Aislinn in front of the Times Square ball, flanked by Dyett Murdoch (l.) and Tyreef Bevel (r.) of Turner Construction Company.
After serving for more than a decade as the Contractors’ Association of Greater New York’s general counsel, Aislinn McGuire became CAGNY’s managing director in August 2024. In addition to this role, Aislinn is a partner in the law firm Kauff McGuire & Margolis, where she specializes in representing employers in all aspects of labor-management relations and employment matters. She also serves on the boards of Nontraditional Employment for Women, Helmets to Hardhats, and Pathways to Apprenticeship and is a member of the Labor and Employment sections of the American Bar Association and New York City Bar Association.
BTEA President Elizabeth Crowley spoke with Aislinn about the current status of women in the construction industry and her thoughts on New York’s controversial Scaffold Law.
BTEA: Tell us about CAGNY, what your organization does, and its current priorities.
CAGNY was founded in 1984 and historically our members built high-rise construction projects in New York City, however, over the years, that’s expanded, and now they build virtually any kind of project, including offices, hospitals, schools, and dormitories. Our members don’t do heavy and highway construction, but beyond that they cover pretty much everything.
When I began working with CAGNY, we were party to six collective bargaining agreements; we now have one. And so we have watched the market change considerably, and our priorities are to try to continue to build projects safely, efficiently, on time, and under budget, with the best workforce that we can possibly employ while meeting the demands of ownership’s budget constraints.
BTEA: What are the greatest challenges that you face right?
The market has shifted away from union construction to an open shop model. That has been challenging on a number of levels. We often have both union contractors and non-union contractors on a project. When it was predominantly union contractors, there was really a formula that lent itself to an efficient operation, and we knew the players in the market. Now, we don’t know all the players and the market is less known and therefore less predictable. So we’re having to learn how to integrate different players into our projects, and that has created a new set of challenges.
BTEA: What has to happen in order for union contractors to maintain their current market share and to grow it back to levels that more approximated the past?
I think that there has to be a multi-pronged approach to that. In terms of preserving market share going forward, union wages and benefits outpaced inflation for a significant number of years, and so the unions priced themselves out of the market, essentially. Like any other business, unions have to look hard at what their business is and find a new model, because the current one is not working. One of the strengths of unions is that they provide not just wages but benefits, including healthcare. Non-union contractors that are not providing healthcare shift the burden to our healthcare system, and we all end up paying for that in our taxes. Union benefit plans, however, have historically been “Cadillac plans,” so we need to strike a balance between providing benefits, but providing benefits that are realistic and affordable in our current market.
BTEA: You are the first female executive director of CAGNY. How would you assess the status of women in the construction industry?
I’ve seen it change dramatically in the 20 years I’ve been involved, which is great. There used to be maybe one or two women in a room full of men. Now there are far more women in the room, and there are more women on job sites, which is an important and necessary change. I’ve noticed that a lot of construction companies have really been focusing on developing women in construction at all levels, which will not only help women, but help the industry as a whole.
One of the issues that the construction industry faces is that the job starts very early. And so if you are a woman with children, you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to get to a jobsite or to the office at like 6:30, 7 a.m., while also getting your kids to school. There’s not a remote option in this industry, you’ve got to be hands-on. But I have seen women emerging at all levels, from tradeswomen to assistant superintendents to project executives to architects and engineers. Still, there’s a lot more progress to be made and we probably have to look at making workplaces more family friendly in general.
BTEA: The Scaffold Law is a sore point for many owners and contractors. What is CAGNY’s stance on it?
The issue with the Scaffold Law is that New York is the only state out of 50 that has a strict liability standard. The result of that has been that the insurance costs for contractors and owners in New York is around 10%-12%–-and often more—than it is compared to any other city in the United States of America. That drives construction costs up considerably. When you’re paying a premium on insurance, taxes, and all of the other costs attendant to construction in New York—site safety managers, site safety coordinators, SST cards—that makes building incredibly unaffordable. That’s part of the reason why we’ve not been able to build affordable housing at the level we need to, and, according to some, it’s also part of the reason why some schools aren’t getting built or renovated.
We need to lower the cost of construction if we’re going to get things built. Part and parcel of that is making the Scaffold Law a comparative negligence standard, as opposed to a strict negligence standard, which every other city in the country has. And, by the way, the statute itself does not even have a strict liability standard in it—that was a product of judicial interpretation. The State Legislature ought to step in and legislate a comparative negligence standard, which is what is the norm throughout the industry throughout the world.
It’s important to note that Scaffold Law reform would also benefit union workers. Particularly in New York City, we have the Department of Buildings, which has done a terrific job of advocating for and implementing safety rules and regulations. As I said earlier, the unions have robust healthcare plans, so union workers are less likely to file these claims. For the most part it’s non-union workers because they don’t have healthcare and need money to pay for injury-related issues, and that drives the cost of insurance up for everybody. And as the cost rises, projects don’t get built, so union workers don’t get work. If we were to lower the cost, there would be a lot more building; if there’s a lot more building, union workers are going to get a share of that growth.