Fwd: FORT WAYNE, INDIANA CARPENTERS LOCAL 232 ENDS MONTH LONG STRIKE

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from the FORT WAYNE [INDIANA] JOURNAL-GAZETTE:

Published: July 9, 2009 3:00 a.m.

Union, builders hammer pact out

Local carpenters abandon strike that slowed area projects

Sherry Slater

The Journal Gazette

FORT WAYNE – Carpenters were back on the job Wednesday after their striking union reached a new contract agreement late Tuesday.

Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters Local 232 represents about 800 members, whose previous contract expired May 31.

The carpenters’ strike, which began June 8, slowed the construction of Eel River Elementary School in northwest Allen County, the expansion of Carroll High School and countless other projects.

Among the high-profile local construction sites that drew pickets were the $7.5 million Fort Wayne Museum of Art expansion; the $20 million, 250-room Courtyard by Marriott, part of the Harrison Square development; and the $536 million expansion of Parkview North Hospital.

Gloria Shaman off, Northwest Allen County Schools’ interim superintendent, said she’s staying optimistic that Eel River will open on time in August. District officials won’t decide until the end of July whether to create a temporary, alternate plan.

“We’ll see what the next couple of weeks brings,” she said.

Bill Mallers, the district’s business director, said some construction schedules were changed to keep the project moving along during the four-week carpenters’ strike.

If Eel River students and teachers are unable to start the school year in their regular classrooms, the makeshift arrangement would be brief, he said.

“We’d get them in there as soon as we could,” Mallers said.

Parkview Health officials are confident their regional medical center project will be finished on time in December 2011 and be an economic stimulus for the region.

“We’re pleased to be moving forward,” spokesman John Perlich said Wednesday.

The carpenters’ union had been negotiating with the Building Contractors Association of Fort Wayne’s labor relations council, which20represents 18 northeast Indiana contractors.

Larry Weigand, chairman of the association’s labor relations council, said council members will vote this morning on whether the agreement will last three years or four. All other details have been settled, he said.

The carpenters will receive “a package increase” that union leaders can decide to allocate to wages or benefits, said Weigand, president of Weigand Construction Co.

“There were no concessions” by the striking carpenters or members of two other local unions whose contracts also expired May 31, he said.

Laborers’ International Union Local 213, which represents construction workers including pipe layers, and Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ International Association Local 692 ratified contracts with the Building Contractors Association in mid-June after originally honoring the carpenters’ union’s pickets.

Larry Moran, carpenters’ union business manager, previously said his members were asking for money to keep their pension afloat; to pay for their health and welfare insurance program, which covers workers and their families; and for educational training. It costs about $17,000 to educate an apprentice.

Moran declined to get into specifics Wednesday.

“We’re not asking for big wage increases,” Moran said in June.

Under the old contracts, carpenters earned $23 an hour, laborers earned $18.75 an hour and plasterers and cement masons earned $22.75 an hour, Weigand said. Those average rates were for journeymen who had completed apprenticeship programs, which last four years for carpenters.

Weigand can’t calculate how much workers will earn under the new contracts because he doesn’t know whether the higher compensation will be funneled into wages or benefits.

Mark Jarrell, president of Laborers’ International Union Local 213, said none of the three groups received raises.

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Copyright © 2009 The Journal Gazette. All rights reserved. News service copy is used with permission. The information contained in the report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Journal Gazette or granting news service.

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