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Unions Inflate Rat Outside East High Construction Site
By Dennis LaRueYOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Pickets from the building trades unions, accompanied by a giant inflatable rat, are protesting the use of non-union labor as work begins on the $162 million high school on the city's east side -- as well as the absence of minorities, females and city residents from the work force.Rudzik Excavation, Struthers, and Tri-Way Rebar Inc., Ravenna, have begun work on the high school on Bennington Avenue. The building trades comprise the unions in the Western Reserve Building & Construction Trades Council: Local 125 of the Laborers International Union, Local 66 of the Operating Engineers union, and Local 207 of the Iron Workers union, Local 171 of the Carpenters union, among others.The Ohio Schools Facilities Commission is providing 80% of the funding for the high school, says Tony DeNiro, executive director of school business affairs for Youngstown city schools, and its foremost concern is building the school at the lowest possible cost. "OSFC owns 80% of the project," DeNiro said Thursday, "and their priority is [obtaining] the lowest and most responsible bid. They condone what we're doing [using non-union labor]."What frosts the building trades is the clamor, led by former City Councilman Clarence Boles (also a former member of the school board), to include more members of the minority community, women and city residents in the work to build the school. Standing at the entrance to the work site Thursday morning, Robert Jones, business agent of Laborers Local 125, said, "Not only are they [Tri-Way and Rudzik] non-union contractors, I see no minorities, no females, no city residents. How do they address the minority problem?"The business agent for the Iron Workers, Ed Goldner, said a security guard at the site informed him that he had seen no minority or female workers. Moreover, "They're paying substandard wages," Goldner complained, and told of a man at the site who, two weeks ago, had sought to join Local 207.The school board may give the same weight to hiring minorities, females and city residents as its members do to finding the lowest and best bidder, DeNiro said, but OSFC tips the scale in favor of the latter.The EEOC compliance officer for Youngstown city schools construction projects, Al Curry, claimed to welcome the building trades' interest in protesting the small number of minority and female workers on construction projects in the city, including the downtown. "They're blowing smoke," he said. "I'm thrilled they finally noticed how few minorities and women have construction jobs in the city," he said. "Ninety-five percent of the construction work [on school construction and rehabilitation] so far is union," he continued. He said he's referred interested city residents, many of them minority and some female, to apply for jobs on the construction sites and to become apprentices in the building trades unions. Whether a contractor (or subcontractor) uses union or non- union labor on school sites, Curry continued, he has the same obligation to try to meet the goals the school board set in hiring minorities, women and city residents. At the P. Ross Berry School, for example, 10% of the work force is minority, 20% is the goal, Curry pointed out.Those Curry refers to construction sites, he says, are interested in joining a building trades union as well aswork at the site. Two women he referred to the Laborers union have been accepted as members, he reported.Without an assurance of sufficient work to justify enrolling more in apprenticeship programs, the Operating Engineers David Knickerbocker says, the unions can't take on more trainees. To which Curry responds, the unions overlook that there are "more unemployed minorities and females outside the unions willing to work than inside the unions."Work on the new East High School began Nov. 8, so the first "labor utilization report" -- contractors must file such reports every two weeks -- hasn't been filed, the compliance officer noted. In these documents, contractors break down their work forces by race, sex, hours worked and wages paid. Calls to Rudzik and Tri-Way were taken by receptionists. The president of Rudzik, Jeffrey Rudzik, was at a meeting but would get back, the receptionist said. At Tri-Way, the man who answered the phone refused to provide the owner's name -- the owner had instructed him not to release his name to reporters, he said -- and said he didn't expect the owner to return before Friday afternoon.Contact Dennis LaRue at [email protected]"