It is hard to miss the giant rats appearing daily outside the Jacobs management center construction site, and that's the point, union member picketers say.
"The rats are there to represent bad contractors - contractors that don't always play by the rules," said Dan Kuntz, regional organizer for the Laborers' Upstate New York Organizing Fund.
The inflatable rodents and cockroaches, which have appeared every morning since Sept. 2, are visible symbols of a controversy surrounding the recent decision to hire a construction company that is not specifically union-affiliated for UB's latest building project, the Alfiero Center.
According to police reports, the union protestors have also placed padlocks on the gates to the Alfiero construction site, which had to be broken off.
ADF Construction Company, which has been responsible for campus building projects including Hadley, Flint, Creekside and South Lake villages as well as the current Alfiero project, is not a union company, and this has ruffled feathers among Buffalo workers from various construction unions that collectively represent the Buffalo Building Trades Development Partnership, Inc.
"They don't use union labor, and we're just trying to make the point that with state funding, they should," said Joe Biando, business agent for Laborers' Local 210.
Biando said construction jobs on campus used to be split evenly between union and non-union contractors, but guesses now ADF gets 80 percent of work on campus.
According to Biando, with a projected $300 million to be spent in the next few years UB construction, including the Lee Road project, union workers want their piece of the pie.
"There's no sign of any unions that are going to be on that job, and that's scary to UB," said Biando. "We have to fight. We're people brokers. We feed families."
According to Sunny Savarino, ADF's owner, ADF subcontractors hired on the Alfiero project for roofing, painting, masonry, fire protection, plumbing, electric, and heating and cooling are all union companies. Many of the unions represented at the demonstration also have work in the Alfiero Center, Savarino said.
"Carpentry, glass work, foundation, operational engineers - that's the only part of the work they don't have," said Savarino.
Union members also criticize ADF for not providing a list of its subcontractors for the Alfiero project at the time of bidding.
"By law, they're supposed to release them," said Gerald Franz, organizer for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 17. "We ask that question and they just dummy up on us."
Franz and James Minter, organizer for the International Union of Operating Engineers, said its subcontracting policy gave ADF an unfair advantage during the bidding, because since it is not a union contractor, there is potential for a breach of prevailing wage rates.
"Union contractors tend to be monitored, whereas there's virtually no monitoring with non-union contractors," said Minter.
According to Franz, problems could arise such as immigrant workers being paid below wage rates developed by unions, making it impossible for unions to compete with the subsequent low bids.
Savarino disagreed.
"Any program that comes out of UB is bid on what they call prevailing wage rates - for all intents and purposes the union rate," he said.
According to Savarino, not only does the contract company, regardless of union affiliation, have to pay this wage rate, but payments must be verified and sanctioned in writing.
"Every month everybody has to send us their prevailing wage records," Savarino said. "We have to be exceptionally careful with non-union workers."
Prevailing wage rate, set by the New York State Department of Labor, ranges from approximately $22 to $28 per hour plus benefits for various construction jobs.
Savarino said non-union workers normally end up with larger paychecks, because union dues are not required and most benefits are given directly to the worker instead of a retirement fund, as is done for union members.
He stressed that several of the subcontractors on the Alfiero job are indeed union companies. "I would say there's probably at least half of the subcontractors, if not more, that are union contractors," he said. "The union comes along and is greedy. They want all of it."
"This is just a target job," said Savarino. "They come in there with their rats and act juvenile. It's just preposterous. They don't have a leg to stand on."
According to Savarino, the picketers want a Project Labor Agreement issued that would assure them all the work.
"They're trying to intimidate the university itself," he said.
This won't work, said Kevin Seitz, vice president for University Services, because construction for all SUNY campuses is governed by the State University Construction Fund, not the individual university.
According to Seitz, the construction fund follows a uniform New York State process, which awards a job to the lowest bidder that meets all qualifications.
"The dispute is really between the union and the contractors, not the union and the university," Seitz said.
Nonetheless, the picketers aren't planning to stop until they find some answers as to ADF's rising popularity as a construction contractor at UB.
"It's pretty strange how ADF has a lock on so many jobs on the campus," said Biando. "It's ADF everywhere, and how could that be?"
"If you're having true competitive bidding, there'll be a different contractor every time," said Minter.
Minter said the picket has representatives from 18 different construction unions, but he would like to see more involvement from within the university.
"We'd like to add 19 - the students," he said.
He said that though SA President George Pape turned down the opportunity for involvement in the issue, UB Students Against Sweatshops and some faculty members have become interested and want to help their cause.
"What we're out there striving for is what you're in here trying to get - work," said Minter. "When you're out there fighting for jobs, all of a sudden the picture looks pretty grim."
"Things could change to satisfy us, but the ball's in ADF's court," said Franz. "In one form or another, whatever it takes, we're not going to stop."
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
