PAGE 2 | April 17, 2020 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
...COVID-19 is impacting construction
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president Dan Drinkward says
his company is deploying staff
in blue vests to serve as “social
distancing coaches” on con-
struction sites to encourage safe
practices. Hoffman is also lim-
iting capacity in personnel lifts
and elevators, limiting the use of
shared tools and sanitizing them
between uses, dramatically in-
creasing handwashing stations
and toilet facilities, and stagger-
ing start times and lunch times
to limit the number of workers
who come on or off the job or
eat lunch together at any one
time. Large stand-up shift meet-
ings and safety meetings are be-
ing eliminated; instead, superin-
tendents issue the orders of the
day to smaller groups of fore-
men, and they relay that to
workers they supervise.
At Intel, where Hoffman is
the general contractor, spots at
lunch tables are taped to keep
workers from sitting shoulder to
shoulder. To relieve crowding
on shuttle buses, construction
workers are being directed to
use Intel’s closer-in parking lots,
which were made vacant when
white collar employees were
told to work from home.
Some project owners deter-
mined that more drastic action
was called for. Adidas shut
down its headquarters expan-
sion project for the time being.
So did Facebook with its data
center project in Prineville, and
the company offered $4,000
payment to construction work-
ers who were sent home.
To be sure, some building
trades union members are also
staying home, and individual
workers and in some cases
whole crews are walking off the
job. And some of those who re-
main are there because they
need the money, or worry about
the consequences.
“It can be tough for a rank-
and-file member to make that
call,” Culver says. “Because the
job might finish while you’re
off. And for the next job, the
contractor might assemble a
crew from those who were there
at the end of the last job, and
there might not be a job for you
to return to.”
Elsewhere in the country,
some unions have pulled their
members off jobs altogether. In
Massachusetts and across New
England, the Painters and Car-
penters unions directed their
combined 17,000 members to
stop working as of April 6, ex-
WHAT’S YOUR EXPERIENCE?
Should construction work continue?
What steps are you taking to keep
safe? Share your experience with us
at editor@nwlaborpress.org
cept for those building health
care facilities to address the
COVID-19 crisis. And the Mas-
sachusetts Building Trades
Council voted unanimously to
call on the governor to suspend
all non-emergency construction.
In Oregon, the state building
trades council has focused on
raising safety awareness on the
job. It created a joint COVID-19
task force made up of several
dozen union and employer rep-
resentatives who meet online
twice a week. A subcommittee
of the task force is conducting
scheduled visits to construction
work sites. Accompanied by an
OSHA inspector, delegations of
five to seven task force mem-
bers started visiting sites this
week to verify that contractors
and workers are abiding by
safety practices that are recom-
mended to prevent the spread of
COVID-19.
“Our members’ wellbeing is
our number one priority,” Ore-
gon Building Trades Executive
Secretary Robert Camarillo told
the Labor Press. “Work is our
second priority. We’re not will-
ing to sacrifice anybody.”
Operating Engineers Local
701 Business Manager Jim An-
derson said some of his mem-
bers are taking voluntary layoff
to stay safe or to take care of
kids who are home because of
school and daycare closures, but
Local 701’s out-of-work list
isn’t bigger than usual at this
time of year. And members who
do take a layoff tend to have
banked hours that allow them to
maintain union-provided health
insurance. Employer health con-
tributions for all hours over 120
worked in a month go into a re-
serve, and members can bank
up to six months of health ben-
efits. Meanwhile, Local 701’s
hall is closed to visitors, regular
union meetings are cancelled,
and the training center classes
are cancelled for now, but reps
are as busy as ever, focused on
fostering safe practices like so-
cial distancing.
“As long as it’s a safe work-
ing environment, then let’s keep
working,” Anderson said. “It all
boils down to communication
with the members and the con-
tractors.”