By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHTSTOWN – The United Association of Plumber & Piperfitters Local 9 brought out the rat – a big inflatable rat – to demonstrate the importance of local jobs for local people Wednesday morning in front of the Peddie School.
“We all kind of live in the area so we have kids and family members and we’re not working right now,” said William Graybush, organizer. “We are just letting the public know why were are here. This is just local people just looking to get back to work.”
Peddie School Director of Marketing and Communications Katie Germain said that as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, the union workers had departed.
“We awarded the dorm contract to E. Allen Reeves after a competitive bidding process, in which unions were free to participate and in which E. Allen Reeves was the lowest responsible bidder,” she said. “Worth & Company is a subcontractor of E. Allen Reeves.”
She said that according to E. Allen Reeves, there are no outstanding Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations for either E. Allen Reeves or Worth.
According to a flyer being handed out by the union workers, Worth & Company has a list of OSHA violations that date all the way back to 2005. In the past, the Department of Labor voided the company’s contractor certificate for a lengthy term.
Mr. Graybush said there are multiple OSHA violations by the company and workers were there Wednesday to make sure local residents knew that.
The rat is a popular prop at labor demonstrations. It was placed at the intersection of East Ward Street and South Main Street by he United Association of Plumber & Piperfitters Local 9, which is located at 2 Iron Ore Road on Route 33 in Englishtown.
Many drivers passing by could be seen pausing and snapping photos of it with their cellphones.
A group of seniors from a Peddie School English class came out to inquire and ask questions.
“We are not calling it a protest,” Mr. Graybush said. “We are just looking to express our concerns and let everyone know about the violations.”
A student asked why the union members why they decided to stage the event on Wednesday.
Mr. Graybush said that timing of the event wasn’t a consideration.
“Before everything goes up and the underground is all in,” he said. “It’s never a great time. That’s the hard part.“
Another student wanted to know why the inflatable rat was used and what it symbolized.
“Some people think it’s a union thing, some people think it’s a non-union thing. But it’s to make people aware of something bad. That’s my impression,” said Mr. Graybush.
Another student asked they workers why they thought unions were important.
“It’s having something like this that we stand for collectively,” said Mr. Graybush. “You and I perform the same job and you’re making $3 an hour and I’ve negotiated $4 an hour. It’s very fair. It’s very important for us to have something called collective bargaining. And we want to express the concern of hiring out-state-workers.”
Mr. Graybush said in the past the company has had its contracting license terminated in New Jersey to do public work because of different violations.
“The hardest part is we are local people,” he said. “We live in the area.”
He said he hopes to get the word out and people ask how does a company from Pennsylvania undermines the wage of the area.”
If you have X amount of people of out of work, does it help to have an out-of-state contractor that is not going to hire local people?” he said. “We will be here as long as it takes.”
