News

Union picketers protest Silver Spring subcontractor

BY MARJORIE CLARKSON

Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 26, are picketing a construction site at Ellsworth Drive & Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring. They have picketed the site on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last two months and plan to continue their protest for several weeks more. The picketers are protesting the hiring of a non-union electrical subcontractor by Foulger Pratt, the developer and contractor for the multi-million dollar redevelopment project.

On a recent Tuesday, 15 sign-holding Local 26 union members quietly, and in an orderly fashion, walked along the edge of Georgia Avenue and around the commercial trucks and vans parked in front of the construction site. The union members did not appear to be discouraging anyone from working.

Picketer Kim Rhoades, a union member since the 1980s, said she was picketing to "let these people know there is a union and they can join it and have a better life."

Eric Gonzalez, a carpenter at the site, said that he had been working at the construction site for just two days. When asked what he thought of the picketers, he pointed in their direction and said, "That is good."

He said he did not belong to a union because he did not know where to get an application.

A union member for three years, Dwight Bennett, said he was there "not only to get the public aware of the union, but workers on the job site, [who] are really missing out on wages, benefits, pension, and annuity."

He wants the workers to get the message they are "worth more than what they are getting now," speculating that the non-union electrical workers are paid half what union workers earn.

IBEW Local 26 has 6,500 members in the region, and is the third largest local in the country. Its membership increases as many other unions’ rolls decline.

Chuck Graham, Vice President of Local 26, and organizer Joe Dabbs believe that educating workers about the benefits of union membership is essential to their union’s future health, and efforts like the peaceful and regular picketing at the high-profile Foulger Pratt construction project in Silver Spring will contribute to further membership growth.

Bryant Foulger, a principal of Foulger Pratt and manager of the picketed project, does not view the protesters as having anything to do with his company.

"We are not in involved in any dispute," he said, adding that Local 26 members are picketing L.H. Cranston & Sons, not Foulger Pratt.

Dabbs agrees that the developer is not at the center of the protest, but it is the company’s selection of a non-union subcontractor that necessitates the protest.

"We would not be there if they hired an union subcontractor," he said. "[But] Foulger Pratt does use some of our union subcontractors on their projects."

Bryant Foulger said his company shows no preference for union or non-union subcontractors when they hire. His firm has an open shop policy, he said, and subcontractors are pre-qualified based on past work and whether they are reputable.

According to Gary Stith, Director of the Silver Spring Regional Center, higher priority for union subcontractors is not legally required on the Foulger Pratt redevelopment project, which is financed by private funding and the Montgomery County government.

Of the nearby pedestrians questioned–Bryant Foulger among them–none objected to the picketers being in front of the site.

"It hasn’t affected us," Foulger said. "It doesn’t have anything to do with us or Silver Spring. They are good people working out their differences."