JC Beal Labor Issues

[raptor56]

I see these random "Shame on JC Beal" banners on street corners downtown with one or two people standing around them. The protest seems to be over Beal's labor practices. So what is the real issue? I imagine their labor proactices can't be too bad, considering all the work they are currently doing around town.

[noggin]

They are the Carpenter's Union targeting and trying to intimidate non union contractors. It is a technique known as bannering. Here is a good example of this being done to a company in Grand Rapids. Link

[jt1]

Seeing that it is the carpenter's union it makes it pretty funny that I watched them fumble and struggle putting one of the signs together. Connecting PVC pipe shouldn't be difficult for a carpenter

[noggin]

The people holding up the signs are not carpenters. They are paid by the Carpenters Union.

[Det_ard]

Something tells me the Carpenter's Union isn't paying them union wages, benefits, etc.

JC Beal is paying market prices to willing workers. Same for the union. It's nice that they can agree on something.

[Scottathew]

I'd like to thank these assholes for illegally blocking Gratiot thru\right turn lane onto Broadway every morning during rush hour while they unload their signs.

Unions are very afraid of people willing to do labor for market wages.

[1953]

Its wonderful that we all agree on who is right in this dispute, but, I wonder, does anyone know the stated cause of the dispute, or are we all just guessing pay?

[noggin]

Even though I do not know the specifics of this dispute but here is a story from Grand Rapids of the Carpenters Union methods:

Michigan Carpenters’ Union Constructing a Fake Dispute


By KEN BRAUN | June 28, 2011

As commonly understood, an American labor dispute is a rather simple matter: Employees demanding a change in their pay or working conditions walk off the job and begin to publicly demonstrate against their employer. But the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters is no longer playing by these rules. Since last summer, the union has been organizing demonstrations against an employer that MRCC members do not work for — supposedly on behalf of construction workers that the union does not represent — and using demonstrators who are not employees of the company being targeted. Indeed, the demonstrators are frequently not MRCC members either, nor even construction workers at all.
Welcome to “bannering,” a new method being deployed by Big Labor bosses who wish to continue exerting their influence over a marketplace where employers, customers and workers have turned sharply against using union labor.
The employer being targeted is Ritsema Associates, a construction contractor headquartered in Grandville, near Grand Rapids. On July 13, MRCC sent a letter to Ritsema Associates, wherein the union claimed that it had done an “investigation” and concluded that the contractor was paying “substandard wages and fringe benefits,” and that this was “undermining the fair construction wage and benefits standards established by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters.” The letter makes no mention of how the investigation was conducted, who was spoken to or what documentation supported its claims.
It is also unclear why the union should be considered an authority regarding what the proper compensation should be for construction workers in the region.
The MRCC letter concludes by presenting Ritsema Associates — whose 120 employees are not MRCC members — with two alternatives:

1. Allow the union to examine Ritsema Associates’ private payroll data within seven days; or
2. After that point, Ritsema Associates will be considered by the MRCC to be paying “substandard wages and benefits.”

Ritsema Associates declined to turn over its payroll information, and two weeks later more than a dozen of its customers received a “Notice of Labor Dispute” from the MRCC. The notice makes no attempt to claim that there is any dispute between Ritsema Associates and its employees, nor that MRCC is acting directly on behalf of any actual employees of Ritsema Associates. Instead, customers of Ritsema Associates were informed that the company and the MRCC are in a “dispute” because of the MRCC’s “solid commitment” to “protect and preserve area standard wages.”
“[W]e are asking that you use your managerial discretion to not allow these non area standard contractors to perform any work on any of your projects unless and until they generally meet area labor standards for all their carpentry craft work,” reads the MRCC notice.
Because the MRCC was not alleging to speak for the workers of Ritsema Associates, this effectively means that the carpenters’ union is trying to get customers seeking carpentry work to kick carpenters off of jobsites. And while this was couched as a request from the MRCC, the union also informed the customers that there would be consequences if they continued using the employees of Ritsema Associates.
“We want you to be aware that our new and aggressive public information campaign against this company will unfortunately impact all parties associated with projects where they are employed,” the notice warns. The impact is defined as “highly visible” banner displays and “distribution of handbills” at the jobsites of Ritsema Associates’ customers.
Shortly thereafter, large banner displays manned by teams of demonstrators did begin to appear outside of several jobsites where employees of Ritsema Associates were working in downtown Grand Rapids, including hospitals and Van Andel Arena. [[In some locations, roving lines of demonstrators holding picket signs have also been used.)
A banner being held outside Van Andel Arena during January said “Shame on Van Andel” in bold red letters. The letters were each more than a foot high. And in smaller font, the phrase “Labor Dispute” was noted on either side.
When asked, the banner holders denied being employed by Ritsema Associates, or Van Andel Arena, or any of the other contractors on the jobsite. They said they were not carpenters, and that they were not even members of the MRCC. Despite being the public face of this “new and aggressive public information campaign” by the MRCC, they would say only that they had been hired by the MRCC to “hold the banner.” They would not reveal how much they had been paid to do this, but one revealed that it was better than his previous wage, which he said was “nothing.”
Those asking them about the nature of the so-called “labor dispute,” were handed a flyer from the MRCC. It depicts a rat chewing on an American flag, and is titled, “Shame on Van Andel Arena for Desecration of the American Way of Life.” As with the correspondence leading up to the demonstrations, the text of the flyer repeats the allegation regarding Ritsema Associates’ alleged failure to pay “area standard wages,” and makes no effort to assert that any actual workers of Ritsema Associates are involved.
Nonetheless, the flyer provides a phone number and encourages the public to call Van Andel Arena and complain about Ritsema Associates workers on the arena’s property.
“That they say they have a dispute with me is a bald-faced lie,” said Bill Ritsema, president of Ritsema Associates, who says he has never spoken with anyone from the MRCC.
“A labor dispute suggests that there are employees who have a grievance against their employer,” said Chris Fisher, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan. “There’s no such example in this. There’s not a single employee of any company that’s involved in this quote-unquote labor dispute. The only dispute is a refusal of companies to hand over their payroll data to an outside entity [the MRCC].”
ABC is a trade industry group representing Michigan’s merit shop, or non-union contractors.
“They are hired guns,” said Fisher, referring to the demonstrators. “They’re hired protesters and who knows if they even make a standard wage.”
He also notes that the whole concept of the MRCC claiming to be the enforcer for the “area standard wage” is absurd because unionized construction workers are such a small [[albeit very vocal) portion of the construction trade.
Nationwide, unions now account for just 13.7 percent of the construction workforce, according to a recent news release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fisher also references a recent report from UnionStats.com showing that unionized construction workers account for just 21.7 percent of Michigan’s construction workforce. [[UnionStats.com is the work of researchers Barry Hirsh of Georgia State University and David Macpherson of Trinity University.)
“They tell them [contractors such as Ritsema] that they are guilty until proven innocent without any basis of guilt,” says Fisher.
“Legally, there is nothing I can do except employ the same tactics,” says Ritsema, when questioned about how he is handling the accusations. “That would just escalate [the situation].”
Instead, he has been setting up meetings with his customers to reassure them. He believes that at least one customer has stopped using his employees in order to make the MRCC demonstrations stop.
Ritsema Associates was founded in 1955, and its current president says the employees have never attempted to form a union.
“We have very low turnover,” says Ritsema of his staff. “We have a great group.”
Though the MRCC provides no documentation for their allegations against his company, and has not demonstrated an ability to speak for any of his employees, Ritsema believes he may have a clue as to what their real “dispute” may be with him. Ritsema Associates now has four offices, three in Michigan and one in Indiana. Last year, they submitted a bid on a job in Indiana, and he believes this bid threatened to take even more work away from the already shrinking union market share.
“They were upset because we were bidding against work that they considered their bailiwick.”
It was after this that the letter accusing him of violating standard wages arrived.
Fisher accuses the MRCC of “threatening good companies whose employees are happy to be there,” and says that the specific campaign against Ritsema Associates is “one of the most disingenuous and blatantly fabricated campaigns we’ve ever seen.”

[Wesley Mouch]

Unions paying below union wages tells you a lot.

[Novine]

The usual "unbiased" reporting from the Mackinac Center.

[Danny]

Dave Bing on JC Beal labor issues.

"JC Beal and its union are in war with just like Oceania vs. Eurasia in Orwell's book 1984. Let the unions hold up their socialist signs. I deal with unions and won. JC Beal deal the unions and always lose. Coleman A. Young deal with unions before and during his mayorship and comes up neutral."

[wobbly]

Unions are very afraid of people willing to do labor for market wages.

"market wages" as used here translates to "the lowest wage and benefits package we can get someone to work for". I don't know about unions fearing that but I would say it pulls down wages for everyone and most likely the quality of work too.

JC Beal has been cited for 11 OSHA violations in the past 15 months ... which means they probably have many more; given the facts that most workers most of the time [[especially in non-union workplaces) are afraid to make OSHA complaints and that Snyder's Michigan OSHA is not aggressive about enforcing the law.

[Meddle]

Connecting PVC pipe shouldn't be difficult for a carpenter

Wouldn't they have to hire union plumbers to do that?

[Wheels]

Wouldn't they have to hire union plumbers to do that?

Thats why they hire non union to picket for the union. LOL

[Wesley Mouch]

"market wages" as used here translates to "the lowest wage and benefits package we can get someone to work for". I don't know about unions fearing that but I would say it pulls down wages for everyone and most likely the quality of work too.

I have worked with both Union and non-Union contractors. In most trades, I've seen little evidence of a quality difference.

JC Beal has been cited for 11 OSHA violations in the past 15 months ... which means they probably have many more; given the facts that most workers most of the time [[especially in non-union workplaces) are afraid to make OSHA complaints and that Snyder's Michigan OSHA is not aggressive about enforcing the law.

1) Without comparing this to the industry, the number of complaints is meaningless. What is the industry average per manhour worked? And how does Beal compare?

2) MI-OSHA complaints usually turn into violations. My personal experience with them is that they are incapable of leaving a jobsite without writing a violation.

3) If there are disgrunted Union employees who want to make trouble for a company, filing OSHA complaints is a great tool to torment someone.

4) Taking a statistic out of context and suggesting that Beal is less than safety conscious is a comment only suitable for the local TV newscasts.

Disclosure ..... I know Fred Beal -- and find him to be quite responsible and professional.

[Novine]

"I have worked with both Union and non-Union contractors. In most trades, I've seen little evidence of a quality difference. "

That's not my experience. The work I saw from union contractors was far higher in quality than what we got from low-bid non-union hacks.

[Wesley Mouch]

"I have worked with both Union and non-Union contractors. In most trades, I've seen little evidence of a quality difference. "

That's not my experience. The work I saw from union contractors was far higher in quality than what we got from low-bid non-union hacks.

What kind of work were you bidding? Why did you award work to low-bid hacks? I don't think its fair to blame all open-shop contractors for the behavior of the scum.

There's far more diversity in the open-shop world. Fewer labor rules often result in workers that are good in multiple trades. This kind of creative cross-training is one of the advantages of open-shop labor.

I'd be surprised if Beal's contractors were scum. And I'm not surprised that the Carpenter's Union hires non-union scum to try and get work. That particular union has little chance of getting it by productivity. They're too spoiled by high-end government-mandated carpet-laying work.