GENEVA — A light rain and chilly wind blew across the Geneva Middle School construction site Thursday morning whipping through the cinderblock skeleton of the school and causing Randy Howie to tug his winter hat down over his ears.
Howie, a union worker, and four of his co-workers stood outside the junior high school on Sherman Street, holding a banner they hope will convince JSJ Interiors Inc., the contractor on the Geneva school project, to hire union workers and pay a prevailing wage.
“Shame on JSJ Interiors, Inc. for contributing to the erosion of area standards for Cleveland carpentry craft workers,” The Ohio and Vicinity Regional Council of Carpenters (OVRCC) literature states. “The OVRCC objects to substandard wage employers who are working in the community. In our opinion, the community ends up paying the tab for employee health care, and low wages tend to lower general community standards, thereby encouraging crime and other social ills,” the literature states.
Ron Felice, owner of JSJ Interiors, Inc., said his employees are not union and while JSJ does not pay prevailing wage, it does offer competitive wages, 401(k) and hospitalization to its employees.
“Unions feel any shop that is not union has no business on any job site,” Felice said. “While we do not pay union wages or prevailing wage, we pay slightly more than the standard wage for the area. Unions, apparently, feel that is not enough.”
State director of organizing for OVRCC Mark Kuzmik said he does not believe JSJ Interiors pays its workers the area standard rate.
“They pay what they think is the area standard,” he said. “The standard is what contractors and carpenters negotiate, as they have done for more than 120 years. Besides, JSJ won’t give us records to check on their employee’s wages.”
Felice also said while he doesn’t have many workers from Ashtabula County, JSJ Interiors Inc., is based in Fairport Harbor.
“We are a local company. Many of our workers are from Lake County. We have been around for 30 years. This is not a fly-by-night company. We have a long, proud reputation,” he said. “We are taking the protests in stride and with a grain of salt.”
Geneva schools Superintendent Mary Zappitelli said OVRCC representatives have not attended any school board meetings, though the board recognizes the workers right to demonstrate.
“The Geneva City School Board does not hire subcontractors,” she said. “They hire contractors who in turn hire the subcontractors. It is made known to the contractors that we prefer to use local, union labor, but we can’t make the contractor use local, union labor.”
The sign held by the OVRCC-employed workers demonstrating at Geneva Junior High School says “shame on Geneva Area City Schools” and Kuzmik said the banner will likely stay up even after construction is finished.
“Even after the school is completed, we are putting a significant amount of resources to showing against people who think undercutting hardworking American families is OK,” he said.
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