Non-Union Carpenters Walk Out Over Wages : Labor: Protest organizers say pay is less than half of what a unionized laborer makes. Contractor says action had no effect at job sites.

Non-union carpenters walked off 18 housing construction sites around Southern California on Monday to protest what they said were unfair low wages paid by housing contractors.

The regional offices of the carpenters union, which organized the walkout, said several thousand carpenters, mainly Latino, had left their jobs to protest wages that typically are $80 a day--less than half the prevailing union level of $180 a day in wages and benefits.

“We don’t want to be dependent on unemployment and living in some garage,” said Manual Lopez of Santa Ana, one of the strike’s organizers. “It’s not fair to be a carpenter and not be able to afford to buy your own house.”

In its first day, the strike had little to no effect on the 18 targeted sites, including 10 in Orange County, contractors said.

“In my opinion, their timing is terrible,” said Jim Harrison, owner of Contemporary Framing Contractors in Anaheim. “Interest rates are up, which means there’s a general lack of demand for housing, which means there’s a heck of a lack of work. These guys just are not in a power position right now to demand higher wages.”

The non-union strikers are simply trying to “harass those who want to stay on the job,” Harrison said. At one of his work sites in Irvine, he said, all 180 non-union carpenters had come to work.

About 3,000 workers participated in the walkout on its first day, said Baldwin Keenan, a business representative for the union’s Orange County chapter in Orange.

Though the carpenters regional union helped organized the strike, union leaders in Los Angeles said they don’t believe they can organize all carpenters in the fractured Southern California building industry.

“We’re hoping it will snowball over the next few days,” said Bill Perry, a spokesman for the union’s central office.