As massive highway project nears end, so do many jobs

The nation's largest highway project employed 4,600 workers at its peak.
BOSTON (AP) -- For the past six years, the Big Dig's latticework of highways, tunnels and bridges has been Richie McPhail's stomping ground and home away from home.
The 46-year-old ironworker has worked up and down the length of the massive highway project that stretches from the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge through an eight-lane tunnel under downtown Boston and onto the Ted Williams Tunnel running under Boston Harbor.
Now, as construction on the largest and most complex highway project in U.S. history passes its 20-year mark and begins to wind down, construction workers like McPhail are looking to life after the Big Dig.
For many, it will mean heading back to the union hall to look for the next job.
Steady work
Some working on the $14.6 billion Big Dig haven't had to look for work in years, a luxury not lost on veteran workers like McPhail, who is 46. He's the shop steward for a crew of fellow ironworkers who have another year or two of work on a section of Interstate 93. After that, it will be a return to smaller jobs that last weeks, months or a year or two at the most, McPhail said.
"This is the biggest job I'm ever going to work on," McPhail said on a recent coffee break as sparks from blow torches flew overhead. "Some of these younger guys might have other bigger jobs. But this it the biggest one I'll ever work on."
At its peak, from 1997-2002, the Big Dig employed about 4,600 workers from various construction trades including ironworkers and a battery of carpenters, laborers, pipefitters and electrical workers.
With the project approaching 95 percent completion, the work force has dwindled to a still hefty 1,000 workers.
The bulk of the project is supposed to be done in time for next summer's Democratic National Convention, but it won't be entirely completed until at least 2005.
Vinny Coyle, part of McPhail's crew, said he's not worried about finding work.
"I show up every day. I work hard. There's plenty of work out there for hard workers. There are plenty of buildings going up," said the 34-year-old father of twins.
By far, the largest number of jobs that will be lost when the Big Dig is completed will be blue collar positions, although the project's small army of engineers, designers, accountants, managers and administrative support staff has also begun to drift away.
Downplaying jobs loss
Union leaders and Big Dig officials downplay what the loss of the jobs may mean.
Jay Hurley, president of the Ironworkers District Council of New England, said hundreds of the jobs in the busiest years of the project were taken by traveling, out-of-state ironworkers, known as boomers, most of whom have already moved on to other jobs.
Even with the boomer effect, membership in the local ironworkers union jumped during the peak years of the project, from 1,800 in 1996 to 3,200 in 2003. Hurley said he hopes to keep nearly all his members employed after the Big Dig ends.
"Was the Big Dig the greatest thing for workers in this area? Yes. This was the boom of all booms, no doubt," Hurley said. "But the nature of our business is to get the job done, get laid off and go back to the hall and get another job. All good things must come to an end."
At the height of the project, he said, just 20 percent of the ironworkers in the union were working on the Big Dig. The other 80 percent were working on other projects, including a sprawling convention center in the city's South Boston neighborhood.