Redstate...
Democratic
National Convention
Outsources Charlotte Jobs to Beltway Union Shop
D.C. is only six hours away. That’s
local right?
by Ben Howe
Sunday,
November 6th
On
Friday, you met John Monteith, a
Charlotte, NC print shop executive who was told that he would not be
awarded
any contracts in conjunction with the upcoming 2012 Democratic National
Convention to be held in his town because his shop was not unionized. Given that Charlotte is
located in a
right-to-work state, this upset John enough that he sought media
attention to
shine light on what he viewed to be in stark contrast to the stated
goals of
Mayor Anthony Foxx, a close ally of President Obama.
Foxx claimed that the convention would be a
boom to the Charlotte economy creating plenty of jobs for everyone and
plenty
of work for local businesses while fervently denying that unionization
was the
primary factor in decision making: Click link below for video.
Mayor
Anthony Foxx says allegations
that the DNC contract steered jobs toward out of state union shops are
untrue.
Foxx
says, “It speaks to the use of
labor within the region. This idea that someone from Alaska is gonna
take a job
from someone in Charlotte is absolutely ridiculous.”
And
John was not alone. Charlotte
company Webb & Partners were
also told to look elsewhere if they weren’t unionized:
But
Webb & Partners project
management firm owner Sherwood Webb says he heard it straight from the
horses
mouth, “They said we will be using union labor.”
That’s why Webb says he never made a bid.
John’s
story was told throughout the
media yesterday, and on the local Fox station as well.
This prompted the DNC to put to bed any
notions that jobs would be outsourced to unions ahead of local
non-union
businesses.
Committee
for Charlotte 2012 Executive
Director Dan Murrey said in an emailed statement, “The notion that the
Host
Committee will only allow unionized firms to bid is categorically
untrue.”
However,
on the same day the DNC was
scrambling to prove how pro-local business they are, it was revealed
who they
awarded the work that had been denied to John Monteith’s shop. The work went to a company
called Hargrove
Inc, a shop that boasts its work force of more than 3,000 union
personnel and
hails from the union bastion of the Washington D.C. metro area. They work with the biggest
names in the union
market. From the
Teamsters, to the
Carpenters Union, union favoritism seems to be a very important reason
Hargrove
was selected.
Says
Hargrove:
The
contracts were awarded following a
competitive procurement process with the goal of appointing the most
dynamic,
diverse and innovative firms. Hargrove will partner with a group of
firms
including Rogers, Russell and Hunt Construction whom all have strong
ties to
Charlotte and the Carolinas. The team has a strong record of working
with
women, minority and disability-owned contractors. All of the firms
demonstrated
an ability to work effectively with union labor and share a commitment
to
sustainability. (emphasis mine)
And
Hargrove isn’t simply a small
player in the union marketplace. In
fact, it seems to be a core element of the CEO’s strategy as noted in
his
description:
[Tim
McGill, CEO] has been
instrumental in securing Hargrove’s position as a major player in the
challenging
union market. (emphasis mine)
Oddly
enough, I had trouble locating
these union references on their website.
The only way I was able to view them was to
look at the cached pages
from their site. According
to google,
this information was available on their website as recently as October
24th of
this year. I wonder
why they’d want to
downplay their union ties?
Mayor
Foxx’s opponent in the upcoming
election, Scott Stone, had this to say about the contract:
The
mayor can’t have it both ways. He
can’t say the convention will have a $150 million local economic impact
and
continue to send convention contracts and jobs out-of-state.
Yet
that seems to be exactly what he’s
done. The dirty
little secret in all of
this is that since North Carolina is a right to work state, union labor
will be
hard to come by locally. Which
means
locals will have two choices: join a union, or don’t get the job. Right to work just became
Forced to Unionize
in North Carolina.
I
wonder what room Mayor Foxx and the
DNC believe exists for non-union shops when they ship in a company from
the the
Washington, D.C. area and that company subsequently makes clear that it
to will
only work with union shops? For
Heritage
Print & Visual and Webb & Partners, there wasn’t much
room at all.
Thanks
to The Right Scoop, Kris the
Talker, and Labor Union Report for contributing to this article.
Read
this article with links and
video, plus others, at Redstate
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