By: David Caraballoso, New York City District Council of Carpenters Assistant Executive Secretary-Treasurer and President

What was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my personal life ended up shaping the course of my career.

The morning my daughter was born, I arrived early at a concrete job to prepare the day’s work. I lined up the materials, got my crew moving and left for the hospital. I had done my part. But later, I learned that my employer had docked me for the entire day. After more than a decade working non-union construction, that was my breaking point.

By then, I knew the non-union side of this industry well. I had started working construction at 18 and worked my way up to general foreman. I was proud of the work I did and the career I had built, but I had also learned what it meant to work without much of a safety net.

I worked without benefits.

I watched safety standards change from one jobsite to the next.

I saw coworkers taken advantage of because they were undocumented and afraid to speak up.

I saw workers paid prevailing wages on paper, only to be forced to hand part of the money back to the contractor.

For a long time, I accepted those conditions as part of working in construction. I knew how to do the work, I had risen through the ranks, and I had people depending on me. Walking away from a career I had spent years building was not a simple decision.

But eventually I did.

I left construction and went to flight school in Florida, looking for a different path forward. Then September 11, 2001 changed everything. The attacks upended the aviation industry and, with it, the future I had begun imagining for myself.

I came back to New York expecting to return to the same construction industry I had left behind.

It wasn’t the same.

In 2004, union organizers approached me on a jobsite. For the first time, I got a chance to see the other side of the industry.

I learned what it meant to have benefits that protected me and my family.

I experienced the difference that consistent training and safety standards made on the job.

I worked alongside people who had a voice and knew they could use it.

I earned a fair wage and knew the money I worked for was mine to take home.

And I realized that working in construction could give me more than a paycheck. It could give me the stability to raise my family, build a future and stay in the city I had spent my life helping build.

I will never forget what I learned from experiencing both sides of the coin.

Today, that experience shapes how I lead.

When I talk about safety, I remember what it was like to work on jobsites where the standards could change from one job to the next. When I fight for fair wages, I remember watching workers earn one amount on paper only to have part of it taken back. And when I think about organizing, I remember that for more than a decade, I was one of the workers on the outside.

That matters because the people we are fighting for are not numbers. They are workers trying to build a career, provide for their families and make it home safely at the end of the day. I know because I was one of them.

My job is not just to represent the members who already have a union card. It is to make sure more workers can see that there is another path in this industry, because I was once one of those workers who did not know that path existed.

I know what that path made possible for me. Today, I am raising my family just a few blocks from where I grew up, in the same city I have spent my career helping build.

I have lived both sides of this industry. I know firsthand what that difference can mean.

And I will never forget who I am leading for.