LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL — Some union leaders like to compare the particular relationship that exists between labor and management to a marriage: Both parties are stuck with each other.
If that’s true, then the SMWIA-SMACNA Labor-Management Partnership Conference, held here recently at Walt Disney World, was marriage counseling. More than 400 members of the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA) and the union Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) came to find out why some contractors stay with union labor, while others divorced themselves years ago.