LOCAL

Union's strike against road contractor continues

Charlevoix

Steve Foley
(231) 439-9397

CHARLEVOIX — A strike, which International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 began at the start of August against paving contractor Rieth-Riley Construction, is still ongoing and has potential to impact several road projects around Emmet and Charlevoix counties.

The strike is related to unfair labor practices Operating Engineers Local 324 is alleging against Rieth-Riley, which operates several construction crews as well as asphalt-producing facilities that supply its own projects and those of other contractors.

“We still want to get a contract in place and still want to have a long working relationship with Rieth-Riley,” said Dan McKernan, communications director for Local 324. “Our members certainly do, out of nothing else the convenience of the fact they want to work for a company that’s close to their homes, but more and more employees are finding work with other contractors.

“It’s just natural, they want to get paid.”

Rieth-Riley Construction has a branch located along U.S. 31 near Charlevoix, where earlier this month more than a dozen union members were picketing along the highway near the plant’s entrance.

A press release from Rieth-Riley Construction Company Inc. president Keith Rose and Chad Loney, a regional vice president, on Monday said the company conducted a negotiating session with Operating Engineers 324 on Monday.

“Once again OE 324 failed to offer any substantive changes to their demands,” the statement said. “While Rieth-Riley has time and again offered to agree to nearly all of the terms and conditions of the new Michigan Union Contractors Groups new statewide contract, OE 324 refuses to make any changes that will allow the new agreement to be workable in Rieth-Riley’s market and work in the best interest of the operating engineers that work for Rieth-Riley.”

The union contends Rieth-Riley docked workers’ pay to take back money it had given to them in 2018, and called the practice “bait-and-switch” and a “shell game” with wages, and denied workers unemployment benefits.

Rieth-Riley countered by saying it has agreed to essentially all wages, terms and conditions of the new Michigan Union Contracting Group agreement, which was put in place early this year, with the exception of the union’s subcontracting clause, and added union members earn $58.67 an hour, or $73.48 an hour on overtime.

“OE 324 continues to try to strong-arm Rieth-Riley by not allowing its workers to come back to work unless Rieth-Riley agrees to pay back wages for what is nothing more than allegations of unfair labor practices,” a press release from Rieth-Riley stated. “In fact, OE 324 has forced Rieth-Riley employees to sit home without pay for nearly three weeks, which is the exact amount of back pay that the union alleges the employees are owed for a legal defensive lockout that more than 40 contractors participated in last September in response to aggressive union tactics against the contractors.”

According to Rieth-Riley, while union leaders maintain employees will not return to work until the strikers are paid for last year’s lockout, the first hearing for the unfair labor practices is not until October. Rieth-Riley also claims the outcome of the unfair labor practice charges might not finally be known for up to three to six years after all possible appeals are concluded.

“It’s the subcontractor portion of the language that they’re (Rieth-Riley) in opposition to and all that subcontracting language does is say if Rieth-Riley or any union contractor bids a project and is awarded that contract, they have to make sure the subcontractor is paid and gets those workers those same terms and conditions,” McKernan said.

Rieth-Riley also announced in a Monday statement that the company is operating at nearly full capacity with its labor force, which includes numerous operators that have resigned their membership with Operating Engineers 324 under the Michigan Right to Work law.

McKernan, meanwhile, said the “numerous” operators who’ve done so number in the single digits out of some 200 workers represented by the Operating Engineers.

“The number is less than there are their facilities in the state,” McKernan said. “What they (Rieth-Riley) have done is they’ve found anybody who has the ability to put on boots and have put them to work on road projects or in plants. We know there’s office workers working on road projects and management staff and temporary workers from out of state working now because we’ve gotten word on some projects back.”

Emmet County Road Commission engineer-manager Brian Gutowski said the labor dispute is likely to set several county projects back weeks and may put some in jeopardy of not getting done this year.

Gutowski added Rieth-Riley is one of the road commission’s main paving contractors and several projects have already been impacted, including a project to reconstruct portions of Wilderness Park Drive south and west of Central Avenue near Mackinaw City.

Another project involving Rieth-Riley — repaving and widening a 6-mile section of State Road north of Stutsmanville — was delayed from its scheduled start on Monday.

Several township-funded road projects could also be affected. The labor dispute comes at a particularly challenging time for Emmet County — not only as crews try to catch up from work delayed because of last year’s labor dispute and a cool, wet spring, but also because Emmet County had scheduled about $7 million to $8 million in road work this season — a record level for the county.

According to Charlevoix County Road Commission manager Pat Harmon, the labor dispute with Rieth-Riley will affect one project — a crush and shape of Old Horton Bay Road — which is a township-funded project.

Harmon said the project has not yet started, and depending on the labor dispute it could carry over onto next year.

“I’ll have to talk it over with the board and the township,” Harmon said. “Worse case, we could do it next year if we had to. We’ll see when they get back to work.”

In a statement, Rieth-Riley noted while the company remains willing to have further meetings with the union, it is unlikely any future meetings will be productive if the union continues to insist on a subcontracting clause that does not make sense for the company’s market.

“In the end, it’s the taxpayers who suffer,” Local 324’s McKernan said. “We don’t want to impact the motorists, that’s never been our goal here. The goal is for Rieth-Riley to understand these workers were sick of the treatment they were getting and wanted a new contract.”

Operating Engineers Local 324 union members picket along U.S. 31 in Charlevoix in front of the Rieth-Riley Construction Company.