Suffolk County Legis. Kate Browning, WF-Shirley, and about 30 union representatives held a rally Monday morning outside of the Southport Plaza Shopping Center, at 999 Montauk Highway in Shirley, protesting the developer of the Marshalls for hiring out-of-state workers to build the discount store.
Browning said she was contacted by two union workers who were at the job site and saw license plates from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In addition, the workers they tried to talk to did not speak English, Browning said.
She said she was upset because the developer, Kane General Contractors, was not using local workers on the job. There are about 50 local union workers living in the Shirley-Mastic area, she said.
“In our community there are a lot of union workers,” Browning said. “Many of them are out of work.”
She said in addition to workers from the construction unions, teacher’s union representatives and others attended the rally to show support for all laborers.
“We basically wanted to give the message to Marshalls that you are insulting us by using out of state labor,” Browning said. “You want us to shop here? You’re not giving us the respect that we deserve.”
Maybe the out-of-state workers work for less. Maybe the local union workers demand too much; in other words, they are not competetive. If I were an investor in the developer, I would expect management to keep costs to a minimum, or else.
Exactly — if they are out of work, maybe they should accept a little less pay to at least get a paycheck. The Unions today are bad for workers — they do nothing to help them. The Union in place at our company (I’m not a member) has lousy benefits compared to the rest of the company and lousy pay.
Many many years ago unions were necessary due to the lack of labor laws. Now they have outlived their usefulness. It cost more to use union labor and most labor unions, I suspect, are corrupt. In a union there is no incentive to work harder then the person next to you because no matter how hard you work or how well you do your job you will get the same money as the guy next to you. Anything made by union workers costs more. They are ruining our country!
ditto…maybe local politicians should focus on reducing the cost of living on Long Island…start with reducing the size of Government and costly regulations…
After reading the comments and opinions by some of your viewers
a famuos qoute came to mind ” If we do not rember our mistakes in history we are DOOMED to repeat them”. So now let me remind
all of you who enjoy your 40 hr. work week and freedom to enjoy
your weekend as you please. These rights were fought for and won
by the Blood And Sweat equity of Labor Unions. You speak of Coruption how about the 4 Billion dollars a year in lost tax revenue
due to 1099 misclassification and non-union workers willing to work for cash, and you probabley bitch about how high your taxes are. Well here’s to YOU! Mr. Anti-Union man go back to working 80 hrs. and 7 days a week. Just like your Non-Union Out of State
friends are. I could go on but I think I would rather just enjoy my weekend!!!