As the impact of COVID-19 continues throughout the construction industry, many businesses are finding it difficult to make payroll and pay other essential business expenses.

Construction crews in many cities continued to raise cranes and swing hammers as much of the world shut down to stem the spread of coronavirus. While Boston and Pennsylvania ordered a halt to most construction projects, some other cities and states designated construction as an essential or crucial sector.

The contractor members of the Building Trades Employers Association [BTEA], the largest association of union contractors in New York, have always responded when New York faced its most serious challenges: 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and today the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

The coronavirus relief measure the Senate passed last night will provide construction employers and employees with critically needed access to capital, expedited cash flow, worker benefit protection and critical tax relief, among other measures.

Publisher, Jill Bloom, sat down with John Nesse, an attorney with Management Guidance, LLP., Terry Kastner, Executive Director of the Northwest Wall and Ceiling Burea, and Larry Williams, the Executive Director for Steel Framing Industry Association.   

Thanks for your business and for working through this difficult situation with us. It is our goal to continue serving you as long as we feel we can do so safely, and as long as all of us are permitted to operate.

States like Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin have made construction activities exempt, but how long they will remain that way is unclear.

As a sales consultant, coach, trainer and leader in the trade construction industry, it is my obligation to share my thoughts on the pandemic that we are seeing rapidly unfold in March 2020. I’m writing this so that my clients and our industry will come together to take the necessary actions to navigate what is certainly uncharted territory. 

As the needs of communities shift and change rapidly, governments are continuously implementing new laws and regulations to respond to the outbreak of COVID-19.

In a statement to its customers, MFM Building Products announced it will continue its business operations as usual.