Jessica Perry
The basics:
- ACCNJ represents all union commercial construction sectors in NJ
- CEO Jack Kocsis Jr. emphasizes labor-management cooperation
- Union workforce development includes outreach, training, scholarships
- Programs support craft workers becoming union contractors
CEO Jack Kocsis Jr. has been with Associated Construction Contractors of New Jersey for nearly four decades. As he describes it, labor relations is at the core of the group’s mission.
“Be it education, be it safety, all the things we do legislative—it all revolves around our relationship with organized labor.”
It’s a distinction, he notes, that sets the local chapter apart from its peers nationwide. Part of the Associated General Contractors of America, ACCNJ is the only statewide union chapter in the country that represents the full spectrum of contracts, according to Kocsis. That’s because ACCNJ holds all four charters for AGC of America: heavy construction, highway construction, building construction and municipal/utility construction.
“[W]e represent all facets of commercial construction here in New Jersey, whereas a lot of other states – it’s broken up into bits and pieces and a lot of it’s non-union … but we’re 100% across the board and our members hire all union labor no matter what they do,” he said.
Representing 150 years of combined experience serving the local construction community, ACCNJ came from the merger of Associated General Contractors of New Jersey and the Building Contractors Association of New Jersey. The organization’s labor relations services are comprehensive, ranging from furnishing accurate wage data and current collective bargaining agreements, to ensuring contracts are fairly interpreted.
Taking care of business
“We decided that many years ago we’d have a better outcome overall if we partnered with labor – truly partnered with labor – rather than try to work against them or work in a different way. … We work together to try to make the best collective bargaining agreement with the best benefit package we can make to help the beneficiaries or the craft workers,” Kocsis explained.
That effort requires wherewithal and balance to stay mindful of financial pressures, while also remaining competitive. By committing to working with organized labor, ACCNJ has developed a trust among the trades it deals with, Kocsis said.
“We work and negotiate with the trades and talk with them all the time, so they’re aware of the pressures that the contractors are facing … And based on all that, the unions are more willing to make changes. Because the changes aren’t — we’re not crying wolf, right? We’re… showing them what those pressures are so we can make suggestions on how we can work together,” he said.
And that mindset has paid off. As of June, ACCNJ has added 15 new members this year to its 300-plus headcount.
“We’ve been able to make a lot of positive changes through collective bargaining … that we have some very competitive agreements … with the trades, but they also still make a very livable wage and benefit—because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we are not a burden to society, as labor management,” Kocsis said. “We’re not taking from the public process, we’re actually supporting ourselves with health care, with pensions. … We’re taking care of our own.”
We decided that many years ago we’d have a better outcome overall if we partnered with labor – truly partnered with labor – rather than try to work against them or work in a different way.
– Jack Kocsis Jr., CEO, ACCNJ
According to ACCNJ, it negotiates agreements with more than a dozen local, statewide and regional labor unions, including the bricklayers, carpenters, dockbuilders, ironworkers, laborers and operating engineers.
Its work also includes:
- Appointing members and staff to serve as management trustees on various benefit and apprentice funds
- Offering guidance as a trusted source of information. The group produces a Labor Information Reference Binder, available to members that employ trade labor and assign bargaining rights to the association. This valuable labor information includes current wage and fringe benefit schedules; a directory of labor business representatives; contract expiration dates; contract summaries including language from the collective bargaining agreements on the most-often referred to work rules and contract provisions; as well as a directory of fringe benefit fund trustees, administrators and fund professionals
- Labor/management cooperatives
- The Industry Advancement Trust, which works to improve the safety and efficiency of union construction in New Jersey. Activities funded showcase and promote union-affiliated contractors and skilled union craftworkers to private owners, architects, engineers, developers, and publicly funded institutions and agencies
- Government affairs, with a team of professionals representing the construction industry in local communities, Trenton and Washington, D.C. Among its recent successes, ACCNJ counts recent changes to authorize local N.J. governments to allow third parties to perform construction inspections
- Mental health and support services; and more
Opening doors
Contrasting national figures, Kocsis says union penetration has increased in the Garden State in terms of the number of these projects occurring here. Owing to this, he highlighted workforce availability, as well as the training and quality of the instruction provided by union labor.
According to the most recent report from the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, New Jersey ranks among the top 10 states when it comes to total union density, with 15.8% (behind Hawaii, New York, Washington, Oregon and Minnesota).
Additionally, nine overall union occupations in New Jersey have a density level that is higher than the national average, the report found, and five top the state average.
At 21%, LEARN noted construction is one of the most highly unionized industries in New Jersey.
Released last August, the data in the LEARN report covers January 2021 through December 2024.
About two decades ago, Kocsis says labor and management recognized the need to focus on fostering a diverse workforce, “and making sure that the members of the unions actually reflect what is in society here in New Jersey, which again, is much different than other parts of the country, too.”
Steady as she goes
When it comes to what’s building, ACCNJ Chief Executive Officer Jack Kocsis said the public side remains stable, while he characterized the private realm as more fluid.
Work isn’t declining in the latter category, but the leader noted it doesn’t necessarily have the backlog of the former – thanks to an increase in public work driven by the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Act and other initiatives.
“On the building side, which is more of a private funding mechanism, there’s a little more volatility in that, but not to the extreme that you’ve probably seen [in] other industries, regarding tariffs and pullbacks,” he said.
Kocsis also noted how the pace of the industry almost isolates it from those impacts in the present. “A lot of what we’re seeing in the private building world happened three, four, five years ago with the funding that was in place then. And now it’s getting to the point where you’re coming to construction … so we lag that,” he explained.
While it might present in the next couple of years, “prospects are that we’re probably not going to see a big bump downward because a lot of these issues are being built into the funding streams of the markets now and might now impact construction a few years from now.”
MarketCAST
According to a first quarter 2025 MarketCAST report commissioned by ACCNJ and prepared by the Otteau Valuation Group, project starts in New Jersey increased by 16% in Q1— compared with a 12.6% decrease nationally.
While industrial starts surged in 2024, the paper noted a dramatic drop in the first quarter of this year, with the decline coming in at 91% under the year before.
The report noted, too, that the government sector continued to see an increase in spending, leading in the state. The largest aggregate dollar volume of construction starts in Q1 occurred in the civil sector ($952 million), followed by health care & education at ($743 million), and multifamily ($738 million).
New Jersey was a standout for the diversity among its union membership, according to LEARN. Black union density here is almost double the 2023 national average (11.8%), the report said. Additionally, Hispanic workers also outpace the national average (10%).
Across gender, men were more prevalent than women in union density across all private-sector industries. And while the report noted female estimates in construction, among other categories, should be interpreted with caution due to its sample size; the industry reflected the least participation from women.
Kocsis said labor and management also recognized a need to both increase their ranks as well as attract a younger workforce to sustain.
To achieve these ends, the sector pursued several approaches. Most of the trades take applicants year-round now, Kocsis noted. “And you can see that not only are they bringing in apprentices to fill the attrition gap … they have goals to bring in more people than necessary to make sure they’re trained and we have an adequate workforce.”
The approach has also changed. Trades actively market themselves, with Kocsis noting “it’s something you have to sell.”
“The main thing, however, is that the unions and the union training aspect — they’re not waiting for people to come to them,” he added. “They’re actually going out to the workforce.” And it’s not just to the spaces you make expect, such as job fairs.
Earn while you learn
“They’re getting into the school system,” Kocsis explained, also noting outreach to veterans and, in particular, through the Helmets to Hardhats program.
“If you are in the armed forces and you get out, you can pick a trade and you’re almost guaranteed to a spot in any of the unions now,” he said. “So, we’re creating programs to go after the people that would be more inclined to becoming a construction worker.”
When it comes to engaging with education, Kocsis said the outreach to middle and high school students present a great opportunity to earn while you learn – cash, experience, and potentially college credits.
In June, ACCNJ distributed $75,000 in scholarships to six students. Since 2014, the group says it’s granted more than $800,000 in scholarships.
According to its website, ACCNJ also works with programs like Junior Achievement and Future City to educate middle school students about potential career paths in construction, as well as the value of applying what they’re learning in the classroom.
“These apprentices are making money while they’re, quite frankly, getting an education. And nobody can take it back from them. …You’re in the apprentice program; you’re getting paid for that skill. And at the end of it all, many of the trades are also working with higher education to get their apprentices college credits for a lot of the course activity that they do in the apprenticeship process.
“So you can come out of a carpenter apprentice program and have almost enough credits to get your associate’s degree,” he said.
It also prepares individuals for advancement within the trades.
“It … helps for management opportunities in construction because a craft worker that works with the tools for so many years and then advances can move into a managerial role and become a contractor,” he said.
Alternative paths
Kocsis also noted that some of ACCNJ’s members were craft workers who worked their way up and ended up starting their own companies.
The association’s Craft Worker to Contractor program supports that same trajectory. “We work with individuals that have an entrepreneurial spirit that the unions identify that are tradespeople,” he explained. To help prepare them for that leap, ACCNJ assists with crafting business plans, legal services through associate members or building financial acumen, for example.
Kocsis noted, “It’s easier for us to develop a union contractor from within the ranks of the unions than it is to try to convince a non-union contractor that they should become union if they’re successful.”
ACCNJ also works to collaborate with unions that offer similar programs. But Kocsis highlighted a key distinction offered by the association that he feels has helped support its success. “And that’s the fact that we have general contractors that are always looking for new subcontractors that utilize union labor,” he said. “So we have, at the end of the day, we have people that will hire them.”
According to its 2024 Annual Report, ACCNJ negotiates 13 collective bargaining agreements on behalf of members who assign bargaining rights.
Last year, the group said it negotiated three agreements; distributed 30 updates to its Labor Information Reference Binder, assisted with developing 17 project labor agreements, among other achievements.
“We do a lot more listening than we do talking,” Kocsis said of the work overall. “You try to understand each other and do things that are meaningful, that really make a difference. And that’s, I think, what sets us apart …”