This Week in Labor: New York Building Trades Workers Protest 20% Pay Cut

[marmar]

from In These Times:




—Approximately 30 construction contracts covering 60,000 New York City carpenters, sheetmetal workers, painters, and other laborers will expire next month. The city's developers are demanding a 20 percent pay and benefit cut and work-rule changes, ostensibly to kickstart a slow industry.

Several hundred rank-and-file building trades workers rallied Tuesday outside the posh Wall Street restaurant where the Building Trades Employers' Association (BTEA), the major interest group for developers in the city, was holding its annual leadership dinner. In These Times was at the rally and took these pictures, including the one above.

One woman carried a sign that read, "Building Trades Association Employers' Roadmap to Poverty"—a dig at BTAE President Louis J. Coletti's "Roadmap to Recovery," a list of 26 concessions his group wants from New York's unionized building trades workers.

Coletti sent the roadmap to Gary LaBarbera, the head of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, an alliance of the local affiliates of over a dozen national and international unions in the construction business, representing over 100,000 workers. The BCTC negotiates project labor agreements with the city and the developers. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7366/labor_news_notes_new_york_building_trades_workers_protest_20_pay_cut/

[Brickbat]

1. That's a huge cut. Sickening that they're framing it as something that will "kickstart" the

industry. What a mess.

[JHB]

4. There's a kick involved there, but it ain't to the industry. n/t

[fredamae]

2. Union Busting

I must call bullshit. Look at how many times they tried to "scare" (fear, fear, fear and We Really Mean it; This time BS)the masses with predicting "THE END OF MEDICARE"
http://yfrog.com/h7rjekp

We need to spend More Time Lobbying our lawmakers at both State and Fed Levels.

[madrchsod]

3. the millionaires and billionaires want more money ....

[JDPriestly]

5. The bosses want to undercut China.

"Competition" and "free trade" you know.