Masonry Magazine March 1979 Page. 12
'79 MCAA CONFERENCE REPORT
continued from page 11
The major features included:
* A major advertising campaign in national magazines in the U.S. and Canada.
* Production of five new four-color advertisements.
* Publication of a booklet and slide presentation summarizing IMI's major market research project.
* Production and distribution of a "sales kit" for use by mason contractors and business agents.
* Production and distribution of a local publicity kit to local and regional masonry promotion groups.
* Production and distribution of two "seminar kits"-one on loadbearing masonry and the other on energy.
* Production of a new "design" booklet based on the work of the winners of the 1977 Louis Sullivan Award for Architecture.
* Initiation of a major engineering education project involving creation of several "modules" on masonry to be introduced into existing engineering curricula.
Lackey indicated that IMI's promotional plans for 1979 are well under way. Energy will get priority attention via three special programs:
* National advertising in the largest circulation business publications in the U.S. and Canada.
* Coincident with this campaign, IMI will make available to local/regional masonry promotion organizations a total of $10,000 for cooperative, matching-fund advertising in local newspapers and magazines.
* The third campaign has the same local/regional objective of the second. It will consist of IMI producing and making available to local/regional masonry promotions groups a 60-second and 30-second TV commercial. These are to be available this spring.
Complementing the advertising program, Lackey said, will be a series of public relations projects involving new sales materials, a new design film, architectural/engineering student education, a new design publication, Preliminary Sizing of Walls, and a glossary of masonry terms and phrases.
Union Leaders Address Conference
"The Masonry Industry-Its Future" was the title of the talk given by James F. Richardson, first vice president of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen (BAC), Washington, D.C.
Richardson pointed to the creation of the International Masonry Apprenticeship Trust (IMAT) as a prime example of how cooperation between the International Union and mason contractors can help to fulfill the industry's manpower requirements.
"This joint effort and organization, headed by your own Bob Ebeling, provides our lifeline for the future," Richardson told the MCAA conferees. "Important progress is being made weekly to improve training. New blood, new, improved techniques of motivation and training, plus some totally new concepts in meeting manpower needs as they develop these insure our future and its growth."
Richardson further indicated that the growth and prosperity of the masonry industry has been further assured through the formation of the International Trowel Trades Pension Trust, which is designed to give masonry craftsmen retirement stability, and the International Masonry Industry All-Weather Council, whose research is helping to better utilize manpower and extend the number of working months in a given year.
In other areas of the industry that would enhance continuing growth, Richardson called for:
* Creation of an improved joint system between MCAA and International Union members to battle non-union factions in construction ("Non-union competition ignored can and will destroy the masonry industry.").
* Establishment of industry standards to insure reasonable quality and a better finished product.
* Constant efforts by all to stop any grievance or problem from becoming public ("Our masonry family can correct any problem. We of BAC feel we can overcome any serious problem as long as we work together for whatever it takes to find the answer.").
* Joint programs for seeking information on new techniques, methods and other general data to make masonry jobs safer, more efficient and more plentiful.
Another high ranking union official, Leo Nazdin, director of the Department of Jurisdictional Disputes, Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), Washington, D.C., appeared as an unscheduled speaker.
In a brief address, Nazdin, whose union has a membership in excess of 600,000 in the U.S. and Canada, commended MCAA for its "dedication, professionalism and