Thread: Union pickets Navy housing over subcontractor

http://www.projo.com/eastbayandmass/con ... 923b1.html

Union pickets Navy housing over subcontractor

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 4, 2006
By RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer


PORTSMOUTH -- Union workers picketed yesterday at a Navy housing construction site in Melville, alleging that the subcontractor on the job hires illegal immigrant help, pays wages below federal mandates and evades withholding taxes.

Beginning at 4 p.m., about two-dozen union members gathered on Stringham Road outside a security fence for 22 single-family houses that Shawnlee Construction, of Plainville, Mass, is building for Navy officers. They held signs reading, "Fed up with fraud" and "Shawnlee Construction owned by Universal Forest Products commits insurance and tax fraud."

"Last Monday, there were two laborers working in that building. We asked them what they were working for. They said $10," said John P. Murphy Jr., organizer for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, which held the demonstration.

The rate mandated by federal Davis-Bacon provisions for carpenters on a government project in this region is about $18 an hour, compared with the $32 an hour union members receive when benefits are factored in, Murphy said. The use of lower-paid, illegal workers puts "a downward drag" on what union workers can earn and prevents the union from being able to compete "on a level playing field" against nonunion contractors, Murphy said. The union has alleged that taxes are not withheld from the illegal workers pay because they are purportedly hired as independent contractors.

GMH Military Housing, which last year won the rights to manage all of the Navy's housing in New England, has hired Centex Corp. to do all of its building. Shawnlee, whose parent company is Universal Forest Products, won the contract to frame the Navy houses for Centex, including those on Aquidneck Island and in Groton, Conn.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Universal, denied the union allegations but declined to answer specific questions.

"Our employees are employed by us. We provide our full-time employees with competitive compensation and benefits. And we follow government regulations to determine, to the best of our ability, the proper documentation of our employees," said Lynn Afendoulis, director of corporate communications.

The carpenters union has targeted Shawnlee in a series of demonstrations and leafleting operations throughout the region.

"We have always said these tactics are hurtful to good and hard-working people who are important to Shawnlee and Universal and the community," said Afendoulis. "We think it's an unfortunate and misguided strategy."

Murphy said that it was only in the past couple of years that illegal workers began appearing in the building trade. He suspects that they have arrived with the emergence of large national companies, such as Universal, that are now competing in New England. The problem, he said, is more prevalent in Rhode Island and Connecticut than in Massachusetts, where the union's presence is stronger.

During the past several months, union representatives visited the construction jobs here and in Groton and interviewed some of the workers off-site. They recorded the interviews during which workers said there were undocumented laborers earning low wages, Murphy said.

The union successfully lobbied for two group meetings attended by Centex and GMH officials and representatives for U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, both Connecticut Democrats.

"They're just denying everything," said John O'Connor, senior organizer for the carpenters council.

But Robert Rulli, GMH's regional manager, said the videotape "was inconclusive in my mind." Nevertheless, he said, "Our position is we don't want illegal workers on the job site either. We won't tolerate it either. We've not been given anything but allegations that it is going on."

Apart from emphasizing this point to Centex, said Rulli, "there isn't anything we can do beyond that. ... It's clear the carpenters union is targeting Shawnlee and they are not union... Obviously it's an issue that is getting a lot of national debate."

GMH, at the request of the Navy, is replacing housing that has been deemed too small and antiquated with quarters that better meet the needs of contemporary Navy families. The 22 single-family houses going up on Stringham Road have two floors and two garages and range from 2,800- to 3,300-square-feet. They are intended for officers, said Rulli. On Greene Lane in Middletown, Centex and its subcontractors are building 30 duplexes. The first house should be occupied by June and the rest filled by the end of autumn, Rulli said.

rsalitATprojo.com / (401) 277-7467

Contracting Department of Defense work to foreign nationals is illegal. Conrtracting officers are supposed to know that and enforce that. The unions affected need to take their complaint to the office of the Department of the Navy Inspector General and to the Naval Audit Agency in accordance with their waste, fraud, and abuse policies.

Now, they can also complain to the Congress, but we all know how much good that'll do.

Exceptions are when the naval base is on foreign soil to begin with, or embassy staffs.

About two years ago TVA got caught outsourcing some work to Bangalore, India. I don't know what the outcome was, but heads are supposed to roll when illegal practices like that happen.

Now... having said that

Hillary Clinton will make a liar out of me after she's in office for a short while. Upon declaration of martial law, Hillary will have presidential override authority to allow the DoD to hire foreign nationals on US soil, and you can bet your paycheck Hillary will make it happen. What we'll see then is Haliburton, and all the big government contractors being replaced by Tata and thousands of Tata employees arriving from India.