Firms Counter Union Charges: Picketing Continues at Walgreen's Geneva Site

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)

Firms counter union charges: Picketing continues at Walgreens' Geneva site

By CRAIG FOX, Finger Lakes Times
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 10:41 AM CDT

GENEVA - Members of two Rochester-area building and trade councils are accusing Walgreens of not paying prevailing wages or providing health care benefits for many of the workers building the Hamilton Street store.

About eight representatives of the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters and the Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers, Local 3, have been demonstrating against the national drug store chain, the Syracuse-based developer and an Ontario County masonry firm.

They're claiming that a Bloomfield contractor, F.G. Rayburn Masonry, pays substandard wages and does not provide health benefits to all of its workers at the site.

On Tuesday, they placed large signs stating that Walgreens should be “ashamed” for not treating the workers fairly. The picketing began about two weeks ago and will continue throughout the rest of the week and periodically while the store is built.

The carpenters union has picketed other Walgreens sites in the Rochester area for not paying prevailing wages and not hiring union contractors.

Tim Palermo, the bricklayers' field representative, said his union is specifically protesting Rayburn, while the other labor group is demonstrating against Westlake Development of Syracuse and the drug store chain.

Floyd Rayburn, owner of the masonry company, said this morning that the unions have picketed him before, so he wasn't surprised his company was singled out at the Geneva site. They also placed a billboard near his Bloomfield office stating he should be ashamed of the way he treats his employees, he said.

But Rayburn said that many of his nearly 50 workers have been with the company for 15 to 25 years, “and they're happy.” They're offered health coverage, but it's up to them every year whether they receive pay raises or the health benefits, he said.

“We just don't pay money to the union,” he said. “I don't pay dues to the union.”

In recent years, Rayburn's company has worked on masonry jobs at F.F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua and a classroom/lab building at the Rochester Institute of Technology. They're now working on the Golisano Library at Roberts Wesleyan College in Monroe County.

Chuck Peaslee, a council representative with the carpenters' union Local 185, said Rayburn pays about $15 an hour, while “the area standard” is above $20 per hour.

Peaslee said workers could pay for their health benefits, but they can't afford them because they're not being paid a prevailing wage. Only the foreman and a few others are getting health benefits, he said.

The union reps, however, confirmed Rayburn doesn't have a contract with either union.

“Walgreens is one of the largest drug store chains in the country, and we feel they should be socially responsible for providing health benefits,” Peaslee said.

He also noted that the carpenters' union was able to get HGL Developers, another developer that Walgreens uses in the Rochester area, to pay “area standards” to workers at their sites.

But Mark Shattuck, one of Westlake's owners, denied the accusations, saying that they pay competitive wages and provide health packages to all employees. He also pointed out that Rayburn is a reputable contracting company that has worked on projects throughout the area, including several Wegmans stores.

“The bids were done competitively,” Shattuck said. “And the unions can't bid competitively. They weren't given the work, and that's that. It's the way it worked out.”

cfox@fltimes.com