Excerpt that mentions the reinforced-concrete core of each WTC tower: "The floors were not supported by colums..instead, the trusses carried the weight to the steel exterior, and the reinforced concrete core." ************************************************************ http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=NewReply&Post=76&Board=terror&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=7&Session= The LabourStart Web Forums LabourStart is offering free web forums to any union which wants one. Write to ericlee@labourstart.org for details. Home | Log In | First time here? Sign Up! | Search | Help | LabourStart REPLY TO TOPIC Nick Name _____________________________________________ To LabourStart's Own Forums / Terror and the War on Terror: An Open Discussion Forum for Trade Unionists / GIVEBACKS AT GROUND ZERO Subject _____________________________________________ Message you can use ultraboard code in your message. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ PREVIEW FIRST REPLY THIS TOPIC Powered by UltraBoard v1.62 GIVEBACKS AT GROUND ZERO GregoryA.Butler GIVEBACKS AT GROUND ZERO : the World Trade Center Project Labor Agreement..and the perils of concessionary bargaining in a time of war By Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter As longtime GANGBOX readers know, the unionized segment of the construction industry in New York has been in a crisis for years. Especially the New York District Council of Carpenters and the 19,000 men and women who pay dues to it's 10 constituent locals. That crisis greatly worsened on September 11, 2001. Besides the horror of 19 of our brothers dying in the air raid [along with roughly 6,000 other folks from Greater New York], we also may now be facing some major labor concessions. These givebacks come on top of what we gave away in the building construction agreements signed earlier this year. And, they set the stage for further givebacks in the heavy construction agreements next year. When capitalistic governments, like ours, are at war, they always ask workers to make lots of sacrifices. Meanwhile, the upper class gives up nothing, far from it..the rich feed at the taxpayer filled troth of cost plus, time and materials, defense contracts. Don't expect this conflict to be any different. As we all know, just a few weeks ago, our illegitimatly "elected", and intellectually deficient, president, one George W. Bush, proclamed a "War on Terrorism". Or, to be slightly more accurate, a one sided air "war" on an impoverished Third World country with a 3 plane Air Force, and no standing army. A "war" that has less to do with avenging the deaths of the thousands of WTC murder victims than it does with the control of oil pipeline routes over Afganistan's Hindu Kush mountains. A "war" consisting of "heroic" aerial bombardments of hospitals, office buildings, senior citizen centers, Muslim boy's boarding schools and an International Red Cross food warehouse, among other "military" targets. Also, the US government has intervened in that country's civil war. The CIA, in a stunning move, was able to find a faction to support who are, incredibly, actually more vile and reprehensible than the current administration in Afghanistan - our tax dollars are subsidizing an army of opium growers and heroin processors!! And not only are our new allies shameless dope dealers..America's new friends in South Asia, the so called "Northern Alliance", besides their exploits in the heroin business, also are notorious throughought Afghanistan for the gang rapes of women and girls that their soldiers engage in when they conquer villages, particularly villiges populated by folks who are from different tribal or ethnic groups. The "evil" Taliban drove the "Northern Alliance" out of the drug game, and put a damper on their cross-country sex crime spree - we're putting them back in business. The Afghan opium harvest begins in May. Since the Taliban's militia have had to abandon their brutal, but very effective, anti drug patrols to fight the US Army Special Forces..the UN's drug trafficing experts are expecting a bumper opium crop. And we'll likely get lots of cheap high quality heroin on the streets of America's inner cities by the summer. And lots of ODs in the emergency rooms shortly thereafter. Plus lots of gunfights between American dopemen over who gets to sell all this cheap imported heroin. Guess that's just what the generals call "collateral damage". In any event, because of this "war", we've been told endlessly about making "sacrifices" here on the "home front", supposedly for the common good. But, as usual when corporate-owned political hacks speak of "shared sacrifice"..they REALLY mean sacrifice from one particular social group...workers. This crisis is no exception. While the airlines get a $ 18 billion dollar bailout, and Congress mulls a $ 60 billion dollar giveaway to the bankers and industrialists of Wall Street, the working class are being asked to make do with less. And, as it happens, among the first to be asked to "sacrifice" are some of the folks who took some of the first civillian casualties of this new "war"..the New York building trades. The emergency state authority set up to supervise the recovery and rebuilding operations at the former World Trade Center site [a/k/a "ground zero"], have imposed a concessionary Project Labor Agreement on the New York building trades. Most of the union bosses have not seen fit to discuss the PLA with their memberships, but, I've been able to glean a bit of information from an anonymous GANGBOX source. First of all, apparently, the plan is to replace the destroyed 2 towers and 4 lowrise buildings in the World Trade Center complex with 4 towers. The replacement buildings will only be 50 stories tall. Aparently, there is a well founded fear that few businesspeople would rent office space in a new 110 story tower, or in any building even close to that height. This is understandable, in light of the fact that many of the executives and professionals who died in the kamikaze air attack perished precicely because they were trapped on upper floors in 1 WTC and 2 WTC. Those were the high dollar floors, the executive floors, the choicest commercial office real estate in pre September 11th Manhattan. The top floors had an awesome view, that was truly breathtaking - I had a chance to experience it myself - I've worked installing furniture and office partitions on some of those floors - for those of you who are never going to get the chance to see it - you missed an unbelivable panorama. Also, the execs on those floors knew they had the highest offices in the city, a kind of status thing. But, the bragging rights of offices into the sky turned into the horror of a towering inferno on a Tuesday in September, just before 9. The luckless managers, along with their clerical support staffpeople, were caught above the burning airplane wreckage, the debris-jammed fire stairs and the elevator shafts that had become flaming waterfalls of burning JP-4 kerosene jet fuel. Many of these folks were forced by the 2,000 degree heat from the ignited fuel tanks of the doomed jetliners to make a Gary Gilmore choice - death was inevatable..it was just a question of choosing how to perish - either jumping out the windows and dying quickly..or staying at their desks and burning to death real slow. A hell of a way to die..and, it seems, a source of a quite understandible fear of renting space in high profile extremely tall hirise office buildings on the part of many corporate CEOs. As well as creating a corporate security risk - having key executives and other critical employees in locations at high risk for air attack would be irresponsible to the shareholders. After all, Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and the 17 other "undercover brothers"who allegedly piloted the 4 hijacked aircraft to oblivion were supposedly part of a wider conspiracy. And, if the FBI is correct, and these men were members of the organization, they were members of a 35,000 man CIA-traned elite secret army of international terrorists. Who knows where those remaining 34,981 guys might strike next? Obvioulsly, from a business perspective, it would be imprudent to put valuable executives in a building that might suffer another lethal attack. Apparently, the fear limit is 50 stories..above that height, few will rent office space. There has also been a structural change. The old WTC was built out of structural steel. But, it wasn't a regular steel building. They used trusses rather than solid beams for the joists that support the floor. The floors were not supported by colums..instead, the trusses carried the weight to the steel exterior, and the reinforced concrete core. This allowed large open floors where you could cram in the maximum number of desks, without big colums getting in the way. This radical design also made the floors very vulnerable in the event of a structural failure of the principal load bearing element - the exterior skin. A structural failure such as..being hit by a very large airplane going 500mph. The unique framing system was also, due to the thinness of the trusses, very vulnerable to a structural failure of the steel do to an extremely hot fire. Such as..the fire that you get when you..crash a very large airplane with full fuel tanks into a building. Granted, nobody, not even the anti terrorism guys, ever expected anything like the September 11th kamikaze air attack to ever happen. Consequently, the engineers didn't harden the structure to deal with such an unforseeable impact. But in light of the impact, the engineers are, reportedly, going to go with reinforced concrete. Concrete is stronger, absorbs impact better, it doesn't melt, nor does it burn. That's why the Pentagon, a reinforced concrete building, is still standing..and the WTC towers, which were steel buildings, unfortunately, are not. And, I'd bet that you're going to have lot's of columns in the open floorspace area. No trusses here. We have a lot of experience building hirise concrete buildings here, that's how most of the luxury hirises here are built. Trump even built a 70 story hirise luxury co-op across from the UN last year, and we have another 70 story luxury residential tower going up on 55th and Broadway. But, I'm sure the biggest concern of GANGBOX subscribers is, what kind of labor conditions are going to prevail at the "new" WTC? As we know, the current WTC recovery operation is being run on a 7 12s basis, round the clock. The area was divided up between 4 contractors. This was done on a no bid basis, of course, and with no set budget and paid for on a Time and Materials basis [every contractor's two favorite letters of the alphabet : T & M]. Turner Construction [the GC for the building of the WTC complex back in the 1960's] got 7 World Trade Center, the privately owned tower just north of the main WTC complex. That building was home to one of would be Mayor-for-Life Rudolf Giuliani's bunkers - reportedly, the 6,000 gallon tank of emergency generator diesel fuel at the 15th floor "command center" was ignited by debris, burned and caused that building to fall 10 hours after the initial attack. Turner also got street rubble clearance and window repair from Vesey St north to Chambers St, and from Broadway west to the river. British-owned general contractor Amec got the remains of 1 World Trade Center, the former US Customshouse at 6 WTC, part of 5 WTC, the northern part of the WTC's underground shopping mall, as well as rubble clearance and window repair in Battery Park City's Winter Garden, 3 World Financial Center and 4 World Financial Center. Another British outfit, P & O Steamship Lines subsidiary Bovis Lend-Lease [formerly known as Lehr McGovern Bovis] got the southern half of the mall, the ruins of 2 WTC, the Marriot hotel at 3 WTC, as well as debris clearance between Washington St and West St north of Rector St, and in Battery Park City's American Express Tower, 2 World Financial Center, Gateway Plaza, the Battery Park City Esplanade and the North Cove yacht basin. And, Tully Construction, a New York-based company who have been the prime contractor on the nearby West Street renovation project for the past decade, got the bulk of 5 WTC, the ruins of the New York Mercantile Exchange at 4 WTC [and the quarter billion dollars worth of gold and silver buried in the vaults underneath], as well as rubble clearance and window replacement between Broadway and Washington Street, from Rector Street north to Vesey St. They also have a whole bunch of subs, including about 10 companies hauling out debris. Some of these companies, like Scalamandri Construction, are allegedly connected with , and, consequently, some of the hundreds of tons of steel scrap has been "diverted" [that is to say - stolen] rather than being hauled to the Fresh Kills Landfill to be searched for evidence. Weeks Marine has been running the barge and tugboat-based end of the debris haul operation from Piers 6 & 25..needless to say, as huge tugboats are a lot harder to hide from the cops than dumptrucks, the bulk of the debris hauled away by the barges is the stuff that can't be sold as Mongo to the scrapdelers for cash. And that's not the only theivery going on at ground zero. Reportedly, there were some former cops, correction officers and paramedics who snuck in the site in uniform, and cleaned out a number of stores in the shopping mall under the doomed towers, and on the surrounding streets. The Tourneau jewlery store got hit the worst - they lost $ 1.3 million dollars worth of jewelry, and $ 2,500 in cash, to the thieves. Other, less high dollar, stuff got jacked too..down to and including batteries and t shirts. That's why the site was closed to everybody but rescue workers and construction workers with NYS Division of Emergency Management ID 4 days after the raid. They also brought in Nassau County cops to guard the site [perhaps because a number of former city cops were involved in the looting - and they might have active duty cops as accomplices]. Unfortunately, the Nassau cops have spent much of their time singling out Black and Latino construction workers for harassment - while not searching the White workers. Some lightskinned minority tradespeople were singled out for searches because, in the Neanderthal minds of the Long Island lawmen, they "looked Arab". This racial profiling was done despite the fact that many of the looters were in fact White. And that's not the only nefarious activity that's allegedly been going on at the former WTC site. According to reports from ABC News crime reporter John Miller, which have been confirmed by anonymous posts on rank and file carpenters internet bulletin board Carpenter's Jaw'in [http://members.tripod.com./purple188.html] there has been job selling going on at ground zero. Allgedly, carpenters seeking shop steward posts with contractors at the site have to kick back 5% of their pay to corrupt New York District Council of Carpenters BAs. These reports have not been confirmed, of course. But, if true, it wouldn't be entirely shocking, in light of the NYDCofC's well documented 82 year history of corruption and mob ties. It's been reported on Jaw'in that stewards with gravy train no work steward jobs at big multi year jobs like the AoL building have actually left their jobs to go to the WTC site, with it's promise of lucrative 16 hour days and 7 day weeks for years into the future. Of course, it's been long charged that some "connected" shoppies on big jobs like this may get paid for the long day..but still actually go home at 2:30. But, for the carpenters who actually have to work, as well as the other trades, this job is pretty rough. There have already been over 1,000 accidents on the site, including one incident where a worker was hit by a crane and had his pelvis crushed. This is an almost unbelivably high accident rate, as there are only 2,400 workers on this job! There are lots of cranes, trucks, bobcats and other heavy equipment working in close proximity to each other and to the workers on the ground, but little is being done to protect the tradespeople from being hit. Also, the reality is, having people work 12 to 16 hour shifts, day after day after day, with no days off, particularly if many of those people have long commutes from suburbia, you are going to start encountering exhaustion. And, exhausted workers have less depth perception, slower reflexes, are more likely to make mistakes, and are at higher risk for accidents. The job is being run with callous disregard to worker safety and health. Besides the accidents, there is minimal protection being provided to workers who are exposed to asbestos, gypsum dust and other chemical hazards. Even though the site is filled with asbestos, benzene, kerosene, gypsum dust, fiberglass dust, PCBs, and other chemicals.Also, the sight is still filled with smoke, as the rubble is in fact still on fire in some places even 6 weeks after the air raid, workers are not wearing moonsuits. Instead, they just have their regular work clothes on, with half face masks. Supposedly, there are some workers in moonsuits, but the bulk of the workforce are in t shirts and jeans. The only safety precautions that are being taken for most of the workers is an instruction to wear long sleeve shirts, and to keep masks and goggles on at all times. They've also been told to put Vicks under their nostrils..to abate the awful smell from all the unburied dead people entombed beneath the fallen towers. Needless to say, many of these workers are terrified of the long term effects of their exposure to multiple toxic substances at the ground zero site. The WTC job has already spawned it's own occupational disease..the Fire Department doctors are calling it "World Trade Center Cough". It's a persistant dry cough that has afflicted many of the construction workers and city employees at the former WTC site, probably due to the extreme amount of toxic dust in the air. The excuse from the contractors and the government for the almost criminally sloppy job safety is that this is an "emergency". But that's a bogus excuse. On the real, it stopped being an emergency search and rescue when the last live person, a lady that worked for Blue Cross, was pulled out of the rubble. Any excuse for hasty, sloppy work pratices ended once the possibility of rescue of survivors ended. And, according to the Oklahoma City Fire Department's experts on that subject, almost nobody comes out alive after 60 hours buried in the rubble. The OKCFD learned all about terrorist attacks on office buildings the hard way back in 1994, with Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. That department's people now know more about the subject than just about any other American fire department Now, 40 days after the bombing, this operation is all about body recovery and rubble clearance - and, quite frankly, the brutal truth is, there's really no need to rush now - it's not like there's anybody under there who can be saved at this point. And, 20 years from now, when some of those workers have asbestosis, or silicosis, or mesothelioma [cancer of the abdominal membrane], we'll see just how much help these workers get. No doubt the heroism will be forgotten then...it'll just be a question of insurance carriers and contractors dodging liability. As it is, according to the US Department of Labor's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH], over 1,000 workers have suffered injuries on the WTC recovery site. NIOSH actually took a rare step, and publicly condemned the City of New York, the state and the feds for their wreckless disregard for worker safety and health. These charges were echoed by a workplace safety activist group, the New York Coalition on Occupational Safety and Health, [NYCOSH]. According to workers I've spoken to, people are coming home every day with sore throats, burning teary eyes and excessive phglem in the throat.[the "World Trade Center Cough" I spoke of above] Also, many workers are experiencing headaches as well. Beyond the life and death stuff, there are also some union questions there. Allegedly, there is a situation where the NYDCofC's job referral list is being evaded, and many of the carpenter jobs are supposedly being given out on the basis of favoritism, cronyism and graft. Also, reportedly, there have been cases of the old trick of having contractors ask for esoteric skills ["window installer", instead of storefront carpenter, for example], and tipping off the connected carpenters to list that unusual type of carpentry work among their job skills. If true, this isn't that surprising..it's merely a grotesquely extreme form of the job referral abuses that have victimized local man/woman union carpenters in New York for many many years. Also, it's been made quite clear to union carpenters that we are not supposed to do anything to correct on the job abuses down there. Our BAs have publicly said that we're not supposed to bring up jurisdictional disputes, because, allegely, this will make the fed's bring in non union contractors from the ABC. This is a major problem, due to the limited scope of carpenter work on this project A lot of our work at the former WTC site is claimed by the laborers - such as setting up shanties & trailers; building the "decons" [decontamination showers]; and building scaffolds, fences, sidewalk bridges, shoring and other protection. The other major carpenter job there, window repair in the surrounding buildings, has been claimed for years by the local 580 ornamental ironworkers, as well as the glaziers. Especially in this case, because a lot of the broken windows are on hirise buildings where the windows are an integral part of ironworker-installed exterior steel skins. This explains why there are only about 300 carpenters at ground zero, out of a total workforce of roughly 2,400. There are about 1,200 laborers on the site, doing the pick and shovel work, as well as asbestos and gypsum dust abatement, and other miscelanious work. The bulk of the rest of the workers are ironworkers, burning apart the steel frame of the wrecked WTC buildings, as well as operating engineers and teamsters. There are also building service workers doing hazardous materials work in the frozen zone, despite the fact that they have no training for it. Local 78 of the Laborers, which is a lead, asbestos and hazmat abatement worker's local, tried to stop this pratice, but they were unable to. And, apparently, like a lot of other unions, local 78's BAs didn't have the guts to picket the job, despite the life or death labor issue - apparently, it's "unpatriotic" to protest labor abuses at ground zero, and it "hurts the war effort". Guess that's what they mean when they say "national unity". We're not supposed to complain - even when the bosses give us a no-vaseline Rikers Island-style screwing. Instead, were supposed to, in the charming and inspiring words of Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen, himself a former union boss : "suck it up and take it!". So, we have the pathetic spectacle of elevator operators, office cleaners, porters, handymen, doormen and security guards being given paper dust masks and rags, and cleaning up asbestos containing materials from the offices of Lower Manhattan. These workers have no hazmat or asbestos training, no state or city licenses to handle toxic material, and no decontamination showers. Most of them don't even have proper respirators. Some of these building service workers are actually union. Members of 32-bj, Service Employees International Union, who used to work in the office buildings destroyed or damaged in the attack. The contractors who do most of the work in the area, American Building Maintenance, and One Source, promised 32-bj's BAs that they'd find jobs for everybody who was displaced from their jobs by the attack. Unfortunately, the BAs didn't bother to ask WHAT KIND OF JOBS. Otherwise, they'd have found out that these workers are being used to clear up deadly hazardous waste. But, some of these workers are non union illegal alien day laborers. There is a Freeport, Long Island-based cleaning contractor, Milro Services, who, every day, hires 100+ illegals from a street corner, Broadway and Fulton St. They are told that they will get paid $ 60 bucks for an 8 hour day, or $ 90 bucks for 12 hours [no time and a half, needless to say]. Then, they are marched through the police barracades as a group. This is done for the simple reason that, as they are illegal immigrants, they don't have ID, and, therefore, aren't supposed to be allowed in the frozen zone. But, in this case, the needs of commerce override security. They're being used to clean up gypsum dust, sweep up broken glass and otherwise clean the offices of the toxic mess. These folks have even less training than the SEIU building service people do..and are even less protected - no masks, no moonsuits, no decon showers, no nothing. Hell, a lot of em haven't even been PAID yet. Milro's excuse is that, despite the fact that they hire and supervise these workers, they allegedly don't work for the company, but for some alleged "subcontractor", who, supposedly, doesn't have the money. This alleged "subcontractor" for Milro just happens to be.....a Milro forewoman, one Lurni Morel. Can you say "subterfuge"? Or "tax evasion"? This is the kind of shit that's going on at ground zero. And, there's no reason to expect things will get better labor-wise when they start building the new WTC. In fact, there's every reason to expect it'll get worse. According to what my sources say about the new Project Labor Agreement, signed by the NYC Building Trades Council and the state Authority that has been hastily set up to rebuild the WTC, we've given up quite a bit, and not gotten very much in return. The job is going to be run round the clock, with 3 8 hour shifts. In New York, the normal construction workday is 7 hours, with all hours therafter time and a half. Not on this job. The 8 hours is going to be all straight time. Also, the NYDCofC has a 9 hours pay for 6 1/2 hours work policy for night shift work. That breaks down to - 6 hours paid at straight time, plus a paid lunch, plus the last hour paid at the double time rate. Not here. The evening and overnight shifts are going to be all straight time. The last hour of the 8 hour day won't even be OT, it'll be straight time. The cement masons and the electricians gave up their double time OT for this agreement as well [they were the only crafts that held out at all on signing this pact, everybody else, including the laborers and the NYDCofC, gave it up, no questions asked]. It's unclear at this point what rate Saturday, Sunday and holiday work is going to be paid at. It's also unknown if the agreement is a 10% union pact. It is very common for PLAs to permit the use of non union contractors, as long as they promise to pay union scale. Usually, under PLAs, unions wave the right to picket, stop jobs or strike for the duration of the project, no matter what the contractors do, or how many non union contractors are on the site. It goes without saying that the WTC PLA waves all union rights to protest - no work stoppages, no removing union workers from jobs, no strikes, no picketing, no informational leafletting, no nothing. And, the officers of at least one union Cement Masons local 780 of the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons International Union, that there is no way that they would ever picket the WTC, no matter what was being done on the job. Officers of the NYDCofC have also made quite clear to the membership that there will be no protesting of labor abuses at the WTC by the carpenters union. So, we can expect that Tully, Turner, Amec and Bovis Lend-Lease will have a field day on this job. They will be allowed to do whatever they want, with no fear of interference from the unions. They might even be able to bring in non union subs. Or, to allow nominally 'union' contractors to pay cash, or to bring in non union tradespeople. After all, they know they're not gonna get picketed, or have their jobs stopped or have people taken off their jobs. In less than 8 months, the NYDCofC will be sitting down with the New York State Chapter of the Associated General Contractors to negotiate new agreements for heavy construction carpenters, dockbuilders and timbermen working on heavy and highway construction projects in and around New York City. Bad enough that the GCA agreement is off-cycle from the rest of the agreements, which were negotiated in July [with many concessions given] This PLA sets a bad precedent for this agreement. Expect the contractors to ask for..and get..lots of givebacks. Also, we may have another problem. The WTC job is going to be a 3 shift job, probably run 7 days a week. So, we'll get a lot of hours out of it, especially carpenters. New York carpenters may remember the last big round the clock 7day a week job we had here...the renovation of Barney's department store on 60th and Madison Avenue..where Nastasi White, Inc had upwards of 350 carpenters on 2 12 hour shifts doing the framing, sheetrock and ceilings..and UBS had almost as many people doing the woodwork. But, at that time, that job, and the US Courthouse job at Foley Square, were just about the only big jobs in the city. And lots and lots of people were on the bench, hungry for work. Guys and gals started doing whatever they had to do to get a job - because, if you couldn't get on with Nastasi White or UBS at Barneys, or Nastasi Associates, Component Assembly Systems or one of the other outfits at Foley Square, you were screwed. It was during that time, the mid 1990s, that union conditions began to break down, and signatory contractors started askint union carpenters to work for cash. Also, a lot of guys and gals started dropping out of the union..some to go home to Jamaica or Ireland..some to work non union right here..we went from 25,000 active members in the NYDCofC locals to 17,000 in just a couple of years. After the NYDCofC got taken into trusteeship by the international office of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America..the freefall started. All of the sudden, it was anything goes. We're still suffering the affects today. We're back up to 19,000 members..but, at the moment, 2,800 are out of work..plus an unknown but large number who are working non union, and an unknown but substantial number working for cash for signatory contractors. Fortunately, the State of New York removed the WTC rescue support operations, and the temporary firefighters bunkhouse, from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center..enabling trade show activity to resume, and allowing the roughly 400 carpenters who usually work there to return to their usual sporadic, 2 to 3 day a week work schedule. In other words, the trade show guys and gals don't have to compete with outside carpenters for jobs now, as they had to for the last 6 weeks. But, the passenger ship piers on the Westside are still being used as a morgue/victim's family counciling center by the Office of the City Medical Examiner and the State Division of Emergency Management..and it's unknown when, if ever, trade shows will resume there. That's also hurting our brothers and sisters in Longshoremen's local 792. They work the tradeshows too, as cleaners, and they load and unload baggage on the ocean liners. But, we haven't had a single ocean liner here since September 11..and it's unknown when or if we'll have another liner call here again. The Navy pulled it's hospital ship, the USNHS Comfort, out of the passenger ship terminal 4 weeks ago..since then, the piers have been closed to shipping. But, the trade show business as a whole has been hurt..a lot of businesspeople are afraid of flying now...and commerce generally has dropped. But, the city and private business groups have been having Job Fairs at Madison Square Garden for the 215,000 workers rendered unemployed by the air attack...so at least some trade show carpenters, teamsters, stagehands and electricians have been getting work setting those shows up and taking em down. As for construction, a lot of jobs in and around the WTC stopped on September 11th and never restarted. Some of that activity has resumed, and we have the work on the air raid site itself, plus rubble removal and window replacement. But, there may be a long term downward trend in office construction in New York City. A lot of companies have relocated to temporary offices in suburbia..where most of their managers and professionals lived anyway. And, since folks in the hills of Yemen have never heard of places like Uniondale, or Jersey City..in suburbia these offices may remain, for reasons of safety and terrorist attack evasion. A tough break for the tens of thousands of Black and Hispanic women from the Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn who used to answer the phones, enter the data and do the filing in those company's former Midtown and Financial District locations. Most of these women, like most New Yorkers, don't know how to drive and do not own cars, [cause we all take the subway here...hardly anybody who lives in New York City drives..40% of us, including this writer, don't even have a license] Consequently, getting out to Jersey or Long Island via unreliable part time non 24 hours suburban transit systems to work will be difficult if not impossible for these office workers. An even tougher break for unionized construction workers in New York City..because those office renovation jobs were our bread and butter. The city, state, Port Authority, MTA and the feds do a lot of work here. But, about half of the government construciton here is non union. This is especially true of Davis Bacon jobs for the state's NYC School Construction Authority and Dormatory Athority, State of New York. SCA and DASNY are agreessively anti union - an absolute majority of their work is non union, and their goal is to be as close to 100% non union as is possible in this part of the country. The largest area of government construction here, HUD financed apartment renovation, is almost 100% non union. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development use a shell game..they hand their HUD financing over to not for profit social services agencies. The non profits, as private companies, are exempt from Davis Bacon..and they hire the lowest paying general contractors in the city. Carpenters for these outfits average about $ 75 bucks a day..the helpers get even less, as little as $ 30 a day. The rest of residential construction here is also overwhelmingly non union. Just about the only unionized island is new construction of hirise luxury housing - another area that may sharply decline in the wake of the air raid, and a possible suburban exodus of rich people from Lower Manhattan. AS i said, we owned 80% of the commercial office construction market, and, as we have seen, it was one of the few areas of construction here that was solidly union prior to the kamikaze air attack. Or, I should say, solidly union with some fraying around the edges. Specifically, some cash activity on the part of carpentry contractors doing sheetrock & ceilings, and furniture installation, on some of those jobs. The office furniture industry probably has the highest concentration of cash contractors. This is because these companies come in last on the job, after most of the other trades, and most other carpenters, are gone, and because much furniture work is done in occupied buildings and/or at night. A number of union office furniture installation contractors have been accused of paying cash to at least some of their carpenters for at least some of the hours worked, including ; G & M Installers, OMNI, T.O.P.S., CMI, J.A.D., J & E Enterprises, Al-Lee Installations, Arrow Discount Office Furniture D/B/A E G Sales, L & D Installers, DFB Sales and Vintage Corporate Services. But, they wern't the only allegedly dirty companies. Some of the sheetrock contractors working in the office interior sector have been accused of paying cash too. But, the biggest problem with cash in the drywall & ceilings industry has been in the hirise luxury residential market segment, where there have been widespread accusations of cash activity. Among the sheetrock contractors accused of paying cash are; Eurotech, Target Construction, Arrowstar, S & S Construction, New York City Accoustical, Chelsea Interiors, Luna Carpentry, Sunrise Construction, On Par, Prince Carpentry, Ace Drywall, Universal Drywall, Manhattan Interior Group and Turbo Interiors. But, the drywall constactors in hirise residential work aren't the only companies in that sector who've been accused of cash activity. Some concrete contractors in that sector have been accused as well, including; North Side, Inc [formerly North Berry Corp], LaQuilla-Pinnacle, Marmer Brothers, Atlas Concrete and Manhattan Concrete. Also, some of these same drywall and concrete contractors have been accused of cash activity on some of the dwindling number of unionized Davis Bacon jobs. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, the scaffold industry, once a union stronghold, has gone to hell over the last decade. Two scaffold outfits, Rockledge and Colgate, first demanded concessions from the carpenters, and then ripped up their agreements with the carpenters, laborers and teamsters and went non union. A third, Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting, is still union, but has been accused of running a cash operation for years. Allegedly, they don't pay stamps, or even the union scale, just a below scale cash wage and an employee "profit sharing" scheme. Ironically enough, Regional's owner, one Mike Mazzucca, is actually a MANAGEMENT TRUSTEE OF THE CARPENTER BENEFIT FUNDS IN NEW YORK CITY!!! The reason that it is, allegedly, possible for such a wide cross section of contractors to pay cash to nominally union carpenters is because of the decay of the hiring hall system. There always a divide between local men and company men..the company guys always got the steady jobs, and the local men just got by..but, it used to be possible to make a more or less decent living by working out of the hall, as long as work was more or less steady. Not anymore. Now, the only way to work steady is to be a company man. And, even many company men don't work all the time. But, if you work off the list, it's common to wait as much as 6 weeks between jobs..and then go to the back of the list after 10 days of employment. So, a lot of carpenters have had to make a choice..steady work for less than union scale and for no stamps..or union work for scale and the stamps..but only for 600 or 700 hours a year. This same "anything goes" climate has led to the return of a lot of labor abuses, especialy in the sheetrock industry. Component Assembly Systems pays a piecerate bonus to it's carpenters, and Prince Carpentry, A & M Wallboard and especially R & J Construction lay people off if they don't put up 100 boards a day. And they aren't the only ones..the're just the most blatant about it. Because of the weakness of the hiring hall system, and the fact that the only way to work steady is to stay on a company's good side, and the fact that the union does nothing about these abuses, leads to a situation where people are afraid to do anything to stand up to the contractors, and conditions get worse and worse. Incidentally, the NYDCofC's principal officer, Executive Secretary Treasurer Mike Forde, was indicted due to his allegedly taking bribes to look the other way at cash activity. Forde was indicted along with 37 other people, including the alleged boss of the Luchese crime family, Herbie Crea, 2 other UBCJA officers, and officials and shop stewards of Laborers locals 20 and 79 and Bricklayers local 1. For more detail on the legal misadventures of Forde and his alleged co-conspirators, go to the GANGBOX listserv, at : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2920 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2987 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/3024 But, People of the State of New York v Crea, et al isn't the only building trades labor racketeering case making it's way thorugh the New York County courts at the moment. Also, earlier last year, officials of local 8-8B of the Roofers and local 1 of the Elevator Constructors were also indicted in similar scandals. Forde and his co-defendants were supposed to go on trial on Friday, September 14th, in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Due to the bombing, that trial has been posponed. It's unknown at this time when the trial will start. Or, perhaps, that might be a reason for the spirit of "cooperation" and "sacrifice" among some union leaders. Maybe there was some sort of "understanding" about delaying the criminal charges in return for wartime "labor peace" and concessions in the New York building trades? In any event, we might be in a bad situation soon. If the economic slowdown continues, and we find ourselves in a situation where the WTC job is the only major job in the city, we might be in trouble. Especially if the contractors who aren't on the WTC job ask for similar concessions. That's not unprecedented. During the mid 1990's, the Barneys department store job was one of only 2 big jobs in the city, and there was lots of unemployment. The NYDCofC alloed UBS to use non union made millwork at the Barneys job. Then, all the other Manufacturing Woodworkers Association contractors demanded the same right. Their lawyers went to court, and got a judge to order it. And now, all of the MWA millwork installation contractors can use an unlimited amount of non union woodwork on any job in the city. Which really screwed the cabinetmakers..several hundred of them lost their jobs, or had to go to the Javits Center and get sporadic work. We used to have 3 cabinetmaker locals here; 246, 1146 and 2155..now we only have one, 2090, and a lot of their members aren't even cabinetmakers, but are trade show carpenters who work at the Javits Center. So, since we have given up the 7 hour day at the WTC..we could lose it elswhere. Since we have given up night shift differential [9 for 7] at the WTC, it's in jeapordy elswhere. And, since it's been made clear that there will be no jurisdictional beefs tolerated at ground zero..we may lose the right to fight for jurisdiction on other jobs. In other words, the officers opened a Pandora's box with that PLA. And this goes for the other trades too...we all have a lot to lose with these givebacks. Especially the trades who's unions haven't already been weakend by corruption and givebacks...like the electricians, cement masons, operating engineers, sheet metal workers and the plumbers & steamfitters. We shouldn't allow the contractors, and the bankers and developers who stand behind them, and the corporate controlled government, to use this war as an excuse to reduce our wages and working condtions. If anything, we should be demanding premium wages to work at the WTC site. And we should be demanding that this be treated as a Superfund site until all the toxic waste and human remains have been removed..that means SCBA breathing apparatuses and moonsuits, and full decontamination every time the workers leave the work area. Of course, that will cost money, and the contractors and the government don't want to pay. The government doesn't mind paying the contractors, of course..after all, this job is all T & M, and might stay that way til the end. But the contractors do mind paying us. Unfortunately..our union leaderships have decided that, in the name of "national unity", they will let the contractors do whatever they want on this job. That is sad, but to be expected, since the building trades unions, like the rest of the labor movement, are led by men and women who follow the philosophy called "business unionism". That is, they belive that labor and management have a common interest, and unions should "cooperate" with management, rather than fighting for the rights of workers. It is because of that philosophy that the labor movement is in it's present state of decay. In construction, we've gone from having our industry 70% union in the late 1960's to being less than 13% unionized today. Other industries have it worse, trucking went from being 90% union 30 years ago to less than 10% union today, manufacturing went from being 50% union three decades ago to less than 10% today..and the list goes on. And, despite all of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's talk about a new labor movement over the last 6 years, the downward spiral continues. The current war, and all the restrictions that have been imposed on political and labor activism by the new "anti terrorism" laws, and the extra-constitutional, proto-dictatorial fascist powers of "Director of Homeland Security" Tom Ridge, are just another nail in the coffin. So, what can we do? I think that a good place to start would be to re-orient our unions, away from business unionism and towards a philosophy called "revolutionary unionism". This theory says that workers and businesspeople in a capitalistic society have a fundamental conflict of interest, and always will. So, the job of unions is to fight for the rights of workers, not to "cooperate" with management. I've outlined some of these revolutionary unionist ideas in more specific detail on the GANGBOX website, at: http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/csu1.html http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/downbylaw.html http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/contract2001.html and on the GANGBOX listserv, at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2466 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2659 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/4738 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/5059 Specifically on this ground zero situation, I think that we need to take advantage of this situation. The government, the contractors and the Wall Street financial interests are anxious to get the site cleared as quickly as possible, and some kind of office towers erected on the former WTC site within as short a time as they can. The feds are willing to pay top dollar to do this...this whole job is being run on a T & M basis, Turner, Tully, Bovis, Amec and their subs are making money hand over fist, and, apparently, the feds are willing to look the other way at massive mongo looting at the site by some of the contractors, and alleged labor racketeering by some of the unions, just to get this job done. So, in light of that, we should try to get as much for the worker as we can. Remember, after the're done building the new WTC, we could have steep unemployment in this business in this town. The time to move is now. After all, the contractors, and WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein, aren't "sacrificing" a dollar of profit. So, why the hell should WE "sacrifice" either?? As I pointed out above, this job is extremely hazardous. After all, besides releasing a huge cloud of asbestos, the ruins are still on fire, in some places burning at a heat of 1,400 degrees F. Also, due to the large number of cranes on the site, working extremely close together, and the uneven, unstable debris field, there have been 1,000+ injuries on the site. And, the longterm affects are still unknown at this point. Many tradespeople, and even many of the firefighters, are scared about diseases they may contract, now or in the future, from this job. Of course, the contractors, the feds and the bankers don't give a damn about that. They just want the site cleared for rebuilding. But, that's their problem, it shouldn't be ours. We need for this job to be treated like the Superfund site that it is. That means that everybody working on the site should be working in full SCBA breathing gear [that is, oxygen tanks], and full moon suits. Everybody should have to go through a decontamination shower every time they leave the site, [even to go to lunch, or for a break, or to use the toilet..even to go to the trailer and ask the super a question] and any tools or equipment that is taken onto the site should not be permitted to leave without full decomination. Also, NOBODY who's not a firefighter, police officer, federal agent, construction tradesperson, trucker supervisor or other authorized person in hazmat gear should be allowed on the site. That means an end to the celebrety "tours"of ground zero. There should be no more Saudi princes, or British royal family members, or Playboy plamates, or WWF wrestlers, or baseball players or Hollywood actors, or stars of HBO's "The Sopranos"..or any other famous people walked thorugh the site. It's just not a safe pratice..it distracts the workers..and it exposes those folks to health hazards too. It's also kind of tasteless..after all, this place is the open, unmarked grave of several thousand men and women, not a damned tourist attraction!! The only exception I'd make is for family members of the victims..and even then, they should be wearing protective gear and should be brought through at a time when there is little work activity, such as breaktime or lunchtime or during a shift change. The family members should also be decontaminated when they leave the site. Also, if it's at all possible, there should be an attempt to abate the smoke and dust on the site, due to the high asbestos count. That means, if it's possible and doesn't destabilize the debris field, the ground and the smoking debris should be wetted down with water as frequently as possible. And, due to the excessive number of worker injuries at ground zero, there should be a 24 hour a day emergency medical team, including doctors and RN's, on site. There should also be regular weekly medical examinations of everybody on the site, the tradespeople, the cops, the firefighters, even the management personnel and the engineers. Finding doctors and other skilled medical workers to do this shouldn't be a problem..a lot of doctors, nurses, medical students and nursing students selflessly volunteered in the hours after the air attack..I'm sure they'd be more than willing to come down and help out, especially if they were to be paid for their services. New York City is also home to some of the finest hospitals and medical schools in the country. Some of them, like St Vincent's Hospital and NYU Medical Center, are just a hop skip and a jump from ground zero. We also have two of the top occupational medical clinics in the country here, at Mt Sinai and Bellvue Hospitals, so there's no shortage of personnel who are competent to test for occupational illnesses. Of course, these medical screenings should take place ON COMPANY TIME, AT COMPANY EXPENSE, DURING WORKING HOURS. After all, it IS a T & M job, they can just bill FEMA Also, considering the large number of incidents of workers being hit by cranes, there need to be a lot of flaggers. Basically, every crane, loader, power shovel, bobcat, forklift or other piece of heavy equipment needs to have a flagger. Larger equipment [eg the 100 ton crawler cranes, truck cranes and other similar equipment] should have at least 2 flaggers. The point being to make sure that nobody is in the crush zone when the equipment moves, and nobody is in a pinch point between two pieces of equipment. The operating engineers apprentices [who are called "oilers"] should get this work. If locals 14 and 15 don't have enough oilers, either teamsters and/or laborer, carpenter or ironworker apprentices should be used. Also, every piece of equipment needs somebody on the ground directing it's moves, precicely so it doesn't bump into another machine or a worker. That work should go either to the engineers themselves or to the laborers, and/or the trade who the crane is assisting, which on this job would mostly be the ironworkers. Also, in the interests of safety, this job should NOT be a 7 12s round the clock job. Instead, it should be a 6 8s round the clock job. In other words, instead of 2 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, 3 8 hour shifts 6 days a week, so people can go home and rest, and so the work can be spread around. Sunday should be a skeleton crew day, with as many personnel as possible having the day off. Also, Saturday should be a voluntary day, so anybody who doesn't want to work the Saturday doesn't have to [remember, not everybody is an overtime chow hound]. Also, considering the special nature of this job, there should be some extra compensation. Of course, the last hour of the 8 hour day should be compensated as OT..but, at the double time rate, rather than as time and a half. Also, the lunch hour should be paid, as should all time spent putting on hazmat suits or going through the decontamination chambers. The second shift should recieve the first 5 1/2 hours, plus the paid lunch, at the straight time rate, and the last 2 hours at the double time rate. The 3rd shift should get the first 4 1/2 hours, plus the paid lunch, at the time and a half rate, and the last 3 hours at the double time rate. All work performed on Saturday, Sunday or a legal holiday, and all work performed after 7 hours in a weekday, should be compensated at the double time rate. Also, all time spent recieving the weekly medical examination should be compensated at the time and a half rate. If a worker is ordered by the doctors to go to a medical facility for further evaluation, or admitted to a hospital, or has to be removed from the site for medical reasons, he/she should get paid for the balance of the day at the time and a half rate, plus he/she should recieve a minimum of 8 hours pay at the double time rate for the first 8 hours spent under a doctor's care. The point of paying workers to get examined is so the contractors don't talk workers into passing up medical exams out of fear of losing money. It would be in the worker's interest to go to the on site doctor because he/she would get paid for the visits, and, if hospitalization or a clinic visit was required, they would get paid for that time also. Once the recovery/demolition phase is completed, the extrordinary safety measures, such as the large number of flagers, the moonsuits, and the weekly doctor visits on the clock, can be terminated. But, the special pay scale should remain. Also, except for the special jurisdictional rules I proposed re. flagging, all other standard New York rules should apply, and, if necessary, all normal measures should be taken to correct jurisdictional issues, down to and including work stoppages. The same should apply for any non union work, cash work, sanitation, safety and health or other labor issues that should arise due to this job. This may all seem callous and venal in light of the deaths, and all that "shared sacrifice" propaganda we've all been bombarded with. But, the fact is, the rich aren't "sacrificing" a damned thing...they're still getting paid hand over fist, even with the token amounts of charity they dole out to the firemen's widows. And, if the rich aren't willing to sacrifice..why the hell should we? We sacrificed 59 brothers and sisters [and an unknown but large number of non union demolition workers] on September 11, and I for one think that's entirely enough sacrifice from the New York building trades. Hell, Larry Silverstein isn't willing to sacrifice his $ 3.2 billion dollar investment in the WTC. Far from it, that war profiteering son of a bitch has committed what amounts to legal insurance fraud, and filed 2 insurance claims for one bombing. He wants to DOUBLE his investment, to $ 7.4 billion. If he's not sacrificing....why should we? The P & O Steamship line of England, the parent company of Bovis Lend Lease, isn't sacrificing. Neither are the men who own Tully, Turner and Amec. Nor are any of the subcontractors. Far from it, they are submitting T & M tickets to FEMA every day. And getting paid, hand over fist, on a job with no budget, no deadline, and an unlimited lake of federal cash to pay whatever the bosses feel like charging for the work. They're not sacrificing..why should we? The alleged mafiosi who own some of the cartage companies hauling out the debris aren't sacrificing. Hell, some of those guys are treating this tragedy as the greatest Mongo opportunity in history..allegedly stealing literally hundreds of tons of steel from the ruined towers. They're not sacrificing..they're getting paid, and paid lovely..legally and illegally. So, why should we sacrifice a damned thing? Some of our BAs are afraid to picket this job if there's a labor issue. That's why they caved on the PLA so damned quick. But, if our so called "good union contractors" aren't afraid to become grave robbers, and steal Mongo from the dead..then why the hell are our leaders afraid of a simple legal picket??? Considering the fact that all picketing is going to get us is bad press..but grave robbing might [depending on your religious views] get some of our "good union contractors"an eternity in the feiry abyss... But, the problem is, as I pointed out above, the ideology of business unionism. Some of our officials are using this bombing as an opportunity to sell jobs. But, even the honest ones are still hobbled by a pro contractor ideology. These men cannot concieve of the union fighting independly for workers interests, especially when those interests conflict directly with the contractor's bottom line. Why? Simple, because, according to the business unionist philosophy, workers, the unions and the contractors all have this mythical common interest, a common good that we can all agree on. Problem is, that's bullshit. The real world isn't like that. Their profits come from our sweat, skill and muscle. And, every dime we get from them is because we struggled to get it. If it was entirely up to "our good union contractors" they'd pay us like Pharoah paid his carpenters..just enough shelter so we could get a few hours sleep, and just enough gruel to eat so we could get up to work the next day. Don't belive me? Just ask some of our non union brothers and sisters who make as little as $ 30 bucks a day renovating tenements in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn. And, those guys and gals are working on Davis Bacon work for HUD, so it's not like their bosses couldn't afford to pay more if they wanted to. Or were forced to. Also, this might be a good time to reach out to our non union brothers and sisters, organize them, and lead them in a city wide organzing strike. Especially the non union tradespeople on Davis Bacon jobs. Now, it might seem that a wartime strike is a dangerous thing. Hell, with the current "anti terrorism" laws, it might even be illegal. Especially for those of our brothers and sisters who were born overseas and immigrated to this country. But, that could actually work to our advantage. The bosses might feel compelled to settle quickly, precicely because the country is in a crisis. And the government really doesn't have the manpower for large scale strikebreaking these days..most of the FBI and the INS are tied up harassing Arab grocery store owners and Pakistani dentists, and the National Guard are busy guarding the airports from knife wielding men on a misson from God. Look at the state employees in Minnesota. Their governor, the somewhat bizarre and completely bald Navy commando turned pro wrestler turned politician known as Jesse "The Body" Ventura, threatened to have the Minnesota National Guard break the strike But, after just two weeks, "The Body" had to settle, because his soldiers just didn't have the extra manpower for strikebreaking. We have an even bigger advantage here..the political scene here is in a lot of dissarray. Prostate cancer-stricken, authoritarian, racist, lame duck Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani, who, constitutionally, is supposed to leave office on New Year's Eve, failed in a Wall Street banker-driven effort to proclaim himself a municipal dictator with an indeterminate term of office. Since then the city's power structure has been torn asunder, with a racially charged election campaign between former Nader do gooder Mark Green and Bronx Boro President Fernando Ferrer. That degenerated into a Florida-style election, where ballots were miscounted by pro-Giuliani policemen, and, supposedly, Green won the Democratic nomination, to take on weird billionaire broadcaster and ex Democrat Mike Bloomberg, the Republican nominee. We can use this fluid political situation to our advantage, if only we took to the streets, shut down some jobs, and created a crisis. This would also be a splendid time to settle accounts with the cash contractors. But, our union leaders don't have the will for that. The stronger trades hang on to what they have, and the weaker unions continue to get weaker and more corrupt. Because struggling with the bosses and their politicians just doesn't fit into the world view of business unionists, even the honest ones. That's why, before we can even get to the point of standing up to the contractors [by, for example, making the kind of safety and money demands we should be about the WTC job, or by organizing the unorganzied majority of our trade, or by forcing signatory contractors to actually pay the scale and the stamps to all their workers on all their jobs], we need to fundamentally transform our labor organizations along revolutionary unionist lines. I've outlined some of my ideas in the hyperlinks above, but, basically, what I'm talking about is replacing unions led by all powerful officials with labor organizations led by rank and file delegates. These delegates would serve short, 3 year, non re electable terms, while in office they'd earn the same wages we do in the field, and would go back on their tools when they finished serving the members. The base of the type of unionism that I'm talking about would revolve around workers, and their shop stewards, using jobsite work stoppages as a means of on the spot corrections in the field of contract violations and safety problems caused by the contractors. Also, I think we need to take control of the hiring system from the bosses. The fact that many carpenters have no choice but to take a job on the boss's terms is the root of a lot of our problems with cash. If we set up a situation where the bosses had to hire 90% of their labor from the out of work list [I call it "90/10"], we'd solve a lot of the abuses in the field, and we also could deal with a lot of the racial, sex and age discrimination in the industry. But, the problem is, we're not going to be able to address any of this until we fundamentally change how our unions are run. Otherwise, I think we're going to keep fading away. Remember, we fell from 80% in the 1950's to 70% in the 1970's to 13% today. And we appear to be still headed downwards. And the bombing and the war are only going to make things worse. It's time for us to make some major changes. Thats it for now. Be union, work safe. __________________________________________________________________________ GANGBOX : CONSTRUCTION WORKERS NEWS SERVICE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox 01-11-2001 17:52:13