Union's big rat joins protest at Keystone

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b1_4strike.6262094feb08,0,4502409.story

At East Allen kiln upgrade project, Carpenters' inflatable rodent makes point against non-union labor.


Members of the Lehigh Valley Carpenters Union Local 600 are picketing Keystone Cement in East Allen with their giant inflatable rat. (DEMETRA STAMUS, Allentown Morning Call / February 8, 2008)

By Michael Duck | Of The Morning Call
February 8, 2008

A $200 million upgrade at Keystone Cement, one of the biggest construction projects in Northampton County, has reopened years-old conflicts between unions and nonunion contractors -- and drawn out a local union's giant inflatable rat.

Three weeks ago, the beady-eyed rat that Lehigh Valley Carpenters Union Local 600 has toted to dozens of Lehigh Valley construction projects, showed up at Keystone's East Allen Township plant. The group routinely pickets when union officials believe contractors are paying below-market wages to out-of-state or foreign workers.

''It hurts,'' said union representative Jose Cruz of Tamaqua. Out-of-state contractors ''come into this area and lower the standards and the wages,'' he said, standing on the picket line next to Route 329.

However, Keystone officials stress that they've hired many local and union contractors for the project, and that the plant improvements should keep the facility open for decades and preserve the union jobs of cement workers.

Keystone employs roughly 200 Lehigh Valley residents, and nearly all of them are represented by United Steelworkers of America, plant manager Stephen Hayden said.

Of the 23 contractors working on the Keystone improvements, 19 are from Pennsylvania or nearby in New Jersey, Hayden said. All have assured Keystone that they comply with labor laws.


FULL story at link.

Thanks Steve.