A group of sheet metal and electrical workers gathered on Oct. 9 and 10 next to Pembroke Hall, holding signs and handing out flyers to express their concerns about the business practices of E.W. Burman, the contractor in charge of renovations there.
The demonstrators were members of two unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Chapter 99, and the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 17.
"This contractor regularly uses open-shop subcontractors," said John Shalvey, the president of IBEW Chapter 99.
Open-shop - or nonunionized - contractors and subcontractors are not required to pay their workers the area standard wage as set by the unions, Shalvey said. Open-shop contractors also don't offer the same health or insurance benefits to their workers that union contractors do, he said.
The protesters' signs and flyers said the company focused too much on profit at the expense of the well-being of its workers. The flyers read: "Notice of E.W. Burman Construction and their piggish practice in Rhode Island" and had a drawing of a pig holding a pot of money at the top.
But Vice President of Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi said all subcontractors that E.W. Burman has hired to work on the Pembroke Hall renovations are unionized. Brown has hired the company in the past and has never had problems with their work, he said.
The demonstrators had problems with the contractor in general, but their concerns did not apply to Brown, according to Maiorisi.
Unions guarantee their workers health benefits and a standard wage, said a worker from the sheet metal workers' union who participated in the demonstration and who asked not to be named in this article. He said the use of nonunionized labor drives down the wages for everyone else and makes it harder for people to support families.
The worker also said nonunionized workers are not required to participate in the state apprenticeship program. During the four-year apprenticeship program, workers learn about the trade that they are specializing in, including the legal and technical protocols of their profession, he said. Unionized workers are all required to participate in the state's standard program, but non-union contractors do not have to insist that their employees participate, said the worker.
"There are some contractors that work for (Burman) that do have the state apprenticeship program and have health care. But some of them do not," he said.
One concern of the demonstrators was the lack of quality control with non-unionized labor, since non-union laborers are not held to the same standard that unions require.
"We have a very skilled workforce," Shalvey said. He said unions ensure a certain quality of labor since all unionized workers must be licensed in their profession and have a safety certification.
"There are a lot of discrepancies with the way the work is done with nonunion contractors," said the sheet metal worker.
"The issue here is community standards," said the worker. "It's what the client is paying for and what they're getting."
Maiorisi said the protesters had a right to demonstrate. "We certainly respect the right of any groups to demonstrate as long as they are peaceful demonstrations and they happen on public property."
Paul Burman of E.W. Burman Construction declined to comment.
