Teamsters step up campaign against LV ready mix firm

Grace Leong

Wednesday, March 1, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

The Teamsters Union, facing a lawsuit over its picketing activities, says a federal agency has upheld its right to protest at Red Rock Channel, a flood control system that is part of the Las Vegas Beltway project.

Frehner Construction Co. filed a federal lawsuit Feb. 18 against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union 631 after a Feb. 10 complaint by Frehner to the National Labor Relations Board was dismissed.

Frehner alleged it incurred substantial costs because of delays caused by a strike the Teamsters incited.

Frehner said the Teamsters incited its workers to picket Feb. 8-10 because the company refused to stop doing business with non-union subcontractor Casino Ready Mix.

Stephen Wamser, the NLRB's deputy regional attorney, said Frehner has until Tuesday to appeal the NLRB's dismissal of its complaint.

Michael Karlson, NLRB's acting regional director, said in a Feb. 22 letter to Frehner attorney Gary Branton that the Teamsters didn't violate labor laws because they limited their picketing to a gate used mostly by Casino Ready Mix's workers at the Red Rock Channel construction site.

"The union did not engage in unlawful coercion when it met with Frehner representatives for the purpose of persuading Frehner to negotiate a contract with another ready mix supplier," Karlson said.

Tim Murphy, the Teamsters' secretary-treasurer, said they picketed Casino Ready Mix and its owner Gary Bale because they refused to negotiate with the union over its workers' membership.

He called the concrete mix supplier a "carpetbagger operation which refuses to pay good wages and benefits to its employees."

Bale disagreed.

"We pay a prevailing wage of $27 an hour with benefits to our workers, a $37 an hour package to our operating engineers. We provide a full benefits package, retirement, medical, dental, optical, vacation and holiday pay that matches, if not exceeds, packages paid other ready mix companies here."

The Teamsters said their members in the ready mix industry in Las Vegas are paid a total wage and benefits package that exceeds $19 an hour plus employer paid health care and they are part of a Teamsters pension fund.

"Casino's owner Gary Bale has an expensive home in California, an Australian built yacht registered in Newport Beach, does his banking in California and sucks money out of the state of Nevada which should go to his employees in the form of good wages and benefits," Murphy said. Bale disagreed.

"That yacht is a 34-foot fishing boat, and my home in California cost $97,000 and I've lived there for 23 years. My current home in Nevada costs $287,000. I don't even get a paycheck from this Nevada company because all my money is invested in this company."

The Teamsters said several Casino Ready Mix trucks were put out of service for safety violations after a Feb. 2 inspection conducted by the commercial section of the Nevada Highway Patrol.

"We had to ask the Nevada Highway Patrol to inspect Casino trucks after so many of the drivers complained to us about the unsafe mechanical condition of their trucks," Murphy said.

But Bale said the trucks were never taken out of service. "We didn't have wash brushes properly secured on the water tanks on some trucks and a couple of light bulbs on the license plates were burned out, but no trucks were put out of service."

The Teamsters said they filed a complaint in July 1997 against Casino Ready Mix, alleging it violated labor laws by refusing to employ four drivers because of their union affiliations. The union says the company was found guilty in 1998 and was required to pay more than $116,000 to the drivers.

The NLRB's Wamser said Casino was found by an administrative law judge to have violated the National Labor Relations Act, and that an appeal is pending.