These guys are basically thugs. They’re borderline criminals.”
“The stuff they’ve been doing is harassment.”
“They would go to people’s homes after dark.”
“What they’re doing is blackmail.”
These were just a few of the opinions—those that were fit to print anyway—voiced by local business owners who’ve dealt with Camarillo-based Carpenters Local 150.
Exactly what is going on?
In December, Local 150 began “bannering” Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab in Arroyo Grande. That’s when someone stands across the street from a business with a large banner that reads “SHAME ON SO-AND-SO,” referencing the business in question, with the words “Labor Dispute” in smaller letters beneath. By standing across the street, they’re exercising their right to free speech. It’s not picketing, which, if done to a neutral third party, is illegal under U.S. labor law.
Bannering has become such a free speech issue that the city of Santa Clara is currently facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Carpenters Local 405 over the practice.
Police in that city confiscated the union’s banner under the city’s sign ordinance. Union lawyers in that case have stated union members have the same rights to expression as abortion protestors carrying signs outside Planned Parenthood.
So what exactly did the owners of Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab—and KT’s All Star Gymnastic Center and Lost World Pets in Santa Maria—do to deserve the attention of Local 150? That’s the funny part (or frustrating part, depending on who’s telling the story).
Repeated calls to Local 150—and, more recently, the local 1800 in Arroyo Grande by a business owner trying to reach out to the union—have all gone unreturned since the banners went up.
The only information the world at large has to go on is what’s printed on the flyers being handed out. The words start in big bold print:
“SHAME ON [pick a business] For Desecration of the American Way of Life,” below which there’s a picture of a rat gnawing on an American flag. The words continue in smaller print:
“Shame on [business] for contributing to erosion of area standards for carpenter craft workers. UNITED WALL SYSTEMS is performing drywall work for the [business] project located in Santa Maria. UNITED WALL SYSTEMS does not meet area labor standards for all their carpenter craft workers, including fully paying for family health benefits and pension.”
So that explains it. The union is upset that Doc, KT’s, and Lost World all hired a company that doesn’t use union labor, right?
Actually, no. They didn’t hire anyone. None of the businesses had contracts with United Wall Systems. What they do have, however, are lease agreements to either move into or open new locations in the Santa Maria Town Center, currently undergoing renovations.
The mall owner hired United Wall Systems, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the bannerers.
“We got a letter from the union saying they had a problem with us using UWS,” said Donna Morasca, owner of Lost World Pets, adding that she was surprised when she got it, because she had never actually hired UWS.
“When I called the union to tell them that, the lady in the office said ‘thank you very much for letting us know,’” Morasca said.
A month later, there was a “Shame On” banner outside the pet shop’s storefront.
In each instance, the same scenario played out. Business owner got a letter from the union about UWS. Business owner tried to inform union that he or she essentially had to use UWS, as the choice was someone else’s to make. Business owner got bannered.
All of the owners who spoke with the Sun said the most frustrating part is that the union refuses to talk to them (or anyone, for that matter) about it.
“I don’t know what their end game is. I don’t know what they want. There’s no head at the end of the beast. There’s no one you can debate on this,” said Dave Eckenrode of KT’s All Star Gymnastics, who has made multiple calls to the numbers listed on the flyers throughout this ordeal. None have been returned, he said.
Not in the union
So if the unions aren’t picking a fight with the mall, and the business owners didn’t actually hire any non-union carpenters, then just who is Local 150 having a labor dispute with?
Gabe Segura must have really pissed these guys off.
Segura owns the United Wall Systems named in the union flyers. He’s also apparently the only person involved in the situation to actually have had any conversations with the union—at least at first.
“This all started when they approached me last year about joining them,” he said. “They said I could choose to join my company and my employees into the union and pay them a prevailing wage.”
Their prevailing wage, Segura said, was $48 an hour, and that wasn’t including his costs for general liability and workers compensation insurance.
“It basically meant I would have to charge more for my time and my employees’ time,” he explained. “My normal rate would have probably gone up by 50 percent. Problem is, we can’t survive in a market like today with rates like that.”
Segura said union reps told him he could either “join now, or they wouldn’t be able to help me later.” When he asked what that meant, he was told “it means what it means.”
He got the impression that, if he joined up, the union would banner businesses if they didn’t use him. And if he didn’t join up, they would banner his job sites, his contractors, and the owners.
Segura didn’t take them up on their offer. How could he, he said, when what he’d have to charge would push him out of the market?
“I’d go broke sitting at home with no work,” he said.
“What’s right about strong arming small businesses on the Central Coast?” he asked.
Now what?
With nobody from the union returning calls, Greg Steinberger of Doc Burntsein’s Ice Cream Lab finally had enough and filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
“They told me, ‘You’re a neutral party, you’ll see action in two to three days,’” he said.
That action, Steinberger found out several weeks later, was to have his case placed before the National Labor Relations Board.
Unfortunately for Steinberger, having his case before the board isn’t going to do him much good. According to a legal memo filed last year by board attorneys in another bannering case, “a series of bannering charges are currently being held in abeyance pending board resolution … .”
Those charges are being held up because three of the board’s five seats are currently vacant.
Two of the nominees are Democrats. Why their appointments haven’t been confirmed depends on which side of the aisle you’re sitting on: Republicans say it’s because the nominees are Big Labor radicals; Democrats say it’s because of Republican obstructionism.
Tell us your story, pretty please?
The first rule of dealing with union carpenters is: Don’t be a member of the press. Repeated calls to Joe Duran, business manager for Local 150, went unanswered. A Sun reporter even drove down to Camarillo to try to catch Joe (or anybody who could speak to the media) in person. He wasn’t in. Again.
“Was he here at all today?”
The receptionist gave a mild shrug and a not-entirely blank stare.
“Do you expect him in at all today?”
“He keeps his own hours.”
Time for a different tack.
Let’s say you’re looking to have some work done that falls under the carpenters union purview, and you want to actually hire union carpenters to make sure you avoid being bannered. How exactly do you go about finding them?
All the union carpenters in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico fall under the umbrella of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters. That should be as good a place as any to start.
The council’s website lists a contact number, Nick Santangello, so a reporter gave him a call. Santangello was a pleasant guy, even after he found out the caller was in the press.
He gave the number for the Los Angeles County Building Trades, which supplied the number for Local 409 in Los Angeles. Local 409 then gave a name and number for, wait for it, Nick Santangello at the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters.
A man on a mission
It was time for a ruse de journalist. I put in a call to Local 150, but this time as someone who was “interested in finding union carpenters for a construction project.”
Shockingly enough, this got me past the receptionist to a gentleman named Allan who told me I needed to talk to a guy named Jim McAllister at Local 1800 in Arroyo Grande.
McAllister was helpful enough and willing to give out a list of local union carpenters, but he wanted to know why. Not actually having a construction project and feeling a little guilty, I spilled the beans and told him I was with the Sun.
A few beats of silence.
“I can’t give you that list.”
Could he talk to us about this whole situation?
“I would love to give you an answer, but I can’t.”
Why not?
“I just can’t. All I can say is this isn’t about union vs. non-union; all we care about is wages and benefits.”
Everybody else
Union carpenters obviously weren’t going to talk to the Sun. We shouldn’t take it personally—they wouldn’t talk to the L.A. Times, either. But all this fruitless pursuit was beginning to make us think most unions were tight-lipped, banner-waving types.
Turns out there were unions that begged to differ: all of them.
See, there’s the carpenters union, and then there’s everyone else. Literally. The Tri County Building and Trade Council represents everyone but the carpenters: plumbers, electricians, iron workers, masons, laborers, boilermakers. If you don’t work with wood, it’s a pretty good bet you’re represented by these guys.
Steve Weiner has been executive secretary of the council since 1998, and while bannering can be a legitimate tactic in some instances, he said, “this is not one of those instances.”
“We believe everyone has a right to voice their opinion, especially if there’s an injustice,” he explained. “But freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theater, and there’s no fire here. Doc’s is a third party; he’s done nothing wrong.”
Weiner added that, in his opinion, Local 150 is “wasting their time” bannering the ice cream shop.
“What they should be wasting their time on are contractors who’re violating labor laws, putting worker safety at risk, and not go after someone who’s done nothing,” he said.
To show its support for Doc Burnstein’s, the council recently held a free ice cream day for the public. Steinberger said it was the shop’s single busiest day by far, with 1,231 free scoops of ice cream doled out.
“We supported Doc’s because we believe there’s an injustice,” Weiner said. “That’s what labor unions are supposed to do: stand up for someone who’s being taken advantage of.”
The bright side?
Some of the business owners the Sun spoke with are remaining pragmatic about the whole situation.
“Honestly, I’d be more upset if it were hurting our business,” Katie Eckenrode—the ‘KT’ in KT’s Gymnastics—said with a laugh as she did leg lifts in front of the “SHAME ON KT’S ALL STAR GYMNASTICS CENTER” banner. She is a gymnastic coach, after all.
Then we headed over to the guys holding the SHAME ON banner for Lost World pets (we have to be fair about this, after all). One of them was happy to give out a flyer; he didn’t realize we were press until the photographer started snapping pictures.
Hoods went up. Sunglasses went on.
“You guys ashamed of having your pictures taken?” the Sun photographer asked.
“Sunlight,” the guy answered.
It’s hard to get upset with the actual banner holders. All but one of them the Sun spoke with weren’t union members, and the one exception wouldn’t tell us which union he was a member of.
Greg Kozak, owner of the Santa Maria Town Center, feels bad for the people holding the banners.
“All we want to say is the architectural venue is very bad for the banner holders to stand out in the rain and cold,” he said. “We’re going to do everything in our power to help them organize their own union against the carpenters.”
While Eckenrode is pleased with the extra business the banners have brought into her store—she mentioned one person who came in to ask if it was her business being targeted, and when she told him it was, he signed his kid up for classes on the spot—it’s the rat gnawing on the American flag and the claim that KT’s All Star Gymnastics is desecrating the American way of life that has her riled.
“My colors in the studio are red, white, and blue,” she said. “Their flyer has a rat gnawing on an American flag. Are you kidding me?”
Steinberger said that although local support has been tremendous, his worst fears about people drawing the wrong conclusion were confirmed recently when he got a call from a longtime customer.
“She told me she thought it was ‘disgusting’ how I treated my employees and that she wouldn’t be back,” he said.
Steinberger said he’s been stumped on what his response to the union should be. He and his managers have come up with the solution.
“We’re going to get our own banner with our phone number on it that says ‘Carpenters Union 150, Please Talk to Us.’”
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 18-25, 2010.