Next thing, Shaw will be hiring illegal immigrants and paying them $2 per hour. We need good paying union jobs to rebuild our local economy!
ATLANTA --- Every job is precious during a weak economy, and reliance on the 3,000 expected to be needed at the peak of construction of two reactors at Plant Vogtle offered insurance that metro Augusta's economy would have momentum.
But some union tradesmen accuse the construction management company at the giant plant, Shaw Group Inc. of Baton Rouge, La., of bypassing local workers. At a time when the metro area has lost 16 percent of its construction jobs in the past year, translating into nearly 2,000 people, the area should be benefiting, they say.
"There's enough people on unemployment in the state of Georgia to do this job, period," said Keith Thomas of Conyers. "We're paying for it."
Mr. Thomas was one of about a dozen union members wearing "Jobs for Georgians" jackets attending Wednesday's meeting of the Public Service Commission. By their count, 86 percent of the cars during a shift change at Plant Vogtle have South Carolina tags.
Shaw says most of its workers at Vogtle are from "the immediate vicinity or the surrounding areas."
The union men say they have sent résumés to Shaw with no response. But they also say they wouldn't accept the low wages they've heard Shaw pays of $7.35 per hour.
That's not what Shaw pays, according to company spokeswoman Gentry Brann.
The Georgia Department of Labor reports the average weekly construction wage in the metro area is $687 or $17.18 per hour. Shaw is advertising job openings with the Labor Department, but no wage figures were available.
"Shaw makes every effort to hire as many local employees as reasonably possible to develop a skilled work force ready to meet the contractual obligations to our clients," Ms. Brann said. "We strive to first hire local, then within the state and finally within the country where the project is being executed."
She also said the company doesn't have a policy of excluding organized labor and has often hired union members.
Shaw was contracted by Georgia Power to construct the reactors on behalf of the utilities that own the plant. Georgia Power's regional vice president, Walter Dukes, did not respond to a message left on his office phone seeking a comment.
Mr. Thomas said his group is not asking the commission to take action now, but to be aware of the situation. He feels the group should have added leverage because the commission and the General Assembly granted Georgia Power permission to begin collecting part of the finance costs for the reactors while they are under construction, a departure from how power plants are usually financed after they begin operation.
"We would like for Southern Company (Georgia Power's parent company) to consider local residents, local contractors, and this bid process being fair, above and beyond, since we're paying for it," he said.
Comments
Next thing, Shaw will be hiring illegal immigrants and paying them $2 per hour. We need good paying union jobs to rebuild our local economy!
We need good paying jobs but they don't have to be union. My experience with union labor is the cost go through the roof and it takes twice as long to get something completed.
Have you ever seen an obituary of a union worker? It doesn't say he was employed by such and such company for 30 years.... it will say he was a member of BOE Local #17. And that he worked for the union not a company that provided him a job for 30 years.
Shaw probably wants to avoid creating a scenario where a Nuke construction project could potentially be held hostage by a group of opportunist union workers and their so-called "leaders."
Construction of nuclear power plants requires the efforts of many highly skilled craftsmen. Usually the place to find employees with the needed skills and in the required quantities is through the union hiring halls. (Who by the way don't usually allow their members to find their own jobs. So I'm a little puzzled about union members sending resumes. Whatever.) The sad truth is you can't send a so-called welder, whose welds look like a mule's [filtered word] sewed shut with grapevine, out on a job requiring the talents of a welder capable of performing certified welds. If the union halls don't have the talent locally they have to get it from some place that does or allow nonmembers to be hired.
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