Union Vs Non Union WAR ???

CheckmateOhio

I am currently bidding on the framing on a multi million dollar 5 story building. Here is my problem..... I was in reviewing the blueprints when a concrete contractor whom I know walks in to do a bid on another project. He sees me lookin over the 90 some page print and asks me if I am gonna bid the work. I said, yeah I was going to.
He says that he was going to bid all the concrete til he found out that this building was about 1/4 mile from the local laborers union and that there would be trouble. I told him that the G.C. told me that some trades were union and some weren't. He said, Oh great...so they are gonna have 2 gates. I am now re thinking the idea. I want to do it and everyone needs a little excitement every now and then, but that along with the G.C. telling me that he threw an extra $10,000. on the bid for any lawyer fees ?????? Makes me a lil nervous.

Any of you guys had a prob like this ?



And please...No dumb ass stupid comments like "If you have to ask." Or blah blah f-ing blah.

Same Old

I can tell you a dozen horror stories right off the top of my head. The worst cost me about $30k.

At one point my "crew" of artists were forced to work weekends to aviod outright union sabotage. The GC was a brick wall about it. He didn't see anything, not his problem. There isn't a union for floor artists you morons!! It was a crew of artists that created one of a kind acid stain and inlay/cut/sandblast/whatever sometimes concrete floors in high end loft type condos. When they found out about us coming in on weekends to aviod outright purposeful destruction of our work they wanted us to pay a union elevator operator at like $90 an hour to sit there while we were on site to push the buttons for us. We barely broke even on that one.

A few years later we had the same crew doing the same type of floor in a nbig new dance club and had the same GC and the same problems. WE were contracted with the owner direct and they refused payment after union laborers walked across a freshly epoxied floor and started working. They were given notice weeks in advance and all the entrancs were marked with huge signs and blocked off. It took effort to get into the space and destroy the work.

Nightmare.

Union laborers are morons.

Metrojoebarbs

Start pouring the concrete before they set up the picket lines

Honestly, are there other large jobs going on around that area. Sometimes if there is, it thins things out a little at both gates and everyone is a little happier.

TempestV

Apparently Butte Montana which is about 80 miles from here has a real strong carpenders union, and according to several people I've talked to, building a house with a non union crew there is asking to get it burned down before it's done.

dirt diggler

im totally "sheltered" from experience with unions

but that's just awful

CheckmateOhio

hmmmm. I can't really afford to LOSE money on this job.

Magnettica

I worked on an animal hospital 2 years back. It was half union, half not. Besides the union guys pretending to be bigger and better than the rest of us, they were for the most part ok. No slashed tires, no broken car windows, etc.

If your guts telling you not to do this job then don't do it.

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mikesewell

Checkmate,
You might consider going down to the union hall and seeing what they have to say.

We just did a multi-million dollar job with about a 50/50 mix of union and non-union crews. Never had a problem at all. The union crews were great guys. Very competent, with great tools and equipment, and very professional. 1st class all the way.

The local commercial market here is fantastic right now. Maybe the union crews have lots of work, so they might not care that there's non-union guys on the job. If the market were tight, it would probably be another story.

I would be a little careful, and I'd follow my gut feeling, but I would at least talk to them.

Best of luck,
Michael

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joasis

I have heard 10 storieslike this one for every positive opinion on unions....I know both sides, but stories like this one are why the unions have created so much resentment over the years. There is a union in Oklahoma City...and I know some brick masons that are in it...the wages they get for laying brick would kill a home budget here.

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Frankawitz

When I first started out working for a Union contractor we were doing this Medical office building, Now Ray who I worked for was in the Painters Union for 48 years, I wasn't a card holder at the time I started working for him and he didn't care. the thing was that some of the carpenters and electrians thought that Ray's company was non union so one day I was working in the stairwells painting hand rails, I had my radio in there with me, well Ray called for break, Well when I went back to work I found that one of the union guys pitched my radio off the third floor, I went throught the building asking if anyone knew about it, they all said no, which I figured the punks would say, the next day when we came back someone had taken paint and dumped it all over the hand rails I had painted the day before. Like I said PUNKS, Gutless PUNKS. so in turn I took roofing nails and threw in the parking lot under all the workers trucks, Now see how you like that, boy there was a bunch of pissed off union workers at the end of the day. I just laughed at them dumb F*&^S. Unions back in the day had a place today they are destorying the Companys who give people jobs. Like here in Michigan we can't get a Car or Truck Manufacturer to build a new plant here cause of the UAW. instead these companies are going to southern States because they know Union Workers here are Lazy and play the system. I don't have anything good to say about unions.

Ed the Roofer

Contact the NLRB, (National Labor Relations Board), and request their guide on how to deal legaly with such situations. They will freely provide a very good guide book on what your rights are and how not to cross the line of disput and remain legally functional while working on a dual gate situation.

I had previously used their grievance process to quash unmeritous actions being put forth by the local roofers union.

Ed

CheckmateOhio

So there actually IS a dual gate term ?

I am thinking I will just pass on this one because times are slow right now and I don't need the extra headache of out of work union guys.

Ed the Roofer

Yes, absolutely.

One gate is to be utilized by any union personal and any of their materialmen.

The other gate is to be used by the open shop or merit shop or whatever name they go by non-union trades.

Even that legal aspect is tricky though.

If the non-union personal or materialmen utilize the union gate set area, there is a possibility of merituous conflict, not even regarding the physical chicanery or thuggishness potentialy to be done.

They are not "Gates" per se, but just different areas of access. The union personal picketing the job for "Informational Purposes" only, must only do so at the union gate established area.

The NLRB guide is a very condensed version of applicable laws and it is interesting and simplified enough to gather at least a working knowledge of the act and other laws which may be related.

Just because the laws and acts language seem simplified, does not insinuate that the follow through will not be burdensome, if required.

The legal strategy I envoked to release my personal requirement to join the local union, was a financial disclosure requirement mandated by law, to satisfy my political concerns as to where the union funds collected where actually being dispersed. I had obtained a copy of the union halls financial statement, (I won't say how), and lets just say, they did not want that information to become public knowledge amongst their paid membership.

I envoked my right to not participate in their political discourse and chose to be an "Agency Fee" member, instead of a full member. They gave up their pusuit of requiring my membership after I mandated this financial disclosure from them.

Although I won the battle at hand for the moment, they seemingly won the war, as the problems created by them were too cumbersome to continually deal with regarding all of the new construction projects I was involved in. In the end, though, I actually won by developing my residential side of the business and pursuing that effectively. This allows me to enjoy working closer to hame and have time for family enjoyment and a higher quality of life.

Ed

Same Old

Your story makes me hate unions even more Ed. They've turned into a bunch of thugs extorting money for inefficient, sub-standard production.
The commercials they run talking about ensuring quality with union workers makes me laugh. If it's union it's probably pretty ****ty around here, and it seems even worse in other areas I've seen.

pigseye

Hey Same Old I'm sure you weren't referring to us Union Laborers as individuals, because I'm a union laborer-highway heavy, I don't picket, I don't bother people I just take advantage of the wages and benefits they provide, and I think especially in the highway heavy trades you will find union or not, the price comes out the same hard to believe but it does, we go into non union territory all the time and are the low bidder but that is a completely different story, just my 2 cents, I don't want to be characterized with all the rest of the b.s.

Paul

Metrojoebarbs

Boy I could see that coming

mikesewell

I've seen some union outfits crank out VERY high quality work at a BLISTERING pace. On the larger jobs in this area they can be VERY competitive.

I hope that doesn't happen.

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Magnettica

You're absolutely right. Not every union worker is a union thug. I used to think that way until I met a few people like yourself. You're definitey the exception though. Good to have you chime in here.

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Diesel65

In Florida we work with union shop's on many project's, (Mainly pipefitters, and steel) but we have never had a problem, you hear all these horror stories, and most times that is just what they are, "Stories".
I have to say the Union crew's are safer and more efficient than most other trades, and their work is excellent.

I learned my trade in the union and I never saw thing's like have been described above.
I have a lot of respect for union worker's, they put in a lot of time and effort to learn their trade and put up with all BS that they have to. Union management is a whole other story.

I say go for it.

Same Old

Mine isn't a story I heard, It happened to ME! And I have more to tell.

A group of union carpenters drilled little holes all over some ABS drain lines in a house. There was no way to know about them until the final test which failed miserably. You should have seen all the holes in that house to try to find all spots they drilled. I know the guys that did it, they told me about it. And I saw the house.

Thugs.