Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Construction starts to slow as strike conflict threatens to widen

Posted in:

Illinois

A strike by the workers who produce gravel and other essential materials for roadwork is raising concerns it could hamstring a crucial construction season.

About 300 members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 hit the picket lines June 7 at 35 Chicago-area facilities owned by Lehigh Hanson, Vulcan Materials Co. and Holcim, union officials said.

The labor action is causing shortages in vital supplies and already impinging on some road projects at what is typically the busiest time of the year, industry experts explained. […]

Local 150 representatives said a lack of building materials had caused work on a I-90 project near the Jane Byrne Interchange scheduled for Friday to be postponed.

* From Barry N. Voorn, Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete Inc. General Counsel…

You may have received a letter from Operating Engineers, Local 150 stating that they have a primary labor dispute with Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete, Inc. based on what Local 150 claims are unfair labor practice charges by Ozinga. I wanted to give you a history of this matter and to let you know that Local 150’s claims are baseless and how we plan to handle this matter going forward.

As you may be aware, Local 150 has been on strike against the Chicago Area Aggregates Producers Association (”CAAPA”) since June 7th. CMPA is made up of Vulcan, Lafarge Holcim and Lehigh Hanson. Once the strike started Local 150 began picketing CAAPA members at most if not all of their locations. At some of these against sites, Ozinga has operations on property of Vulcan and Lafarge Holcim that the Company leases and we set up a set up neutral gates at our entrances at these sites. Local 150 ignored the gate system that Ozinga put in place and picketed our operations in South Elgin, McCook and Marengo despite the fact that we had established a neutral gate.

Based on this action, Ozinga filed unfair labor practice charges against Local 150 alleging that their pickets were unlawful. The Company took picture of the picketers who were open about their pickets at the McCook site. Based on this action, Local 150 filed charges against Ozinga for what they claim is “surveillance.”

We believe that the unfair labor practice charges filed by Local 150 are without merit and that they have filed these charges to attempt to bring further pressure on their CMPA negotiations and in retaliation for Ozinga filing Charges against them. We believe that any picketing or threats to picket are unlawful and further violate the National Labor Relations Act and we will be filing additional charges as well as a potential lawsuit under Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act for any damages.

Local 150 violates the National Labor Relations Act if it threatens to picket your Company to force you to cease doing business with Ozinga or if it makes other threats or acts in a coercive manner toward your Company with an object of stopping you from doing business with Ozinga. Local 150 also violates the law if they cause your employees to strike or refuse to perform work in order to force your Company not to do business with Ozinga. This can subject Local 150 to monetary damages for your Company as well as Ozinga.

If any business agent of Local 150 threatens your Company with a strike or picket or engages in such activity to try to stop you from doing business with Ozinga, such actions may violate the National Labor Relations Act as well as Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act which may entitle your Company to collect damages from Local 150. If Local 150 or its agents engage in such activities, I would appreciate talking to you about any such actions. Thank you for your consideration and please do not hesitate to call me with any questions.

* I asked Local 150 for a response…

Ozinga is a customer of Vulcan, and therefore is prohibited from using a neutral gate by Vulcan’s own rules (attached). By using it, Ozinga taints that gate and makes it a legitimate site for picketing. This is fairly simple, and has been law for more than 60 years.

When Ozinga prepared unfair labor practice charges against Local 150, they sent those charges to the Teamsters they employ more than 12 hours before they sent them to Local 150. It appears that these charges were filed for little reason other than to intimidate the Teamsters from honoring the strike. This opens Ozinga to potential lawsuits.

We filed unfair labor practice charges against Ozinga for unlawfully surveilling a picket line without a legitimate purpose. For an employer to surveil a picket line, here has to be a reason other than legitimate section 7 protected activity, like violence, blocking, etc. None of these things have occurred on picket lines, and so there was no basis to surveil these employees.

While we have filed unfair labor practice charges against Ozinga, we are not currently on strike against it. We have reached out to managers and supervisors notifying them of the charges we filed against Ozinga, which is completely legal.

Ozinga’s letter is an effort to bully smaller employers and frighten us with damage lawsuits.

The attachment is here.

I’m told the two sides are bargaining as I write this at noonish.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:00 pm

Comments

And there’s this nugget in the Marni Pyke article:

“Sweeney is also a board director at the Illinois tollway, which is in the midst of its most ambitious road construction season.”

Comment by phocion Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:11 pm
I drove through the 294 tollway near Hinsdale last week and noticed that they had an enormous amount of gravel on site. Wonder if they stocked up in advance?

Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:27 pm
The Vulcan rules seem pretty clear. Based on what I know of the Ozinga family it’s very unsurprising that they’re lying.

Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:28 pm
===I’m told the two sides are bargaining as I write this at noonish. ===

Sounds like this is the best way to handle this.

Comment by Candy Dogood Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:29 pm
At least tossing press releases at each other is better than pickaxes and Pinkertons. All part of the negotiations.

Comment by walker Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 12:33 pm
47th - I am willing to bet the pile of stone you saw was crushed concrete rather than virgin stone. The pile is likely to be loaded out for additional processing.

Comment by Huh? Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 2:00 pm
Thanks Huh? You’re probably right. There was a LOT of it, piled in the middle of the tollway, enough to fill two lanes for half a mile or so.

Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 2:05 pm
AT least they have a lot of the highways torn up for when they run out of asphalt.

Comment by SAP Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 2:07 pm
Have the Roadbuilders released their position on the 150 strike?

Comment by Lincoln Lad Friday, Jun 17, 22 @ 3:37 pm