Carpenters Union pickets Muhlenberg redevelopment project over non-union labor

Pickets from the Carpenters Union
at the Muhlenberg site on Wednesday.

Rendering of the completed Muhlenberg project.

Carpenters Local 254 has mounted an informational picket at the Muhlenberg Hospital redevelopment project as of Wednesday, July 17. The complaint is that developer Community Healthcare Associates is using non-union contractors.


The action highlights the rough spot between a rock and a hard place in which local elected officials can find themselves with developers executing their projects.

On the one hand, developers are always looking to shave their costs, hence the tilt toward using non-union labor.

On the other hand, local politicians try to get local labor hired. Developers usually agree to make a "good faith" effort to use local labor, but there is often a considerable gap between promise and reality. And sometimes that local labor, if it is used, is non-union.

Not only that, but if elected officials show solidarity with the unions, the possibility exists of scaring away potential future developers.

Some communities deal with this by making the developer promise to pay "prevailing wages" -- equivalent to Union scale. I am not aware of such a requirement for the Muhlenberg project, nor am I aware of local workers being employed.

Union workers protested during the construction
of the new Senior Center and condos in 2007.

The same situation cropped up in 2007, when The Monarch (the Senior Center) was being built on East Front Street during the time when Sharon Robinson-Briggs was mayor.

At that time, a giant rat balloon was deployed that put pressure on the mayor and the developer.


With unions and the living standards they stand for under attack, I think the Carpenters should be supported in their labor dispute with Community Healthcare Associates.


For more information on the picket, call the Carpenters Local 254 at (732) 379-6108.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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