About 25 members of Local 24 Heat & Frost Insulators & Asbestos Workers union staged a picket Sept. 15 in front of the building that is being renovated to house the city’s new police station.

The union members are protesting at the site, at 811 Fifth St., because they said a nonunion subcontractor, hired to do insulation work in the building, is not paying workers fair wages or offering them benefits.

“Workers are getting paid $12 to $14 an hour with no medical benefits, when the prevailing wage for this work in Maryland is $29.18 an hour plus $14 an hour in medical benefits,” said Lino Cressotti, the union’s business manager. “This is our first day out here and we’ll be here every day until they negotiate with us.”

Will Mata, a union member who lives in West Laurel, said he was carrying a picket sign because, “It’s unfair to see a nonunion company get the jobs. My wife and I are union members and if the company we worked for had gotten the insulation work, we could be here instead of farther away in the metro area.”

Keller Brothers, of Mt. Airy, is the prime contractor on the nearly $4 million renovation project. They were chosen over 23 other companies that sought the work in a second round of bids, after a company approved by city officials and the City Council turned down the job, due to an error in the company’s bid application.

Randy Hartman, Keller’s project manager at the site, said the picket is not against Keller, but a “sub-subcontractor,” J.L. Renshaw, which was hired to do mechanical insulation at the site.

“We knew nothing about their (the union’s) issues or the protest until they showed up today,” Hartman said.

As to the lack of union workers on the project, Hartman said, “We are not a union shop. We don’t hire a lot of trades because we don’t have many employees.”

Public Works Department Director Paul McCullagh, whose office overseas the police station renovations, said, “Keller had good references and weren’t required to identify their subcontractors or required to hire certain contractors.”

Cressotti admitted that since the contract and subcontracts have been awarded, there’s little they can do to stop the work or get some of their members hired for the project. He said a big reason they are protesting is to get the attention of city officials.

“We’re not saying J.L Renshaw should leave the job, but the city should do like Prince George’s and Montgomery counties and the state and say to contractors that they have to pay prevailing wages,” Cressotti said. “The state requires this on projects that cost $500,000 and more and we recommend the city do this on projects that cost over $100,000.”

For that to happen, city spokesman James Collins said, “It would have to go through the mayor, City Council, the solicitor and be done through legislation.”

According to Rick Sebeck, program manager of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulations’ wage programs, in addition to the $500,000 state requirement, 50 percent of a project’s funds have to come from the state for the prevailing wage rate to apply.

“We survey contractors and use our payroll records to set the prevailing rates for crafts, and localities can request them or go online to see what they are and use them if they like,” Sebeck said.

Cressotti said he met with City Administrator Kristie Mills and her deputy, Martin Flemion, to discuss such a move, but said the meeting was not productive.

“I tried to explain the prevailing wages and they said they saw that as driving up the project’s costs,” Cressotti said.

Mills and Flemion were not available for comment, but McCullagh  agreed with their rationale.

“We have a duty to get the best values we can when we put our bids out ... when public dollars are used,” he said. “We’re an equal-opportunity employer and the unions’ companies can bid on a project just like anybody else.”

According to Collins, city officials see the protest as a matter of an issue between the union and the subcontractor and not a dispute with the city.

“If there was shoddy work at the structure, illegal activity or a labor issue, the city would get involved. But we have no proof of unfair wage practices,” he said.

Cressotti hopes to meet with city officials soon on the union’s concerns. But in the meantime, he said the picketing will continue. “Hopefully we’ll talk today or soon and can get something worked out,” he said.

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