Electricians Rip PA Power Play on Prevailing Wages

By MICHELLE FRIEDMAN

After more than two years of unsuccessful contract negotiations, Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers claims that the Port Authority is stalling a wage agreement and employing "union-busting" strategies to prevent its members from securing prevailing-rate wages.

RICH GONZALO: PA repeatedly crossed line.

The union is asking for 100 percent of the prevailing rate paid in private industry, a significant increase from the current level of 85 percent.

Delay Causes Slippage

Local 3-represented Port Authority electricians now earn $36 an hour, and the delay in reaching contract terms has left them at just 76 percent of the more up-to-date private-sector contracts establishing a prevailing hourly wage of $47.

Local 3 Chairman Rich Gonzalo alleges there has been harassment of union officials, with the PA denying members time to do union work on the job and continually violating rules and regulations to force the union to deplete its resources on lawsuits.

"They have violated our agreement dozens of times to create a distraction to keep us from organizing and to get the men frustrated," he said. "We have done very well in court. We have won most of the cases, yet they continue to pick and choose what they want to deal with."

Negotiations between Local 3 and the PA began on March 15, 2006. After 16 negotiating sessions failed to produce a deal, the two sides moved into mediation and fact-finding.

A Five-Month Layover?

During the final fact-finding stage, Local 3 presented and concluded its case, and it is now the Port Authority's turn. But according to Mr. Gonzalo, The PA has refused to meet since the last fact-finding session on Dec. 17.

A Port Authority spokesman denied it had been intransigent and said that both sides are likely to have completed their cases by the end of July.

Mr. Gonzalo claims that Port Authority Chief Administrative Officer Lou LaCapra is attempting to "put [Local 3 members] in line" to set an example for other unions currently in contract negotiations. He feels that because Local 3 has been singled out in such a fashion, it is not being treated fairly.

"He [Lou LaCapra] refuses to pay based on prevailing rate," said Local 3 spokesman Austin Shafran. "He prefers pattern bargaining to make his job easier and because a raise for them will impact other negotiations being conducted by the Port Authority."

'Won't Offer Anything Tangible'

Mr. Gonzalo said, "The pattern is whatever they want it to be. We can't get them to come to the table with anything tangible.

"Management has told us we are not going to get prevailing rate and they are not going to be bound by any state law," he continued. "They have told us that we got too much last contract and now they are going to take it back. We can't know the bottom line with all of these givebacks across the table."

The PA chapter of Local 3, consisting of approximately 200 Electricians with high-level security clearance to perform work in safety-sensitive areas such as tunnels, airports, and bridges, is the only division of the union that does not receive the prevailing rate.

By law, all employees of Port Authority contractors receive the prevailing rate, while Port Authority employees do not. "They feel that they are above the law and don't have to pay Port Authority employees the prevailing rate because it is a bi-state agency, when it is the law in both states," Mr. Gonzalo said. "When a contractor comes in who has no idea what he is doing, he gets the prevailing rate and I don't."

Diminishing Returns

"They took a strong position and they wouldn't give us anything," he said of the PA. "Every time we came up with a counter-offer, they kept retracting from their offer."

Mr. Gonzalo said the PA rebuffed a union proposal to move to the prevailing rate gradually, rather than from the outset of the contract.

"They have bragged how they have the money to pay us, they just don't want to pay it," he said. "If they give us everything we ask for, it would still be insignificant in their budget," citing prevailing rate, a slight increase in longevity payments, an office for the union, and release time from their jobs for union representatives as Local 3's main objectives.

Mr. Gonzalo hopes that the new Port Authority Executive Director, Christopher O. Ward, will be more amenable to reaching a settlement.