54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 BY MR. ROTHMAN: 2 Q. Mr. Thomassen, the government in this motion has drawn a 3 great deal of the attention to the requests of the District 4 Council, and have indicated, and I have asked Mr. Mack a great 5 deal of questions concerning whether the request system 6 contributes to wrongdoing or corruption on the job. 7 Is there a policy that the District Council follows 8 with respect to the request system? 9 A. Yes, there is. 10 THE WITNESS: Your Honor, could I be allowed to give 11 some background on this request system? 12 THE COURT: Certainly, if you will do it slowly and 13 dare I say judiciously in your answer. 14 THE WITNESS: I will try. New York City is still 15 today the most unionized city in the country. We are very 16 proud of that, all of the collective unions that work in New 17 York City. 18 We think we're very diligent in trying to keep it that 19 way. And because of that, and the unions being as strong as 20 they are in New York City over the years, years ago many unions 21 had a lot of work rules that at best I could say were 22 restrictive to the contractor. But because of the strengths of 23 the union, we just were able to overpower them in negotiations 24 and we kept a lot of those work rules in place. 25 There are many of them. One of them, which we talk SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300
282 54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 about a lot today, and it is mentioned in the consent decree 2 and mentioned in the government, is the 50-50 ruling. The 3 50-50 ruling states that half of the members on a particular 4 job site, if the contractor wants to hire 10 carpenters, 5 according to that rule, he can hire five of any carpenters he 6 would like, as long as they're union carpenters, of course, and 7 the other 50, which is the other 50, would come from the union 8 hall. 9 He may never have known them before. He doesn't know 10 who they are. He doesn't know what they can do, but that is 11 the rules. You have to take half of whatever you want to hire, 12 half of them come from the union hall. 13 That was a good thing for the union over the years 14 because as we all know, union carpenters get older. If we all 15 had to race down the block, and we all started at a starting 16 line, we're not all going to finish at the same time. Someone 17 is going to win and somebody will lose. Contractors, of 18 course, always want the 21-year-old carpenter with 40 years of 19 experience. It doesn't always work that way. 20 So the 50-50 ruling was good for us because as our 21 carpenters got older, maybe they weren't as much in demand as 22 they got older. There is nothing wrong with their brain. They 23 just didn't work fast. That was our way of letting those 24 members make a living also. That was a good thing, in my eyes, 25 because I am doing this 35 years, and my job is to service the SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C.
283 54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 membership. That was a good thing. 2 We have members who aren't as proficient as other 3 members. Everybody can't be perfect. Some carpenters are 4 better at what they do and other carpenters aren't quite as 5 good, and we always had the option that the carpenter can go 6 back to school, we have the best technical college in the 7 country. That is not an easy thing to ask somebody to do, 8 either. You work all day in the field and ask the carpenter to 9 go to school at night on his own time and try to brush up on a 10 particular course or a particular skill is not an easy thing to 11 ask anybody to do 12 So many of them are reluctant to do it unless they 13 think they can make themselves more employable by doing it. So 14 this was a rule that the contractors have fought us over in 15 every collective bargaining agreement going back as long as I 16 can remember. 17 THE COURT: What are the contractors fighting for? 18 THE WITNESS: The contractors, your Honor, say that 19 they agree to be a union contractor. I am going to pay all the 20 wages and benefits I am supposed to pay. All I ask you is let 21 me hire who I know can do the job. 22 THE COURT: I see. 23 THE WITNESS: So we have always fought that. When we 24 came under supervision in 1996, our international came in, and 25 as I have said earlier, we went under a restructuring. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300
284 54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 Part of that restructuring and the philosophy, I have 2 to say, of the international that governs us is that carpenters 3 across the country should have full mobility. They should be 4 able to go and work anywhere they want and no union or district 5 council should be allowed to stop any carpenter from making a 6 living in that particular area. 7 And they started to do away with all the 50-50 rulings 8 which were in a lot of places and contracts across the country. 9 THE COURT: They started doing away with it? Who is 10 "they"? 11 THE WITNESS: The international they were under 12 supervision from. It is a very, very political issue in the 13 City of New York. We are a very large council, so like 14 anything else, you try and wean people into something, and the 15 international came up with the requesting system, and that was 16 a way of getting the contractors a little more latitude in 17 picking who they would have working for them. 18 So the requesting system comes into place. Judge 19 Conboy, who was overseeing us at the time for the court as far 20 as the consent decree saw it and said it was okay. 21 There was much discussion at the time by the members 22 of the District Council and our international who were putting 23 this in place, and there were a lot of unhappy carpenters, but 24 it prevailed. Now we come into a time in the last, I'll say, 25 five or six years where New York City does not enjoy the same SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C.
285 54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 union background or the same union atmosphere as it has in the 2 past, and I think that this is something that comes from lack 3 of knowledge on the part of the government and on the part of 4 Walter Mack. 5 In the 50-50, in just looking at it, it looks fair, it 6 looks democratic, but the reality of it is -- and I will put it 7 right on the table -- the reality of it is, if New York City is 8 going to stay a union town, we have to do everything we can to 9 help our union contractors stay in business. If we don't help 10 those union contractors stay in business, we can negotiate the 11 best contracts in the world, but if there is no one around to 12 employ them, we'll be out of work and the union is going to go 13 down the tubes in New York City. 14 There is a movement on right now by all our 15 contractors and the associations in connection with the 16 different trades, the building trades, to get rid of all these 17 restrictive work rules because we all acknowledge the fact that 18 if we don't work together, New York is not going to be the 19 union town that it used to be. 20 And so, therefore, in reference to the requesting 21 system, as far as the District Council of Carpenters are 22 concerned, and anyone that knows what is going on in the field 23 in New York City -- I mean, walk down the block anywhere in New 24 York City and you'll find a three or four or 15 story building 25 being built nonunion, which never, ever happened before. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C.
286 54CJDIS4 Thomassen - direct 1 So we have a tiger on our hands, which is the nonunion 2 entity that is making a move in New York City, and we realize 3 that if we don't let our companies hire the carpenters who can 4 produce the work that they bid -- they bid a job based on an 5 amount of progress they're going to make every day on that job. 6 If they don't make that, at the end of the job and they lose 7 money, they can go out of business. Part of the request system 8 allows our contractors the latitude to hire carpenters who they 9 think can perform the job. 10 Now, just so it is clear to everyone in the courtroom, 11 because it hasn't been mentioned, in our last negotiation we 12 gave the associations who we negotiate with, and to give a 13 little background on negotiations, we have about 1800 14 contractors in our contractor base of signatory contractors in 15 New York City. We don't negotiate with 1800 individual 16 contractors. We negotiate with associations. 17 We have associations that cover the different parts of 18 the entities that the District Council works under. A lot of 19 contractors belong to those associations, but a lot of 20 contractors are independents. That is what we call them. They 21 don't belong to those associations. They usually sign a 22 compliance letter with the District Council, stating that you 23 negotiate with the associations, whatever they agree with with 24 you, we'll all play along because the one thing that we do do 25 is enforce that all carpenters get paid the same. We don't SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 |