charges were before the National Labor Relations Board and they were unprecedented. The result was a dampening of the violence.
Before this and other significant legal and legislative actions, merit shop projects were bombed and burned with terrible regularity. Yet ABC and its members persevered.
Now, the unions tend to be less violent, less obtrusive and in large part due to the efforts of ABC and its members, much less successful. Today only about fifteen percent of commercial and industrial construction work is performed by union contractors.
But the unions have not quit; they are still there, still demanding that work be all union, still pressing on law makers and regulators to limit the rights of merit shop contractors. And ABC and its members are still fighting the good fight.
The stronger ABC is, the better it is at helping you defend the right to run your businesses as you chose – as merit shop contractors.