Let's Go Back To 2002

01-10-09




I hope everyone had a good New Year. I’ve been busy with many things and unfortunately have been falling behind in my postings. I was hoping to weekly update this site with more history of what has been going on and how you Union Carpenters are not getting the best fiduciary representation from your elected officials as far as your pensions are concerned.

Let’s go back to 2002. I had a bogus audit from the Carpenters union demanding 2.5 million dollars they claimed I owed the trust funds. In early March of 2002 the union picketed and struck all of Prate Installations jobsites with the intent of putting us out of business. Earl Oliver, to my face, told me that “Since you are the largest residential roofer, I’m going to make an example out of you and put you out of business.” Marty Umlauf was sitting next to Earl and laughing. After 5 months of losing work, working nights and weekends to keep up with field production demands and battling with the union to get the strike stopped, I finally settled. I basically settled because my controller was worried about how long we could hold out from the union’s tactics, illegal as they were, the judicial system takes forever and we were bleeding a slow death.

With the proverbial “gun to my head” I settled with the union. Sure enough, another confidential settlement agreement was demanded by the union and I had no choice but to sign it. That was July 12th, 2002, just days after I filed a suit in federal court. I’ve enclosed my suit so you can clearly understand what was going on with the union. The union’s long time practice of this scam was wrong to me and I vowed at the settlement to “have my day”!

What was interesting at the time was that the union, through their attorneys, represented to Magistrate Mason, that piecework was a violation of ERISA law and cheated the union members’ pension. No mention by the union to the Magistrate that the UNION had unclean hands and was participating with a segment of the specialty trades and cheating the members pension fund by allowing and having a piecework contract with the Overhead door industry.

After I settled and the union sent a letter to all my customers that “we would all go forward in a positive direction for all parties”, the union struck and picketed Prate again! This was within two months of the settlement!

I went to the NLRB, as I had also been signatory to the Roofers Union local 11. I filed an unfair labor charge as Local 11 claimed shingle work the same as the carpenters union did and I’d been signatory with the roofers union for years. I had many men in local 11 and decided that I would prefer dealing with them on shingle work rather than the carpenters union. This pissed off Earl Oliver even more and he again threatened me with the NEXT union president, Marty Umlauf, again sitting by his side laughing.

Well guys, the last laugh was mine! On March 31st, 2004, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in my favor on shingle jurisdiction. The case # is 13-cd-664 if anyone is interested. Click here to view the case documents http://home.comcast.net/~carpenterwatch/BLOG3DOCS.pdf
This ruling hurt the carpenters union because immediately, I along with other large shingle contractors began using MORE Local 11 roofers for shingle work. This in turn HURT YOUR PENSION FUND because suddenly, thousands of hours of benefits were NOT going to the Carpenters union anymore, they were going to Local 11. How smart was the now President Mary Umlauf? Not very!

I sent Marty a letter after Earl had died, asking him if he was willing to “start over and proceed forward in a positive manner for both of us”. I never got a reply. Click here to view the letter http://home.comcast.net/~carpenterwatch/BLOG3DOCSb.pdf
). I tried again but my appeal for a working relationship with the carpenters union fell on deaf ears.

Absorb what I’ve posted and I will continue to show you how your pensions have been adversely affected due to the Carpenters union actions, or lack of.

I will next start to post samples of hundreds of certified letters I started to send to the Carpenters union detailing that they were NOT doing their job and collecting the right amount of benefits for the funds, there by breaching their fiduciary responsibility to you members!

Stay tuned!