2019-09-16 EDA Minutes (signed) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

REDA Meeting Minutes—Monday,September 16,2019 Page 3 and Paul from the Reuter Walton team but he wanted to speak tonight to address why North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (Carpenters Union), is present tonight and why the Union has been reaching out to as many of the Council as possible. He explained the Carpenter's Union wants more of their work and that is it. But, instead of meeting with Reuter Walton to talk about it, the Union's approach has been to meet with neighborhood groups, planning commissioners, Council members in every city that Reuter Walton is trying to work in and use false information, some of which he would briefly touch on for clarity, to bully their way into getting more contracts from Reuter Walton. Mr. Walton wanted the Council to think about all of their time and others in similar roles that the Carpenter's Union is wasting, and all of the drama being stirred up, which is really nothing more than a contract negotiation with Reuter Walton, whom the Carpenter's Union never even met with. He noted Reuter Walton has asked the Carpenter's Union six times this summer to meet with them. The Carpenter's Union tries to kill Reuter Walton's deals in hopes this tactic will scare Reuter Walton into hiring the Union more than it already is. He noted that Reuter Walton is already hiring Union subs including the carpenters, all of the time. Mr. Walton indicated on average, Reuter Walton jobs typically have eighty percent union subs, which comes down to four-fifths of every job. This year to date, Reuter Walton is at eighty-five percent, which was checked this morning. In the last eighteen months, Reuter Walton has awarded $10.5 million in work to Union carpenter subs and today, Reuter Walton has three large projects being actively framed by Union carpenters, totaling 533 units and over the next few months it is contracted to start another 465 units with Union framers compared to this project which is only 127 units. Mr. Walton explained even with all of that work, the group likes to point to two times when the Department of Labor technically gave Reuter Walton violation letters. The Department of Labor has never clarified what those letters were for and Reuter Walton has been told this Union implies the violations were for large-scale wage issues, which is incorrect. The violations had nothing to do with the development or commercial GC divisions. The letters were related to the single-family home division, which has eight employees and does residential remodels in a couple of new homes per year. He explained most importantly, those violations were due to a half dozen mom and pop sub-contractors not having their paperwork current with the Department of Labor. The only thing Reuter Walton was guilty of was not catching that the sub-contractors were behind in their paperwork and that is all. He noted that is not okay, but it is nothing like what this group implies the letters might have referenced. Reuter Walton's total fine was one thousand dollars. That is the full extent of Reuter Walton issues related to the Department of Labor.