Drywall Union, Builders Need to Stabilize Rocky Base
To say that organized labor and Orange County’s building industry have an uneasy relationship is a little like saying that Prince Charles and Princess Di have a kink or two to work out.
So, the news that immigrant Mexican drywall workers who have been infuriating contractors by picketing work sites for months may be close to winning union recognition makes you think that any situation is reconcilable.
But just because the formerly ragtag and “invisible” drywall workers may unionize hardly means that all is love and kisses.
The hard part is just starting. Try to picture a more incompatible couple on its face than a union of Mexican workers, some of whom don’t even speak English, and the captains of the county’s building industry.
Computer dating would never match these two.
But maybe--just maybe--the long odds against this thing working out will make each side more diligent in pounding out a no-nonsense agreement that will survive.
In a sense, they’re both starting from positions of weakness--the workers because of the flagging nature of the labor movement and the contractors because their sluggish industry doesn’t need continuing strife. Besides, even some contractors I talked to during the violent phase of the picketing conceded the workers were underpaid.
What I’m suggesting is that there may be enough common ground to eliminate the arrogance and intransigence often associated with labor-management relations.
Mike Potts is a dyed-in-the-wool union man and also a student of history. He knows that U.S. labor unions now have about 16.5 million members, almost a third less than 15 years ago. He knows that for various reasons, the labor movement is not exactly America’s darling. So while criticizing the contractors for creating a “slave labor” work force in the drywall industry, he said unions also have to make some accommodations.
“It’s time for all sides to sit down and start thinking about how everybody comes a little bit toward the middle to come up with a positive working relationship,” said Potts, the executive secretary of the Building Trades Council that represents more than 30 crafts.
“Regardless of your affiliation, it gets to the point where the developers and builders had to see that a lot of their position was indefensible, much like the unions when they get to the bargaining table and their demands become not defensible,” Potts said. “So what you end up with is collective bargaining.”
If the fledgling drywall union takes flight, Potts said, it shouldn’t do so with the idea of soaking the building industry. “The union is smart enough to realize that if they do something to these contractors to make them less competitive, what’s going to happen is the opposite of what they want to happen.”
If labor unions are to regain their former clout, Potts said, they have to become leaner and meaner. “We had fat and sassy unions, inflexible and unwilling to move, and a lack of good communication between the management side of the building industry and labor. We were kings on one side, they were kings on the other. They had friendly politicians on their side, and we weren’t close enough as an industry for us to realize where a fallback position might have been.”
After talking to Potts, I almost had visions of labor relations glasnost right here in Orange County.
That was before I got hold of Herbert Moss, a Santa Ana attorney who represents various contractors, including some involved in the ongoing negotiations with drywall workers.
“I think it’s reprehensible that as a result of goon tactics, companies are forced to sign back up with unions,” Moss said. Still fuming over the disruptions at the work sites, Moss said: “You guys (in the media) made heroes out of a bunch of hoodlums. . . . My concern is that if it works with the drywallers, who the hell knows what is going to happen with the other trades? Are they going to employ the same type of goons to get the plumbers and electricians signed up? If I sound a little bitter, I am.”
I don’t know if Moss’ tone reflects that of the contractors or not. If so, this labor-management marriage may not last as long as some of Zsa Zsa’s.
“Do I anticipate things to be any better?” Moss said. “No. Do I think the fact there have been people signed up by drywallers is a sign of some type of cooperation between labor and management? No. I view it as nothing more than paying off the goon squads.”
From his other dealings with unions, Moss says he doesn’t see any indication that labor is softening any demands. “Right now, I haven’t met too many realistic unions.” With less work available, Moss said, unions “want to make in 20 weeks what they used to make in 40. There has been very little moderation.”
Well, Mr. Potts, nobody said it was going to be easy.
