Construction Laborer

Work description

Elway Alliance is a construction contractor performing construction at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota worksite, including new-construction, repair, and maintenance construction for its own active project sites and for other clients. Elway Alliance permanently employs 42 Construction Laborers at this worksite. They perform exterior and underground work (digging, trenching, and backfilling), interior work (loading, unloading, and distributing materials, tools, and equipment; cleaning and preparing work areas by removing rubble, debris, and other waste materials; and erecting, leveling, and dismantling scaffolding, ramps, and barricades), and repair work in every month of the year, as project and client demand requires. The Employer's need for 41 additional temporary Construction Laborers arises from a recurring surge in interior construction workload at the Sioux Falls worksite each December through April that exceeds what the permanent Construction Laborer crew can absorb without supplementation. Two conditions stop exterior work in those months, and two sources of demand fill them. First, sustained sub-freezing temperatures and snow. Under National Weather Service climate normals for Sioux Falls, the average daily high falls to 29F in December and 26F in January, and December through March each average 7 to 8 inches of snowfall. The Employer does not schedule exterior work (digging, trenching, and backfilling; exterior material distribution; and scaffolding and elevated work) in these conditions: reduced dexterity in cold-weather gloves, ice on equipment, ladders, scaffolding, and work platforms, and reduced footing and visibility during snowfall. Second, statutory spring load restrictions. Under South Dakota Codified Law 32-22-24, maximum axle loadings on state and county highways are reduced from February 15 through April 30 of each year, subject to the highway authority's power to lessen or remove the restrictions as conditions warrant. These are weight limits, not road closures. They restrict the heavy equipment and material-delivery vehicles the Employer's exterior crews rely on, and they run inside the cold-weather period described above. The restriction period covers February 15 through April 30 only; from December 1 through February 14, the exterior stoppage rests on the temperature and snowfall conditions alone. Because exterior and underground work at the Sioux Falls worksite stops each year during these months, the interior scope that is ordinarily spread across the Employer's active projects through the year is concentrated into the same window, December 1 through April 30, as every active project's work shifts to interior construction at once, along with the loading, distribution of materials, work-area preparation, and cleanup that support it. The same cold conditions also generate work that does not exist during the rest of the year: removal of damaged materials, rubble, and debris, work-area preparation, and material handling at structures damaged by frozen pipes, along with assisting journey-level tradespeople with piping system repairs and component positioning, at the Employer's own project sites and for other clients. This is new work, not existing work compressed into a shorter window. The combination, concentrated interior scope plus weather-driven repair demand, exceeds what the permanent Construction Laborer crew can absorb To meet this peak, the Employer will supplement its permanent Construction Laborers with 41 additional workers from December 1 through April 30, a period of five months. These workers are engaged solely for the peak described above and will not become part of the Employer's regular operation. Outside December 1 through April 30, the Employer's permanent Construction Laborers perform the full range of exterior, interior, and repair work without supplementation. The situation and conditions are expected to be recurrent.