|
|
Carpenters union targets contractor working in PJ
|
Motorists who drive North Country Road past Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson may have noticed a large sign last month claiming "Robert Frey is unfair." That sign is back in place this week in front of the North Shore Professional Realty's new medical office park, a 96,000-square-foot complex owned by Frey's firm Harbor Financial in Port Jefferson. It is in the final stages of construction.
Allen Ehl, regional director of Long Island carpenters union local, said Tuesday the banner is there because Frey is using a subcontractor, Sal's United Services of Huntington, that pays wages and benefits below the standards set for area carpenters. Those standards are in the $35-an-hour range, plus benefits, including vacation and pension, Ehl said. Private firms are not required by law to adhere to those rates, he admitted, still Ehl said the union has been "chasing" Sal's United for about six months.
| 
|  | |
|  | | 
| | | | Union carpenters have returned to the new medical office park being completed across from Mather Hospital to protest a non-union subcontractor at work on the site. Photo by D. Willinger. (click for larger version) | | |
Sal Frevolo, owner of Sal's United, made no bones about being a non-union shop. "We don't pay union wages," Frevolo said, but nobody makes less than $20 an hour. Frevolo said his firm offers health insurance, nine paid holidays, a week's vacation and a 401k program where he matches a percentage of employee contributions. "We're like a family. We pass it around," Frevolo said.
Calling his company "the most capable non-union shop on Long Island," Frevolo, who employs 26 carpenters, said he has not even had any new hires "in a long time." He believes he has been singled out — the union has even put signs near his home — because he gets work and was recently awarded the YMCA and ferry terminal jobs in Patchogue.
"They're trying to put me out of business," Frevolo said of the carpenters' union.
The Long Island local counts about 1,800 active carpenters, according to Ehl, who said unemployment in their ranks is currently at about 30 percent. Last year that figure peaked at 38 percent in midwinter, "The highest since I can recall," said Ehl, who has been in the union since 1977. This year unemployment among his union members in Nassau and Suffolk is on a pace to rise above 40 percent, "unfortunately," Ehl said.
Frevolo blames the union for "pricing themselves out of the situation." If he paid those higher wages, Frevolo said he would have no work either. As it is, Frevolo said he is "fairly busy" and failed to see what he is doing wrong. "What am I doing but giving people work?"
At the job site on North Country Road, two union members stood by the banner handing out informational flyers. One of the men, John Koehnlein of Port Jefferson, pointed out that the Smithtown Bank branch office building at the site had been built using union carpenters. The other man declined to give his name but referred a reporter to a third man, who was a dozen paces away on the shoulder of the road sitting in an SUV with the windows rolled up. The man inside the SUV identified himself as John Acquaro, and stopped his reading of Lance Armstrong's book to say he was the line captain. Acquaro said the action was solely informational in type and stressed no one was interfering with work or deliveries at the job site.
Frey did not answer a request for comment.
| |
|
|
|
| |
Copyright 2010
(631) 751-7744 | news@tbrnewspapers.com | www.northshoreoflongisland.com | About |
|
| |
|
