Carpenters picket two work sites.Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard Striking carpenters halted work Friday at construction sites at PeaceHealth's RiverBend hospital in Springfield and the Slocum Center for Orthopedic orthopedic /or·tho·pe·dic/ (-pe´dik) pertaining to the correction of deformities of the musculoskeletal system; pertaining to orthopedics. & Sports Medicine sports medicine, branch of medicine concerned with physical fitness and with the treatment and prevention of injuries and other disorders related to sports. Knee, leg, back, and shoulder injuries; stiffness and pain in joints; tendinitis; "tennis elbow"; and in Eugene. About 100 workers picketed Friday morning at PeaceHealth and 16 picketed at the Slocum project, shutting down work for the day, said Eric Franklin, spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters in Washington and Oregon. The local workers are among 1,300 members of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters in southwest Washington and Oregon who went on strike after the council's two-year contract expired ex·pire v. ex·pired, ex·pir·ing, ex·pires v.intr. 1. To come to an end; terminate: My membership in the club has expired. 2. on Thursday. The council had tried to reach an agreement with the Wall and Ceiling Contractors Association of Oregon and southwest Washington to renew the contract before the midnight deadline. But talks broke off after the council rejected the contractors' final offer. The contractors had proposed a 4.27 percent raise linked to cost of living increases in the first year of the new contract and 4.35 percent in the second year, Franklin said. Council representatives said they rejected the offer because it fell far below the raises the contractors association had agreed to give carpenters in western Washington
Western Washington is a region of the United States defined as that part of Washington west of the Cascade Mountains. . That contract gave workers a 6 percent raise in the first year, followed by a 6 percent raise in the second year, Franklin said. An interior systems carpenter made $29.33 an hour under the recently expired contract. Franklin said rising health insurance costs have eaten up most of the raises workers have received over the past six years. Carpenters also have been hard hit by skyrocketing fuel costs because they must transport themselves and their tools to job sites, he said. Council representatives said they don't expect the strike to last long. Workers were planning to picket again today at the PeaceHealth site and to resume picketing picketing, act of patrolling a place of work affected by a strike in order to discourage its patronage, to make public the workers' grievances, and in some cases to prevent strikebreakers from taking the strikers' jobs. Picketing may be by individuals or by groups. at the PeaceHealth and Slocum sites on Monday, Franklin said. Patrick Smith Patrick Smith is the name of
"The building trades doesn't support the strike because (the carpenters are) raiding other crafts' work," Smith contended. Most of the other building trade crafts "will have to unfortunately not honor As a verb, to accept a bill of exchange, or to pay a note, check, or accepted bill, at maturity. To pay or to accept and pay, or, where a credit so engages, to purchase or discount a draft complying with the terms of the draft. that strike line and drive through because of the fact that they're raiding our work," he said. Franklin responded that the project owner/developer decides who does what work. "Our carpenters respect their picket lines," Franklin said, referring to the building trades. "Our members are good trade unionists, and we'd expect the same from them." |
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