Contractors defend open shops in Southern Nevada

Pauline Bell

Thursday, May 8, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Open shop forces are flexing their muscles against organized labor's latest efforts to bolster membership in Southern Nevada.

John Jennings, the nation's leading open shop supporter, steadfastly defended contractors' rights to run their own companies during a speech to more than 100 members of the local Associated Builders and Contractors' chapter Wednesday.

"I want to tell you that during this latest in-your-face organizing campaign, ABC will stand solidly beside every contractor here in Las Vegas, defending your right to manage your own company," said Jennings, the national president of the 20,000-member ABC.

The Florida-based general contractor was referring to recent efforts by organized labor to revitalize dwindling interest in the movement.

In February, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney visited Southern Nevada and said that Las Vegas was on the verge of supplanting his native New York City as the "heartbeat of the American labor movement."

"For the last 20 years, union membership has been in what can only be called a free fall death spiral. The organizing effort here is just one in a long series of union attempts to reverse that trend," Jennings said.

Observers say Southern Nevada was targeted as a result of the construction boom and because the labor movement already has a stronghold here because of the Culinary Union.

Prior to Jennings' speech, about 50 pro-union workers showed up at the Palace Station to pass out pro-union literature. There was no confrontation between the two groups and union workers left when asked to do so by hotel security.

"I'm flattered (by their attention)," said Larry Litchfield, executive director of the local 150-member ABC chapter, adding that the unions must be concerned about Jenning's message and ABC's efforts if they took the time to show up.

Jennings described his organization as in favor of free-enterprise rather than anti-union and said it believes in a level playing field. "Any contractor who can do a quality job in a timely fashion and submits the lowest bid should be awarded the job," he said.

He decried project labor agreements, saying they mandate that union construction workers be used both on public and private jobs and provide "inflated wage rates and highly restrictive work rules that add 30 percent to the project's costs."

He also accused organized labor of salting tactics, which he said is the practice of putting open-shop companies out of business by infiltrating them with union workers, doing shoddy work, destroying employee morale and, in some cases, actually sabotaging the job.

He told how his company, 10 years ago, was successful in getting Walt Disney World to shift from union-only labor to open shop contractors. Southern Nevada contractors can do the same thing "but you have to remain diligent," Jennings said.