With a large inflatable rat in tow, a group from the Laborers Local 66 union has been stationed this week outside the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, where new aquatic and cultural centers are under construction, with signs calling out the architects and general contractors on the project.
Darryl Harris, a union delegate, alleges that its members have been purposely kept off the job and threatened with police action if they showed up to work there.
Island Structures Engineering is the architect; Crossroad Construction is the general contractor. Mr. Harris claims Island Structure had sent a letter “saying if 66 or the Laborers, or anyone in the organization are on the job they’ll call the police and escort them off the job.”
Speaking by phone on Tuesday morning, Bill Schlumpf, president of Island Structures, denied such a letter and objected to Mr. Harris’s claim. “The use of either union or non-union prevailing-wage-compliant labor on such a municipal project is not within our control or even purview of recommendation,” he said in an email, “as long as the publicly bid and accepted contractor complies with the prevailing wage requirements.”
According to the National Alliance for Fair Contracting, New York’s prevailing wage law “ensures that contractors and subcontractors on public works projects pay their employees the appropriate prevailing wage, as established by the Department of Labor. These requirements apply to all parties involved in a public work contract, regardless of whether they have a direct contractual relationship with the public entity.”
“Our only recommendation to Local 66 was to discuss the matter with the town,” Mr. Schlumpf said. “That notwithstanding, we do have a universal policy of site access restrictions to those not directly involved in the project.”
Mr. Harris said that the union would take its protest to Town Hall next “We’re going to go there because we did not get a response from anybody else,” Mr. Harris said.
The Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation declined to comment and deferred to the Town of East Hampton, which owns the building and is taking the lead on the project after the foundation spearheaded fund-raising for it.
The town “supports organized labor and respects the union’s right to express their concerns,” the town said in a statement released on Nov. 13 by the supervisor’s public information officer, Patrick Derenze.
“The Montauk Playhouse project . . . which has been largely constructed by union labor, is fully compliant with prevailing wage and Wicks Law requirements, and all aspects of the bidding process have been handled in strict accordance with state law. We are committed to completing this important community project on schedule, with the utmost respect for the union workers whose expertise, dedication, and labor have been integral to its success.”
