About Us

The Tompkins-Cortland Building & Construction Trades Council is an affiliate of the Building Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (‘AFL-CIO). We are a group of construction trades unions working and living in Central New York. In total, our membership exceeds 3000.

We hope to make the community of Ithaca and the public at large, aware of the decisions Cornell University’s has made regarding large construction projects and the impact on our community. We believe Cornell has missed a valuable opportunity to truly and fully support our community when it hired, without workforce mandates, a large out of town real estate development firm for an $80 Million dollar student residential housing project on campus known as Maplewood Apartments.

In the near future, Cornell has future student housing development plans totaling in excess of $500 million dollars. We believe the public needs to watch Cornell closely and require it honestly support a sustainable community by requiring those future projects be mandated to utilize local skilled and diverse construction workers and support our local vendors.

Workers and Business owners spend our money where we live!