By JAMES RUTENBERG and TARA GEORGE
Daily News Staff Writers
Nonunion employees of a construction firm at the
center of Tuesday's massive demonstration said yesterday they're victims of a harassment
campaign by union members, and many fear for their safety.
Workers at the controversial Roy Kay Inc. construction site at
54th St. and Ninth Ave. claim union members picketing the midtown locale have threatened
them, taken pictures of them and recorded their license plate numbers.
The Roy Kay workers would not give their names,
out of fear of retaliation, and they criticized a newspaper that published pictures
showing the faces of the nonunion men.
"One person from this job site has had threatening calls to
his house, threatening his wife and babies," one of the workers claimed.
The allegation could not be verified. But Roy Kay's attorneys have
filed a lawsuit asking a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to bar protesters from picketing
the site and threatening workers.
The nonunion men also said they repeatedly had
tried to get into the unions and failed, so they eventually took nonunion jobs to feed
their families.
"They state we're taking food from their mouths; well, we
have our own kids," a construction supervisor said. "We're paid the prevailing
wage, and we get full benefits."
The construction unions - and their giant
inflatable rat - have maintained a presence outside the Roy Kay site for weeks to protest
the award of a $32.6 million contract for construction of a subway control center to the
company.
On Tuesday, tens of thousands of workers demonstrating outside the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority's headquarters spontaneously broke off and marched
toward the site.
Yesterday, pickets outside the site said they considered the
nonunion workers to be "scabs" and the New Jersey-based Roy Kay to be a
"union-buster."
But union organizers said they had no quarrel with Roy Kay's
workers and denied the allegations of harassment.
"Why are we going to intimidate somebody who's working in
there? asked Luis Montalvo, an organizer from Laborers' Local 79. "We want to
organize them. Our dispute is with the company, not with the workers."
Meanwhile, Gov. Pataki and MTA Chairman Virgil
Conway yesterday said they would make no decision on the status of the Roy Kay contract
until the state Labor Department has completed its investigation into the company.
The department has accused the company of lying
about safety violations and failing to keep accurate records on the number of hours worked
by apprentices. The agency is due to make a ruling in August.
Company officials could not be reached for comment.