Online BTEA Meeting Schedule Posting Ends

BTEA Executive Committee, Association Executives, and Board of Governors meeting announcements have been discontinued on their website:

Pre-rally postings

 
BTEA Association Executives

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011, 8:00am

BTEA Conference Room

1430 Broadway, Suite 1106

@40th St

BTEA Golf Outing

Monday, June 20th, 2011, All Day!

Alpine Country Club

80 Anderson Ave.

Demerest, NJ

BTEA Executive Committee

Thursday, June 23, 2011, 8:00am

BTEA Conference Room

1430 Broadway, Suite 1106

@40th St

(22 NYC building trade union contracts expired  Thursday, June 30th, 2011.)

Thanks to everyone who showed up, and/or helped organize the rally yesterday!

(Shout out to Local 45 member Sterling, on the bike.)

Please send your photos to: rally524@yahoo.com

Links to rally pictures:
http://goo.gl/epnz9
http://goo.gl/ZvB4J
http://goo.gl/0S9iI

BTEA rally mentioned in City Hall article:

http://www.cityandstateny.com/buildings-department-braces-for-sabotage-in-labor-standoff/

Buildings Department Braces For 'Sabotage' In Labor Standoff

By: City Hall
May 26, 2011

The city Buildings Department is bracing for turmoil at construction sites when dozens of collective bargaining agreements expire at the end of next month, Commissioner Robert LiMandri told a City Hall breakfast yesterday.

He said his department will be on high alert as the June 30 deadline nears, and is planning how to navigate picket lines and deal with deliberate destruction by disgruntled workers.

“That’s certainly planning for the worst, and if that happens we’ll have to do that,” said LiMandri, who noted his department has a strong relationship with the city’s district attorneys. “Sabotage is certainly, I’m sure, at the top of every construction manager’s mind, but make no mistake about it: this city is not going to tolerate that kind of behavior.”
[...]
Paul Fernandes, chief of staff at the Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents 100,000 workers, said LiMandri’s remark about potential sabotage was “unfortunate.” He declined to comment on the ongoing talks.

Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, which represents 1,200 union contractors in New York City, said it makes sense for the Buildings Department to take precautions to protect the public and be ready for the worst.

“I’m not going to speculate, and would certainly hope that it does not reach those proportions,” Coletti added.

The two sides are at odds over 29 construction contracts covering 60,000 carpenters, sheet metal workers and other laborers. In a sign of the intensity of the clash, hundreds of rowdy protesters rallied outside a swanky BTEA dinner at Cipriani Wall Street this week.

PROTEST THE BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION (BTEA)!!!

Union Rank-and-File Organized Rally to Protest the BTEA

Time:           Tuesday, May 24 - 5:00pm - 8:00pm

Location:     BTEA Leadership Dinner, Cipriani Wall Street

                     55 Wall Street (Between William St. and Hanover St.)

                     Map: http://goo.gl/Fx5Co

The Event

Our rally is scheduled for 5pm at 55 Wall Street.

Their gala begins at 6pm with a cocktail reception-- continues from 7pm - 8:30pm, featuring a $750 dollar a plate dinner, and awards program honoring real estate investor and developer Larry A. Silverstein-- then concludes 8:30 - 9:30pm with a dessert reception.

The BTEA represents the big bosses of New York City's building industry; the Building Construction Trades Council proclaims it "represents the interests of the unionized construction industry." Neither represent workers directly. Our rally is being organized by rank-and-file for the rank-and-file.

This is an opportunity for us to practice solidarity across craft lines, in response to United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Douglas J. McCarron's union raiding, while addressing the anti-worker agenda of Louis J. Coletti's BTEA, as a do-it-yourself organizational alternative to the failed union bureaucracy of BCTC President Gary LaBarbera.

Consider the outcome of recent NYC building trade contract negotiations:

The Association of Master Painters & Decorators of NY and the Painters D.C. #9 have reached a 4 year contract agreement. Below are some of the key details included in the agreement:

Contract Duration: May 1, 2011 – April 30, 2015

Wages & Benefits:

1 year wage freeze.
1.9% weighted average increase over 4 year period.
20% reduction in payroll costs of wages and benefits for non-Manhattan commercial work (similar reduction for residential work through previously negotiated PLA)
Currently seeking PLA with REBNY for Manhattan interior work to be enacted by May 2013 for 17% to 20% cost reduction through wage/benefits and work rule changes. Failure to execute the PLA will result in the employers to contribute an additional $.50 each for May 2013 and May 2014.
Overtime calculation reduced to straight time plus ½ the annuity plus ½ the vacation rate – estimated 20% reduction.
The union is required to reduce the current healthcare costs by 10% over the course of the 4 year contract - approximately $4.4 million.
No future employer contributions to health benefit funds from May 2012 to May 2014 funding a union responsibility.
No additional employer contributions into pension fund over 4 years.
Security checks will be at employers’ expense.
No overtime for shift work on Manhattan interior work

Work Rules & Related Issues:

Flexible starting times between 6 AM – 9 AM.
Elimination of hiring hall.
Free use of tools.
No restrictions on type of work apprentices can perform.
Security background checks.
Random drug and alcohol testing paid for by the employer.
Adoption of top work place performance plan to retrain unqualified or unproductive employees. After 3 bad evaluations the employee can be removed from the union.
Working Shop and Job Stewards must be qualified and productive. May be removed after 24 hour joint hearing.

With 22 collective bargaining agreements to be re-negotiated by June 30 2011, Louis J. Coletti's demands for concessions including a 20% reduction of employee benefits and wages threaten us all, union and non-union.

 

Please join us protesting the BTEA's anti-worker agenda!

For more info on the rally contact:
Call - (646) 321-3274
Email - rally524@yahoo.com
Website - http://cwrfo.blogspot.com/

Friday 5/20 4:30pm Organizational Meeting (for 5/24 BTEA Rally)

BTEA Rally Organizational Meeting:

Time:          Friday, May 20  - 4:30pm

Location:    Public Atrium
                   60 Wall St.
                  (between William St. and Hanover St.;
                  next door to The Museum of American Financial History;
                  across from Cipriani Wall Street)
                  Map: http://goo.gl/cNo91
                  Wall St. station 2, 3 trains
                  Broad St. station J, M, Z trains
                  Wall St. Station 4, 5 trains

Dear Union Brothers and Sisters of the Building Construction Industry;

We invite you to participate in the process of organizing a rally to demonstrate against the Building Trades Employers’ Association, on Tuesday, May 24th, 2011, at Cipriani Wall Street:

(All rank-and-file construction workers and stewards welcome; no bosses or union officials, please!)

Our Mission:
- Democratic process
- Members’ rights
- Worker solidarity
- Municipal service divorced from partisan politics.
- We recognize that the interests of labor are identical regardless of occupation, sex, nationality, religion, or ethnicity, for a wrong done to one is a wrong done to all.

For more info contact:
Call - (646) 321-3274
Email - rally524@yahoo.com
Website - http://cwrfo.blogspot.com/

Thursday 5/19 (7am!) BTEA Sidewalk Demonstration

At 7am sharp! we will be protesting the BTEA at:

 BTEA Board of Governors Meeting
Thursday, May 19th, 2011, 8:00am
Le Parker Meridien
118 West 57th Street
(Between 6th & 7th)
Map: http://goo.gl/GaRma

For more info contact:
Call - (646) 321-3274
Email - rally524@yahoo.com
Website - http://cwrfo.blogspot.com/

BTEA Rally Flyer Text

Union Rank-and-File Organized

Rally to Protest the BTEA

Time: Tuesday, May 24 - 5:00pm - 8:00pm

Location: BTEA Leadership Dinner, Cipriani Wall Street
55 Wall Street (Between William St. and Hanover St.)

In March, BTEA launched a campaign called "Build Union Jobs," consisting of subway advertisements, a website, and opinion-editorials in the press to coerce rank-and-file construction workers into accepting concessions, even as they planned their annual $750 plate dinner.

In response, rank-and-file building trades workers, in opposition to mob influence, corporate greed, mismanagement, corrupt bureaucracy, and United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Douglas J. McCarron's union raiding tactics, have put out an industry wide call for a rally to protest the BTEA Leadership Dinner.

With 30 collective bargaining agreements to be re-negotiated by June 30, 2011, Louis J. Coletti, President of the BTEA, sent a letter to Gary LaBarbera, President of the Building Construction Trades Council (BCTC,) titled "Roadmap to Recovery," presenting the BTEA's "Framework for Reducing Union Costs," a 26 point list of demands calling for a 20% reduction of employee wages.

The Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries of New York is a Member of the BTEA. Last year its director, Joseph Olivieri, was found to have been involved in extorting the Carpenters Union, while tied to labor racketeer Vincent DiNapoli, and was convicted of perjury.

Like Silverstein, developers, property owners, and contractors are millionaires and billionaires from profits reaped through the difficult, hazardous, and highly skilled labor of union construction workers.

Driven by the desire to increase profits, the BTEA is opportunistically seeking to deprive all construction workers, union and non-union, of security and a decent standard of living.

New York City’s rank-and-file construction workers condemn Louis J. Coletti, the BTEA’s “roadmap” to poverty, “framework” for profit, and their celebration, at 55 Wall Street, on Tuesday May 24th 2011.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS RANK-AND-FILE-ORGANIZED
For more information: call 646-321-3274 or email: rally524@yahoo.com
Visit: http://cwrfo.blogspot.com/

BTEA Rally Flyer PDF

Rally Flyer