Communication Breakdown
Western unions want Pulte to pressure contractors for safer jobsites.
Under normal circumstances, Pulte Homes' annual shareholders' meeting in Birmingham, Mich., on May 10 would have been uneventful: The builder declared a 4-cent quarterly dividend, and its CEO, Richard Dugas, lamented sodden market conditions.
But the meeting unexpectedly became a forum for workers and union organizers protesting unsafe working conditions at Pulte's job-sites in Arizona and Nevada. Company officials cried foul. “This is part of an ongoing harassment campaign” that began in Phoenix and Las Vegas last summer, says Pulte spokesman Mark Marymee.
About 30 workers and union reps flew into Michigan to state their grievances about safety, hourly pay, and healthcare benefits, as they hadn't made much headway exacting concessions from Pulte's subcontractors, specifically Arizona's dominant HVAC contractor Chas Roberts, as well as contractors Bean Drywall and Metro Valley Painting in Arizona, and Hutchins Drywall and Burnham Paint and Drywall in Las Vegas.
“This is not a union or nonunion issue; it's a civil rights issue,” insists Manny Gonzalez, a marketing rep for the Phoenix-based Sheet Metal Workers International Association, which accuses Chas Roberts of withholding safety equipment and denying medical attention to workers hurt on the job. Victor Diego, organizing director for Phoenix-based District Council 15 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, says his workers' “most critical” demand is for water and safety masks on the jobsite.
Marymee counters that Pulte “fully supports” safe working conditions and has been recognized by OSHA for its jobsite safety in Las Vegas. Gonzalez and Diego deny that their ulterior motive is to organize workers in two markets where neither union has penetrated the residential construction sector. Robert Masciola, deputy director for the AFL-CIO's Center for Strategic Research, adds that if Pulte and its contractors continue to resist change, the unions will take their message to the public. - Jahn Caufield
Deep Impact
A new road impact fee in a Virginia transportation bill catches builders by surprise.
Virginia finally passed a transportation bill this year, but builders are not happy about an open-ended road impact fee they claim Gov. Tim Kaine slipped in at the last minute.
Mike Toalson, executive vice president of the Virginia HBA, says the builders plan to fight the additional impact fee next year during the 2008 legislative session. The new charge, which expanded road impact fees to 67 municipalities statewide, is far different than the compromise legislation that the HBA supported.
The governor has the power to veto a bill, sign it, or send a measure back to the legislature with amendments. “What he sent back was a substitute bill that was virtually impossible to amend,” says Toalson, who claims that there was no public debate about the added impact fee. “It was sent back in a form in which legislators either had to vote yes or no on a single day,” he says.
Delacey Skinner, a representative for Gov. Kaine, disagrees with Toalson, saying there was ample time for public comment on every aspect of the bill.
Toalson says the HBA worked closely with state officials to craft a law that would raise $2 billion annually for transportation improvements. The new law raises numerous fees statewide and increases the grantor's tax—the tax paid by sellers of real estate—in the Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads regions.
“We said the industry would pay its fair share [of infrastructure costs] ... but the thanks we got for stepping up to the plate was this late addition,” Toalson says. - Steve Zurier