Drywallers Will Donate Time in Building Shelter : Labor: Project in aid of homeless mothers also offers chance to mend fences with contractors they struck.

As many as 50 drywall workers are expected to turn out this weekend to help build a shelter for homeless mothers.

They will also be trying to mend relations with the local home-building industry, which they struck last year in order to get union representation.

It was a long, bitter strike in which each side sued the other, strikers were arrested--sometimes on flimsy charges--and strikers vandalized construction sites and intimidated strikebreakers. Most of the big drywall subcontractors eventually gave in and recognized the carpenters’ union.

Drywall workers install the sheets of plasterboard that form the inner walls of buildings.

On Saturday and Sunday, members of the union will be putting up all the drywall for the 45-bed House of Hope--the latest project by HomeAid, the local building industry’s nonprofit housing organization.

Three local builders--William Lyon Co., Warmington Homes and Standard Pacific--are in charge of the project. They and subcontractors and suppliers are donating labor and building materials.

House of Hope, under construction for a year, is scheduled to open in November in the historic section of Orange near that city’s landmark traffic circle.

This is HomeAid’s 15th shelter for a total of 300 beds.