photo courtesy of IUOE Local 150
From left, Local 150 President-Business Manager James M. Sweeney signs a tentative agreement with Contractors Association of Will and Grundy Counties Counsel Michael Duffee. All sides reached a tentative agreement Monday.

By Jennifer Rice
Staff Writer

After more than nine hours of negotiations, a tentative deal has been worked out with two unions to end the nearly three-week construction strike that kept several area projects on hold.
Two striking unions, the Laborers’ District Council of Chicago and Vicinity and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, both went on strike June 30 and July 1, respectfully, to protest contract negotiations.
An agreement was reached Monday with the Mid-American Regional Bargaining Association (MARBA), which serves associations representing union contractors by negotiating. Prior to the MARBA settlements, tentative three-year agreements were recently made with the Contractors Association of Will and Grundy Counties (CAWGC), the Chicago Area Independent Contractors Association, (CAICA) and the Illinois Valley Contractors Association (IVCA).
With this agreement, workers are slowly returning to various job sites, but most area construction projects continue to feel the full impact of the three-week strike.
Both unions had been in negations with MARBA, but talks were stalled until Monday night. MARBA continually called the union’s proposals “unrealistic.” MARBA said the tentative agreements with CAWGC, CAICA and IVCA would not affect its ongoing negotiations with the unions, which cumulated with Monday’s tentative agreement.
The Laborers’ delegates ratified the agreement Monday night. Local 150 was expected to meet July 21 for a ratification vote. The contract agreement would provide annual increases of about 3.25 percent over the next three years to cover health care and benefit costs.
MARBA spokeswoman Lissa Christman said, “It was a difficult negotiation with good results and we look forward to a mutually beneficial and productive relationship going forward.”
MARBA Chairman Tom Nordeen said the smaller contractors who recently negotiated the deal with the unions are being used as tools. “It’s a new variation of one of the oldest tricks in the book – creating a distraction,” Nordeen explained.
“The only factor that may put these “little guys” out of business may be the inflexibility the unions have shown when dealing with today’s construction environment,” Nordeen said.
MARBA wants to stress that no one from CAICA sits on the pension and welfare funds as trustees and believes contractors with CAICA will suffer when they realize the poor economic package they’ve accepted.
“It is unfortunate that the locals are attempting to pit companies against each other, but it is transparent and does not weaken our resolve one bit. In fact, it unites us even stronger. We are attempting to put the union men and women back to work on jobs for which we are finally getting the opportunity to bid,” Nordeen added. It appear with Monday’s agreement, MARBA has done just that.

Jennifer Rice photo
Construction equipment sits idle along 1.7 miles of Washington Street in Naperville, between 87th Street and Gartner Road. The road is under construction, awaiting workers to return. A tentative agreement Monday between all sides wil hopefully workers to projects such as this.

Spokesman for Local 150, Ed Maher said the unions cannot jeopardize what they have spent so many years to fight for. “We’ve been fighting for decades to get to where we are at. With rising health care costs, we can’t give in for a little, with the hopes of getting it back in the future,” Maher said.
MARBA believes the unions have to, “step out of the bubble they’ve been living in for the last few years that has shielded them from the harsh realities of this recession.”
To counter MARBA’s claim, union officials have stressed all along that their requests for more money towards benefits, not salary, is reasonable. Officials note that the agreement comparable to what the unions are asking of MARBA, has been approved in Peoria, the Quad Cities, Northwest Indiana and Northern Illinois.
President-business manager of Local 150, James Sweeney, said the significance of the original agreements with CAWGC, CAICA and IVCA cannot be overstated. “You will see projects that have been stopped for more than two weeks start up again,” he added.
At the end of the day, progress is being made and it’s a step in the right direction. Work is expected to resume on area construction projects, like Interstate 55 construction, Interstate 55 and Route 59 interchange, Route 59 construction, Larkin Avenue, from Route 30 to Route 52, Weber Road from Lily Cache Road to Interstate 55 and the Olivet Nazarene University improvements and chapel construction.
The tentative agreement also makes available much needed construction equipment and materials that have not been available for many projects. Equipment and materials like hot-mix asphalt can be provided by any of the 55 contractors signed to the CAWGC agreement, Maher said.
Sweeney said what the unions proposed to the contractors is reasonable. “MARBA disagrees, but they are the only ones who do. These other associations have chosen fair contracts over needless stalling,” he added.

Jennifer Rice’s e-mail address is Jen@foxvalleylabornews.com.