Issues number one, two and three among construction owners are “cost,” said Kent Underwood to an attentive but less than convinced audience at the MCAA Labor Relations Conference, held last Oct. 28-29 in Boca Raton, FL. Underwood, a Monsanto Co. construction manager and chairman of The Business Roundtable (BRT) Construction Committee, said that large construction users are being “driven by global competitiveness” to cut costs. What’s more, “We expect quality and safety to be delivered as well.”

Another BRT speaker, John Brinly, AMOCO’s general manager of engineering and construction, picked up the same theme. “You need quality and safety just to play. Without that we won’t let you in the door. But what’s needed to win is total cost,” he said.