CRJ Construction is a Puget Sound area contractor that specializes in commercial flooring and painting. Unfortunately, they also seem to specialize in depriving employees out of their hard earned wages. CRJ’s has a history of underpaying workers, not only on private projects but also on public projects like two CRJ, s jobs here on the UW campus. CRJ has been misclassifying its employees, this result in employees receiving a lower pay rate than they are entitled to. CRJ also has a history of not paying its employees for all the hours they work for CRJ. In the construction trade such a practice is known as “wage theft.
Andrew Jaillet recently participated in the Jobs Skills Program funded by the state of Washington. He was awarded a grant from Highline Community College in the amount of $39,900 for safety classes. During the first week of class Andrew Jaillet received news that his employees wanted union representation, he immediately canceled the class, and sent the workers home. They did not go back to work for two weeks and never did finish the classes!
Andrew Jaillet then began to threaten his employees with demotions, loss of wages, and work opportunities in retaliation for their union support. He demanded that they not support a union and threatened to fire employees for having discussions about their wages. Andrew Jaillet then demanded employees not to engage in federally protected activities and to forgo their rights under the National Labor Relations Board. At this time, seven workers who voted for union representation in a federal sanctioned election have been laid off.
I'm a grad student who picked up a flyer. I'd like to contact CRJ and the UW at the same time. What steps, if any, have you taken in terms of raising this issue with the university? Do you have good records of the union organization activities, the interactions with the company management, etc? What steps are necessary for the workers to create a union?
ReplyDeletewe have asked a UW student labor group for help, they have met with two of the worker, and we do have good documentation,the employees of CRJ Constriction participated in a federally supervised election and won the right to be represented by a union, the employer CRJ Construction then targeted 7 employees who voted to go union and got rid of them, we will try to speak with someone at the university in January with the assistance OF UW student labor group,
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