Carpenters union prepares to strike
Friday, June 1, 2007 6:53 AM PDT
By Evan Caldwell
Printable version
E-mail this articleUnion carpenters and drywall workers may walk off the job today, halting some construction work throughout Southwest Washington.
Members of the Portland-based Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters will strike if drywall workers and contractors don't reach a contract agreement by midnight Thursday.
Representatives of Longview-based Construction & General Laborers' Local 791, which represents local carpenters, said they plan no sympathy walk-out, and they were unaware of the strike until a reporter told them about it Thursday.
The strike would affect "a few hundred workers" in Cowlitz County on "a variety of job sites," PNWRCC spokesman Eric Franklin told The Daily News. However, the bulk of the union's workforce and jobs are in the Portland-Vancouver area, he said.
The Daily News was unable to contact a contractors' representative.
Nearly 98 percent of the workers voted to strike if a new contract was not hammered out. The contract dispute affects drywall, acoustic ceiling and lather specialists in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
"The contractors continually failed to offer an acceptable increase to workers' wages and benefits," the union said in a statement. The union's last request was for a two-year deal with a 4.2 percent wage increase the first year and a 4.3 percent increase the second year.
Fellow PNWRCC carpenters likely will join the striking workers picketing at the job sites today, Franklin said. State law only allows picketing at the job sites.
"At any sizable project we're working, you might see us," he said.
PNWRCC members and their representatives have been negotiating with drywall subcontractors for the last several weeks.
For more information, visit www.nwcarpenters.org or www.contract2007.org/.
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