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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 2020)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | January 17, 2020 | PAGE 7 JOBS Tilesetting jobs were the one union sore spot on the Hyatt project Bricklayers Local 1 warned Mortenson that there’d be prob- lems with non-union contractor By Don McIntosh The just-opened Hyatt Regency Portland ended up being a largely union project, but tile was a notable exception. Lead- ers of Bricklayers Local 1— which represents tilesetters and tile finishers—got nowhere try- ing to warn developer Morten- son and project sponsor Metro that non-union Sustainable Floors was going to have to break the law in order to under- bid union contractors as much as they did. When Local 1 Business Manager Matt Eleazer and Business Rep Matteo Russo Jr. learned that none of the union’s signatory tile contractors got work on the massive project, and that non-union Sustainable Floors had put in the winning bid, they met with Mortenson operations director Mike Clif- ford to warn there would be problems. According to a social equity report produced by Mortenson, Sustainable was paid $1,618,642 to do the tile work in bathrooms in all 600 hotel In 600 rooms at the Hyatt Regency, shower tiles were set by a non-union company that violated prevailing wage and other laws. rooms as well as hotel public ar- eas. Eleazer says that was far below what union contractors bid. Because public subsidy paid part of the project costs, all bid- ders for each specialty would be required to pay the same pre- vailing wage. “On a prevailing wage job, we should be playing in the same ball park,” Russo says. “There should be no $100,000 discrepancies.” Clifford told the Labor Press by phone Jan. 13 that Sustain- able got the job because it was the low bidder, and because no bids were received from quali- fied union tile firms that were certified as minority- or women-owned, which was a very important factor for both Mortenson and Metro. Based in Fife, Washington, Sustainable Floors is certified as a woman- or minority-owned firm. “Metro made it clear that their number one factor was our ability to achieve the social eq- uity goals, so we set out to do that,” Clifford said. Eleazer and Russo predicted to Mortenson and Metro that Sustainable wouldn’t perform the work with its own employ- ees, and argued that the com- pany would be better defined as a broker, subcontracting to mul- tiple firms. After tile work got under way around November 2018, that proved to be the case. Local 1 identified tile employees on the job who were employed by at least six other companies. The union also learned of mul- tiple violations of prevailing wage and other public construc- tion laws, and shared its find- ings with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), the agency responsible for en- forcing those laws. BOLI assigned several in- vestigators, who found dozens of violations. Sustainable itself was found responsible for 14 separate violations. Among them: It didn’t have a public works bond or require its sub- contractors to have one; it failed to pay prevailing wage or over- time in some cases; or keep records of hours worked. On behalf of two workers who suffered wage theft on the project, BOLI collected $20,840 in unpaid wages and damages. BOLI also found that at least three of Sustainable’s subcon- tractors each violated the law four to six different ways. It wasn’t just the laws that were broken: Sustainable also skirted Metro’s goal of appren- tice opportunities, Eleazer says. As part of its agreement with Metro, which oversaw at least $74 million of public subsidy for the project, Mortenson had agreed that it would aim for 20% of the work to be done by apprentices. But neither Sus- tainable nor any of the subcon- tractors Local 1 was able to identify were even enrolled in any state-registered apprentice- ship program for tilesetters. “If on Day One they’re not a IN MEMORIAM Robert Blanche 1962-2020 Robert Blanche, former presi- TRA from 2017 to 2019. dent of the Portland local of In 2011, he was diagnosed SAG-AFTRA, died Jan. 3 af- with hypersensitivity pneu- ter a long battle with a lung ail- monitis, an inflammation in ment. the lungs that led to pulmonary Best known as Sgt. fibrosis. He received a Franco on NBC's double lung transplant Grimm, Blanche ap- in August 2018, but peared in over 80 tele- struggled to recover. vision and film pro- Over the past year, ductions, including local union members Men of Honor (2000), and supporters raised Rose Red (2002) and about $45,000 to help World Trade Center Blanche and his fam- (2006), and two ily cope with medical episodes of Portlandia. Robert Blanche expenses and the loss Blanche also played officer of income from being unable Patrick Bonanno in the TNT to work. show Leverage. Blanche is survived by his Blanche joined the Screen wife June Eisler ,and five chil- Actors Guild in 1995 and dren. served as the president of its The union will honor Portland branch prior to SAG’s Blanche’s memory at an Jan. 2012 merger with AFTRA, and 19 viewing party for the tele- on several committees of the vised annual SAG-AFTRA national union. He later served awards at Lake Theater in as local president of SAG-AF- Lake Oswego. Raymond Thomas James Coon Cynthia Newton Chris Frost Sydney Montanaro Scott Sell If you get hurt at work but don’t want to file a claim, give the employer written notice that you hurt yourself at work. This will protect your rights later should you need to file a claim. 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 Chris Thomas www.tcnf.legal registered training agent, how were they even allowed to bid this job?” Eleazer said. Local 1, meanwhile, had roughly two dozen tilesetter ap- prentices that could have worked on the job. All of these concerns Eleazer laid out in a March 1, 2019 let- ter to Metro Chair Lynn Peter- son. “It is our experience that bro- kers like Sustainable Floors count on a lack of compliance enforcement, and that is why their bid tends to be much lower than a true subcontractor,” Eleazer wrote to Peterson. The letter was followed by a March 20 meeting with Metro’s General Manager of Visitor Venues and a Metro attorney. Nothing came of it, Eleazer said: “They basically said, ‘sorry for your loss,’” Eleazer recalls. Eleazer and Russo said they thought BOLI did a great job on the investigation, but it came too late and was after the fact. Union firms lose out on bids fair and square all the time, and take it in stride, Eleazer said. What bothers him in this case is the sense that the non-union competition won the work by not playing by the rules.
