White House Opioid Announcement Features Alliance Partners

March 13, 2024

Today the White House announced a historic program targeting opioid overdoses. The White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose calls attention to construction industry efforts, including those of MCAA and our safety alliance partners at the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), and The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC).

The announcement comes on the heels of the State of the Union address, which highlighted the efforts of overdose advocate Justin Phillips, who lost her son, Aaron, to an overdose. In 2015, Phillips worked with the Indiana legislature to pass a law giving laypersons, including family and friends of someone with a substance use disorder, access to naloxone without a prescription. 

In today’s announcement, the White House notes:

Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), and The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC) represent over 10,000 union contractors, providing employment for hundreds of thousands of skilled trade workers in the United States. These organizations, in collaboration with union partners, trained thousands of workers on substance use disorder and overdose prevention and distributed a limited quantity of naloxone. MCAA, NECA, SMACNA, and TAUC endorse having naloxone at all construction sites and urge employers to make the lifesaving medication available to their workforce.”

MCAA and our safety alliance partners have been working together to tackle our industry’s opioid overdose epidemic in coordination with White House staff. Meetings with White House staff have focused on coordinating industry access to naloxone.

“MCAA is honored to be a part of this historic initiative,” said Raffi F. Elchemmas, MCAA’s Executive Director of Safety, Health and Risk Management. He added, “Together with our safety alliance partners, MCAA strongly endorses the continuation of creating awareness of and engagement in solutions to the opioid epidemic such as having naloxone on construction sites and making the lifesaving medication available to the workforce.”

Related Articles
Are you ready to elevate your fabrication skills? Registration is now open for the 2025 MCAA Fabrication Conference, happening September 8-10 in Philadelphia, PA. This year’s event, hosted by Binsky & Snyder, will dive deep into how operations science is driving fabrication success. Whether you manage a single-trade shop or oversee multi-trade operations, this conference delivers practical strategies you can take home and apply immediately. Don’t miss out. Space is limited, and this event sells out fast. Register now!…
MCAA’s Virtual Trade Show connects our contractor members with the members of MCAA’s Manufacturer/Supplier Council.…
Way Engineering was skeptical that automated welding could deliver the high quality they demanded, but Tecnar’s Rotoweld 3.0 technology proved so effective, the company purchased a second machine just three months later. The Rotoweld is also helping Way Engineering adapt to the industry-wide shortage of skilled welders.…
Registration is now open for two impactful labor relations events taking place consecutively in Las Vegas this October—designed to strengthen negotiation skills, improve labor-management collaboration, and advance our industry together. The back-to-back MCAA Collective Bargaining Conference and UA/MCAA Labor Relations Conference offer a unique opportunity to develop aligned strategies, share perspectives, and build stronger labor-management relationships across the mechanical industry.…
Load More...