 |
 |
| About MBCTC | Links | Building Tradesman Newspaper | Our Issues | Contact Us | Home |
January 20, 2012
Read Back Issues
|
Right-to-work effort in Indiana raises stakes in Michigan LANSING – Will right-to-work in Michigan follow the path of New Hampshire, Indiana – or will Michigan blaze its own trail? Public pressure in New Hampshire last year managed to flip the votes of enough Republican lawmakers, putting the end to a statewide right-to-work effort there. But in Indiana, as in Michigan, Republicans control all levers of state power, and GOP Hoosier lawmakers seem intent on marching toward making their state the 23rd in the nation with a right-to-work law. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has predicted that a right-to-work law would be adopted in his state, and passage could come as early as this month. The bill that’s currently moving is Indiana Senate Bill 269 which “would make it a Class A misdemeanor to require an individual to join or remain in a union or to pay any dues, fees or other charges to that same labor organization.” Michigan State Rep. Mike Shirkey (R-Clark Lake) told MIRS news service on Jan. 5 that the right-to-work effort in Indiana adds “incentive for us to reevaluate the policies and the paradigms we have here in Michigan.” He added: “While I'm a little frustrated with the probability we’ll be following Indiana again on something like this, I'm also encouraged they have the leadership to move forward on this, because I think it will put some pressure on us to do the same.” Shirkey said right-to-work legislation would be introduced this year in Lansing, but the effort “is a marathon, not a sprint.” Movement on RTW in Michigan might come from the state Legislature, but it might come from a petition drive, too. MIRS reported that there is “chatter” from the House Republican caucus on going the petition route. A petition drive would direct anger by organized labor away from GOP lawmakers – but it would also give labor an opportunity to shape public opinion via advertising and other tactics if a RTW measure made it on a ballot. Right-to-work laws are the ultimate union-buster: they allow “free-riders” to enjoy the benefits of union employment, including collectively bargained wages, benefits and job security – without having to pay union dues. Promotion of right-to-work laws is taking place in no less than 10 states over the past year, where Republicans have taken over complete control of state governments after the November 2010 elections. A Jan. 7 New York Times editorial said: “There is little doubt that politics is also behind the Republicans’ push for right-to-work laws: they see an opportunity to further weaken unions, which are far more likely to support Democrats – as well as health care reform and a higher minimum wage – by slashing their funding and their donating power.” Republicans and their business backers across the country have taken the stance that the presence of unions reduce economic growth and jobs. Even though, according to the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, the presence of right-to-work laws:
Currently, six of the 10 states with the highest unemployment have right-to-work laws. Right-to-work North Carolina, which typically has the lowest private sector unionization rate (now at 1.8 percent), currently has the sixth highest unemployment rate: 10 percent. Although the Michigan Chamber of Commerce has chosen to remain neutral on this issue, there is plenty of business-backed support for RTW. The National Federation of Independent Business made RTW passage its top priority in Michigan. The anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors (of course) “strongly supports” right to work. And the “Michigan Freedom to Work” group claims the support of 75 organizations statewide. As we have reported, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has said that right-to-work legislation is not on his agenda, but he would sign a RTW measure if it came to his desk. During a tour of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit law week, Snyder was asked about right-to-work According to Gongwer News Service, he said: “We have a lot of other things on our agenda, both things to wrap up from 2011 and things in 2012 that I think are more important. And to get in a very divisive debate like that, you create an environment where not much gets done. I would point to Wisconsin. I would point to Ohio. If you look at Indiana, that’s kind of consuming all the dialogue in that state. There are a lot of important things to work on. Let’s get those things done where we agree and move forward.” With significant minorities this year in both the state House and Senate, Democratic lawmakers are powerless to stop RTW. “Michigan's working families need to make their voices heard and tell these Republicans that Right to Work simply means Right to Work for less,” said Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D- East Lansing). “Republicans have already increased taxes on working families to pay for corporate tax cuts and it's time we end this attack on the middle class and stand up for Michigan's workforce.”
|
||||||
|
Hoosiers workers mobilize against right-to-work By Mark Gruenberg PAI Staff Writer INDIANAPOLIS (PAI)—The Indiana AFL-CIO is mobilizing its forces – everything from lobbying lawmakers to door-to-door canvassing to running media ads – against a Republican scheme to make the Hoosier State a so-called “right to work” fiefdom. But the GOP and its business backers may try to steal a march on workers and their allies. They convened a joint hearing of state House and Senate labor committees on Jan. 6 to pass the bill and may try to ram it through the legislature immediately, before the opposition organizes. If approved, the measure would make Indiana the 23rd state to adopt so-called “right to work” legislation, which bars unions from negotiating for contract provisions mandating that all covered workers pay dues. The effect is to allow thousands of “free riders” gain the benefits unions bargain for, without paying the cost of bargaining. The right-to-work push, in Indiana and elsewhere, is part of the nationwide war on workers launched in full force by the Radical Right, business and their political puppets after the Right Wing’s gains nationwide in the 2010 elections. In Indiana, state lawmakers put right-to-work atop their to-do list for their new session. The GOP controls the state assembly 60-40 and the state senate 37-13. Retiring GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels told lawmakers last year to set right-to-work aside because its passage would threaten the rest of the Republicans’ anti-worker agenda, such as taxpayer-paid vouchers to let every student in the state attend private school. This year, Daniels endorsed it and cut a TV campaign ad for right-to-work. Now, both sides are running ads. Business backers of right-to-work launched their ad blitz first, but the state fed and its allies, including Change To Win unions, are striking back, Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott and spokesman Jeff Harris say. “Over the objections of working Hoosiers, against the advice of dozens of newspaper editorials and columns and despite the lack of facts and evidence to support their claims, the Republican leadership in the statehouse has made ramming through the so-called right to work bill their No. 1 priority in the 2012 legislative session,” Guyott said. Every Indiana paper, save one, opposes right-to-work or says it should be stalled. “Because they don’t have the facts or public sentiment on their side, they are now taking to the airwaves with a statewide television commercial in hopes deceiving Hoosiers about what this bill would really do,” Guyott adds. The state AFL-CIO also launched its ground game, with hundreds of unionists fanning out in selected state districts to convince voters to call their lawmakers. “We are focusing on increasing awareness of the issue,” Harris said in a telephone interview. The fed picked districts where its own polling shows a majority of voters oppose right-to-work, but where the legislators either lean for it or are on the fence, he said. It’s also mobilizing Indianans to lobby their lawmakers face-to face, as workers did a month ago on the day lawmakers met to organize themselves for the 2012 session. “It would be a little hard for a state rep to look voters in the face and explain” why the rep would vote for right-to-work, Harris explained, with studies showing workers in right-to-work states earn less, have fewer benefits and work in more unsafe conditions. And the fed’s hosting town hall meetings statewide where workers and their allies can explain the issue to their neighbors. Daniels tried to lock the public out of the statehouse on the session’s opening day, Jan. 4, restricting admission to the building to 3,000 people. Within 24 hours, public pressure forced a reversal. “They may lock us out, but they won’t shut us up,” one blogger wrote on the state fed’s Facebook account. When right-to-work arose last year, labor marshaled 75,000 people at the capitol over the 36-day legislative session. In the air wars, another GOP ad features the Republican state house speaker touting right-to-work as a job creator, especially for veterans. Data show that’s not true. “We can’t let the distortions and distractions go unanswered. We must fight this corporate-backed message,” Guyott says. The state fed was disappointed, but not surprised, that Daniels – a former top official in the anti-worker GOP Bush government in Washington – supports right-to-work. Guyott calls it Daniels’ “political payback” to his business backers, since right-to-work is “designed to lower wages, reduce safety standards and weaken unions in an effort to increase corporate profit and power.” She also noted Daniels cut the new TV ads without disclosing who’s paying for them. Such disclosure is the least that he owes Hoosier families, Guyott added. “By supporting this measure, Governor Daniels joins other extremists who seek to rob Hoosiers of their fundamental right to collectively bargain,” Guyott concludes. An Economic Policy Institute analysis, released in early January, says right-to-work would cut an average Indianan worker’s pay – union or non-union – by $1,500 yearly, and reduce the likelihood of health care coverage and pensions. The law also would have no impact on job growth, the study said.TOP
|
||||||
|
FireKeepers creates a destination with construction of new hotel By Marty Mulcahy Managing Editor BATTLE CREEK – Building a new hotel next to the Firekeepers Casino has been in the cards since the gaming facility opened in 2009. And as anyone can see driving along I-94 at Exit 104, the new, landmark hotel is now a sure bet. Construction on the eight-story, 242-room hotel is moving quickly under Clark Construction Co., the project’s construction manger, their 18 subcontractors and the building trades. Work began on the hotel last May and there’s ample progress toward a late 2012 opening. “We’re on time and on budget,” said Gary Ritzema, site manager for the Skillman Corp., which is administering the project for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Tribe. “There have always been plans in place for the future expansion. And with the success of the casino, the decision was made to go forward with the hotel. We see what we have here as a destination.” The 230,000-square-foot Firekeepers Casino opened in August 2009. The property features a 107,000-square-foot gaming floor with 2,700 slot machines, 90 table games, a live poker room and bingo room. FireKeepers also offers five distinctive dining destinations and multiple lounges and entertainment venues. The gaming floor and other public areas were built with one of the most sophisticated lighting schemes put in a casino, or likely anywhere else in Michigan. The hotel will include a pool, a fitness room, an 8,500 square-foot addition devoted to bingo, and another 6,000 square-feet devoted to additional (nonsmoking) gaming, and another restaurant. Floors two through six will have conventional hotel rooms, while floors seven through eight will have larger rooms and suites. The casino was built under a widely praised project labor agreement with the Southwest Michigan Building Trades. And the tribe, Clark Construction and the building trades liked the concept so much, a PLA was signed for the hotel, too. About 150 Hardhats are currently on the job; employment will peak out at about 220. “We’re very happy with the PLA and the work of the trades,” said Clark General Supt. Ken Stephenson. “The quality, the scheduling, the workmanship, the coordination, they’ve all been great.” And to top it off, the zero worker-injury record at the casino has so far been matched during construction of the hotel. The tribe has aggressively sought to include local workers, with a goal of 25 percent native employment on the construction workforce. They have also sought to use local material suppliers whenever possible. The same philosophy will be used when it comes time for hiring permanent workers at the hotel. The expansion is expected to create 400 new jobs. The casino already employs about 1,500 people. “Opening FireKeepers Casino was a long journey for our Tribe,” said Homer Mandoka, Tribal Council Chairman of the NHBP, when the hotel construction was announced. “We are proud to see this business flourish and to have an opportunity to provide increased amenities to our guests. Our Tribal Elders and all Tribal Members are proud of the economic engine that we have created in South Central Michigan. This expansion represents our commitment to giving back to our local community through job creation, increasing local tourism and truly turning Battle Creek into a destination within Michigan.”
|
||||||
|
Obama sticks his neck out for labor; re-stocks NLRB WASHINGTON – President Obama has received his share of criticism from organized labor for not standing up to suport…organized labor. But on Jan. 4, Obama opened himself up to charges of union cronyism by appointing three members to the National Labor Relations Board, sidestepping established Congressional rules – and a likely Republican filibuster. Obama’s move reeked of an election year payoff to organized labor – whose leaders were happy to win one for once. The president’s support of labor issues has been regarded by unions as lukewarm. “We commend the president for exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers and consumers are not shut down by Republican obstructionism,” said AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka. “Working families and consumers should not pay the price for political ploys that have repeatedly undercut the enforcement of rules against Wall Street abuses and the rights of working people.” The president used recess appointments to install Sharon Block, Richard Griffin (Operating Engineers General Counsel) and Terence Flynn as NLRB members. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican. The appointments bring the NLRB to its full strength of five, with three Democrats and two Republicans. The board has only had three members through most of Obama’s presidency. Three was still a quorum, so business could get done, but Senate Republicans refused to seat two other members. With one of the Democrats at the end of his term on Dec. 31, the NLRB would have only had two members, and Republicans indicated they were in no mood to install a third. As a result, Obama made the recess appointments – as he is allowed to do while Congress is in recess – without Congressional approval. But, Congress was technically not in recess, holding “pro forma” sessions during the holiday break with only a handful of members in attendance to keep the body open, in order to specifically prevent the appointments that Obama made. It’s a major precedent-breaker, and the courts will certainly be brought in to make a ruling on Presidential vs. Congressional powers. “Gimmicks do not override the President’s constitutional authority to make appointments to keep the government running,” White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a blog post. The NLRB appointments came the same day the president made a splash for another recess appointment, for Richard Cordray, the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans were angry with that move, but Obama doubled down by making the NLRB appointments in the same manner. “The American people deserve to have qualified public servants fighting for them every day – whether it is to enforce new consumer protections or uphold the rights of working Americans,” Obama said in a statement. “We can’t wait to act to strengthen the economy and restore security for our middle class and those trying to get in it, and that’s why I am proud to appoint these fine individuals to get to work for the American people.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) protested that the president is stripping the Senate of its oversight power to approve or disapprove of appointments. “What the President did today sets a terrible precedent that could allow any future President to completely cut the Senate out of the confirmation process, appointing his nominees immediately after sending their names up to Congress,” he said in a statement. Dave Johnson of OurFuture.org said Republicans have been “obstructing the NLRB from operating by refusing to confirm nominees – any nominees, regardless of qualification. Just as with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they don't object to the nominees, they object to the mission of the NLRB under the law.” And the mission of the NLRB, by law, is “to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy.” According to Politico, Mitt Romney’s campaign for president has launched a new ad in South Carolina that highlights the fight between Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board. As we reported, last month the two majority Democrats on the NLRB infuriated Big Business and their conservative friends by pushing through new rules that will make it more difficult for company owners to stall union organizing drives. The NLRB also made a pro-labor complaint last year against Boeing for moving operations to South Carolina in retaliation against union workers in Washington state. Romney’s ad said: The National Labor Relations Board, “now stacked with union stooges selected by the president, says to a free enterprise like Boeing, ‘You can’t build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a right-to-work state.’ That is simply un-American. It is political payback of the worst kind. It is wrong for America and it is something that will stop under my administration.”
|
||||||
|
Health care law to get Supreme Court scrutiny By Steve Clark Expected in June, the Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is already grabbing massive attention, mainly due to speculation about its possible impact on the nation's 2012 elections. Ultimately, however, the significance of this case will turn on whether it helps resolve the underlying issue of universal health care coverage. Among the key issues in President Obama's 2008 election and the Democrats' eventual passage of PPACA in 2010 was the nation's need to address the smoldering crisis of the uninsured. About 16 percent of American adults have no health care coverage. Of course, they still might get sick, sometimes seriously, and when they do, they go to hospital emergency rooms that, under law, must provide treatment. Unable to pay for their care, these patients’ expenses are transferred in non-transparent ways to other parties that have insurance. Among those most burdened by these unseen transfers are union members and signatory employers who, together, pay for insurance through collective bargaining agreements. These transfers create an unfair competitive advantage for non-union employers who provide no insurance for their employees. Providing coverage to 50 million uninsured people was bound to cost money, and every special interest group lobbied Congress with its own view of how that should be accomplished. Ultimately, PPACA was a vast compromise, with many provisions loosely defined or with long-delayed implementation dates. One provision was an earned income tax on “Cadillac health plans” which many unions, including LIUNA, resisted because any comprehensive, collectively-bargained plan may, one day, be deemed a Cadillac plan. Meanwhile, the law requires virtually all adults to carry insurance, including healthy young adults who, in many cases, would not otherwise buy insurance. Known as the “individual mandate” or “minimum coverage requirement,” this provision expands the risk pool for insurance companies, making up for the law's requirement that insurers cover everyone, including those with pre-existing conditions. Typically, the Supreme Court sets aside an hour for oral arguments, but in a clear indication of the complexity of this case, it has set aside almost a full day. Legal scholars on both sides agree that there would be no constitutional issue if the government had adopted some kind of “single-payer” plan to achieve universal coverage. (In a single-payer system, all hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers would bill one entity, likely run by the government, for their services. This would presumably reduce administrative waste and save money, which can be used to provide care and insurance to those who currently don’t have it). The Court has already ruled that similar plans for Social Security and Medicare are valid. The problem with PPACA is that Congress decided to tinker with the private market rather than abandon it. To uphold the law in total, the Court must consider the constitutionality of its various parts. If it finds any parts unconstitutional, it will then decide if invalidating those parts invalidates the whole law or whether the remainder is constitutional. A key provision is the individual mandate. A U.S. District Court in Florida overturned this mandate and concluded that the entire law is invalid, yet the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision on the mandate but said the rest of the law could go forward. That rationale provoked consternation among the 26 states that are suing the Administration because virtually every provision of the law is predicated on the aim of universal coverage. The Court may avoid the delicacy of all the law's issues by accepting the rationale of some of its own past decisions that it cannot intervene until the law causes real harm or penalties to some party. That would mean making no decision on the merits until penalty provisions take effect, sometime after 2015. Whatever the Supreme Court's decision, dissatisfaction and rancor are inevitable. Special interest groups and politicians will spin it to their own needs, and the issue will merge into the electoral debate over austerity, taxes, spending, accountability and justice. After next fall's election, the big question will remain: how do we achieve effective universal health care coverage? It remains to be seen if and to what extent PPACA is the answer.
|
||||||
|
No longer the party of Lincoln…Why is union-bashing so central to today’s Republican Party? By John Nichols The Nation (Reprinted with permission) Never in the modern history of the Republican Party has a field of GOP presidential candidates been so united and so aggressive in opposing collective bargaining rights for workers. More than a century and a half has passed since a young Republican Party positioned itself as a tribune of the working class; but until recent years, savvy Republicans continued to compete with Democrats for labor endorsements and the votes of union members in industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Even Ronald Reagan – who justifiably earned the enmity of labor with his summary firing of air traffic controllers in 1981 – made a big deal about his Teamsters endorsement in 1984. Even if his actions did not match his rhetoric, Reagan showed up at union conventions during his presidency, telling a 1981 Carpenters union convention that he respected “the sacred right of American workers to negotiate their wages,” adding that “collective bargaining…has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere.” And Reagan wasn’t the last Republican to try to connect with labor. As recently as 2007, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee appeared at the International Association of Machinists convention and received its endorsement in that year’s GOP primaries. Today, however, the party’s contenders are not just refusing union invitations. They are making union bashing central to their campaigns. Anti-union zealotry has become a core premise of the GOP, and it extends far beyond the presidential race. Attacks on the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich may have gotten the most publicity last year (and the most pushback, with Ohio voters overturning Kasich’s anti-labor law in November and Wisconsinites mounting mass rallies and a drive to remove Walker from office). But other Republican governors, notably Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, are striving to undermine the collective bargaining rights of private-sector workers by promoting “right to work” laws, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has emerged as a favored target of Congressional Republicans. Fierce disdain for labor rights has become a focus of the 2012 campaign, as GOP candidates have been stumbling over one another in a rush to announce their determination to assure that there is no power in a union. In the final debate before the New Hampshire primary, the eventual winner of the race, Mitt Romney, said that passing laws making it harder for unions to organize workers and bargain on their behalf “makes a lot of sense.” Texas Gov. Rick Perry argued that erecting structural barriers to union organizing is the way to make a state a powerful “magnet” for job creation. The comments from Romney and Perry were extensions of their previous interventions on behalf of New Hampshire GOP House Speaker William O’Brien’s promotion of a stack of anti-labor legislation, which reflects the agenda of the corporate-funded “bill mill” of the American Legislative Exchange Council. O’Brien spent much of last year trying to enact the first right-to-work law in a New England state. He secured passage of the measure, which would have legally barred unions from collecting mandatory dues from workers and otherwise weakened labor at the bargaining table and in the public sphere. But Democratic Gov. John Lynch vetoed the bill, and an effort to override the veto failed when more than forty GOP members of the State House sided with Democrats to block the assault on collective bargaining rights. New Hampshire’s legislative vote as well as polling suggest that there are a good many Republicans who agree with independents and Democrats that unions are useful – but the GOP presidential contenders showed no interest in appealing to them. Newt Gingrich, who gained O’Brien’s endorsement, was an enthusiastic proponent of drives to pass right-to-work laws in Northern states, arguing that they are part of a smart economic-development strategy for states competing with one another (and with countries like China) in what economists recognize as a race to the bottom. Even the supposed “moderate,” former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, urged New Hampshire legislators to gain a “competitive advantage over your neighbors” by passing antiunion laws. And “maverick” Ron Paul has been distributing literature in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that attacks “compulsory unionism” and “big labor.” But the Republican candidates don’t stop there. Gingrich said, “One of the things the Congress should do immediately is defund the National Labor Relations Board.” Not to be outdone, Romney began airing an ad in South Carolina that declares, “The National Labor Relations Board [is] now stacked with union stooges selected by the president.” Rick Santorum, who has tried to present himself as an ally of working Americans with talk of renewing our manufacturing base, is as militant as Wisconsin’s Walker when it comes to attacking the collective bargaining rights of public employees. “I do not believe that state, federal or local workers…should be involved in unions,” griped Santorum. “I would actually support a bill that says that we should not have public employee unions for the purposes of wages and benefits to be negotiated.” Why is union-bashing so central to today’s Republican Party? One reason is that much of the ideological vetting of GOP candidates is done by radio and television personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, who have long painted unions as threats to prosperity. And the candidates also face pressure – even at times threats – from big-spending “independent” groups like the Club for Growth, which are fiercely opposed to labor on issues like trade policy. ALEC and the Tea Party–linked Americans for Prosperity, both funded by the antiunion Koch brothers, add to the pressure, especially at the state level. What’s ironic, of course, is that as the candidates condemn unions, their assaults on one another highlight the need for organized labor and laws protecting the rights of workers. While Romney was airing his NLRB-bashing ads in South Carolina, a Super PAC funded by billionaire gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson and linked to Gingrich launched a $3.4 million ad campaign attacking Romney as a “predatory corporate raider” of small businesses who shuttered factories, eliminated jobs and destroyed the dreams “of thousands of Americans and their families.” The former House Speaker is complaining that his rival’s firm, Bain Capital, “apparently looted the companies, left people unemployed and walked off with millions of dollars” and railing against “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company.” Aside from the irony of framing ads that could be run by Democrats if Romney turns out to be the Republican nominee, Gingrich was also making a powerful, if unintentional, argument for why federal and state governments should preserve the rights of workers to organize strong unions, to collectively bargain and to make their voices heard at the workplace and at election time. Abraham Lincoln once urged his fellow partisans to recognize that “labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Unfortunately, as the events of 2011 and the campaign of 2012 amply illustrate, the Republicans are no longer the Party of Lincoln. |
||||||
|
Kent Morton, a 27-year-old member of Painters Local 42, fell on Jan. 11 from the Ambassador Bridge on into the Detroit River. He was painting the bridge for Seaway Painting. A nautical search by the Detroit Police Dive Team and the Coast Guard failed to find Mr. Morton as we went to press. “He had been working on painting the bridge on and off, for about three years,” said his brother Shane Morton, a Plumbers Local 98 member. “He never mentioned being nervous at all working up there.” Mr. Morton fell into 36-degree water from a height of approximately 150 feet. He was seen struggling in the water for a period of time after he fell. Kent’s family include his seven-year-old daughter Makayla; his girlfriend pregnant with their child; his mother, Fawn Salvatore, and brother Shane is among three siblings. Kent’s stepfather and uncle are also union painters. His grandfather, Bob Zube, is a Local 98 member and a plumbing inspector in Dearborn. An uncle and a cousin are also Local 98 members. Collections were taken up to assist the family during a Plumbers 98 membership meeting and among workers at the Marathon project in Detroit. Painters District Council No. 22 has also set up a fund to help Kent’s family. Donations can be sent to the DC 22 Kent Morton Memorial Fund, c/o Huntington National Bank, m9120, 30068 Schoenherr Rd, Warren, MI 48088. “The men and women of the IUPAT (International Union of Painters and Allied Trades) mourn the loss of such a bright young man who had so much of his life ahead of him,” said Tim Stricker, special trustee of Painters DC 22. “District Council 22 continues to stand by and support the Morton family in their time of grief. We are also praying and hoping that the recovery effort is successful so Kent’s family can find some closure and begin the healing process. The council continues to fully cooperate and participate in the investigation of this tragic accident.” What went wrong on the bridge is unclear. MIOSHA will be conducting an investigation. “Kent was a giving person, a hard worker, and an all-around great guy,” Shane said last week of his brother as he waited on the river’s edge while recovery crews did their work. “He was also a terrific father. A bunch of people whose names I don’t know have been more than helpful as we’ve waited. The people who have taken up collections, and the Ambassador Bridge people, they’ve been amazing.”
Construction wages take a tumble
Year-to-year date from November 2010 to November 2011 showed real average weekly earnings for all construction workers dropped 1.8 percent, according to the Construction Labor Report. The report, based on statistics released Dec. 16 by the Labor Department, found that average weekly earnings for construction workers fell to $935.75 per week.
|
||||||
| About MBCTC | Links | Building Tradesman Newspaper | Our Issues | Contact Us | Home |