Union Pickets City Hall
A group of union members demonstrated outside City Hall Tuesday in protest of what they said was the use of non-union labor on a preservation project.
Watertrol of Cranford won City Council approval in May for a $652,180 contract for exterior restoration of the building. Pickets represented the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen/Administration District Council, Local 4.
Workers stopped the project after the pickets showed up."They were embarrassed," a picketer said.
Picketers alleged there had been a promise of hiring some union workers for the project, but that did not happen, they said. One bricklayer said hundreds of union members are out of work."There's no work in New Jersey because of the economy," he said.
If hired, union members would have to be paid union wages.
Public Works Director Jennifer Wenson Maier confers with pickets. The line was halted while authorities tried to determine whether the demonstrators had a permit. No one was available late Tuesday afternoon at Watertrol to comment. Plaintalker will attempt to follow up today.
One union member said masonry workers are facing the worst job market in decades.
"This is the worst, even when Carter was in," he said.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 7:50 AM
3 Comments:
Regarding the recent contract bid to finish the city hall facade made by Watertrol: This company and its principals have given THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars to (shadow mayor) Jerry Green's political campaigns and his allies, so it’s not surprising that 1), they would get the contract, and 2) they would use non-union labor. Don’t forget Green’s union-busting attempt last year with Sweeney and Moriarty. Don’t forget the scab labor that was being used on the Senior Center building on Front Street.
The Star Ledger has a website called “New Jersey by the Numbers” where you can go to see who has given money to campaigns. So far they have the information up until 2005. You have to go to the state to get more recent years. I am sure they could tell a story. Here is the link to the web site. On the right there is a list of Star Ledger databases. Click on Campaign Contributions and then enter "Jerry Green" and "22nd" and you will get to a list of his political donors and some of Assemblywoman Stender’s. You can do this for all the state legislators. As it is, if you look up Jerry Green's contributions you can see that he received money from many builders, contractor PACs and individuals associated with them. You will also see names from many healthcare PACs and some names you will be very familiar with. A political action committee called Builders PAC gave Green $8,200 in February of 2005 and another $8,200 in September of 2005. What is Wenson-Maier conferring with the picketers about? What can she say? Maybe she should be asking them about a job, since she's imploding as public works director, according to many under her supervision. Like almost everything else about this administration, it stinks. Where is the city council's oversight on this kind of stuff? Cory Storch is the ONLY member who has voiced disapproval over pay-for-play contracts. This contract is not in the interest of the citizens and is guaranteed to go overbudget. Wait until they go back for more money since the artifically low bid was just to get the contract.
In Dan Damon's blog entry of September 27, 2007 on the non-union work being done on the Senior Center has 2 pictures. One is the labor union members with the big union rat, and the other is a close-up image of the picket sign with an explanation of the non-union work. Watertrol is more of the same. Jerry Green has positioned himself as a friend of labor until he sold out the unions last year with his proposed legislation to cut union pensions. We all know that this administration wouldn't be using Watertrol if they didn't give significant contributions to Green and his cronies.
Brings up 3 questions for me:
1. The caption says "authorities tried to determine whether the demonstrators had a permit". Anybody else think that if a permit were applied for, it'd have been denied?
2. If they're using non-union work (which one would guess is to pay cheaper labor), would it be unreasonable to call them out if they came in over budget?
3. Is this company paying the labor on the books (and paying the payroll taxes to the proper authorities)? If not, wouldn't that be of interest to state tax authorities?
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