The Times Herald-Record, October 6, 2005, Thursday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 The Times Herald-Record
The Times Herald-Record

October 6, 2005, Thursday

HEADLINE: Union workers put inflatable rats at work sites

BYLINE: By Ramsey Al-Rikabi

BODY:

WALLKILL -- Angry over a non-union hotel project, members of local unions decided to protest the Hilton chain of hotels, setting up a 20-foot red-eyed inflatable rat outside the Hampton Inn on Crystal Run Road.
And that wasn't the only rat t yesterday. Local 17 Laborers had their own 14-footer while they protested a project at Stewart Airport.
Parking a huge rat outside a business is a common union tactic to embarrass companies that hire non-union labor.
Local 417 Ironworkers in Newburgh organized the protest against Hilton, sparked by the use of non-union labor by Storm King Contracting, Inc. to build a Hilton Garden Inn in the Town of Newburgh. The Wallkill Hampton Inn is owned by High Hotels in Lancaster, Pa., and is unaffiliated with the Hilton in Newburgh, which is being built by Martin Milano.
"You want to picket something, go down to Milano's Hampton Inn," Lisa Franklin, regional manager for High Hotels, told the protesters yesterday. "He's building it, not us."
Milano owns the Newburgh Hampton Inn, which is part of Hilton Hotels Corp.
"Hilton should have some say in how their hotels are built," said Todd Diorio, president of the Hudson Valley Building and Construction Trades Council and business manager of Local 17 Laborers.
Bob Schoon, of Montgomery-based Storm King, said bids for construction subcontracts at the new Hilton are open to union contractors.
Milano will finalize a deal with the Orange County Industrial Agency tomorrow for over $ 360,000 in tax breaks for the $ 13.5 million, 120-room hotel. The deal, said IDA attorney Phil Crotty, was struck "so they don't build it in Connecticut or Pennsylvania or New Jersey."
County tax breaks for projects that uses non-union labor bothers some area labor officials.
"That money is supposed to bring in good jobs," Maryjane MacNair, of the Hudson Valley Labor Federation, said of the IDA tax breaks.
New York has the highest density of union labor in the nation, slightly under 25 percent, according to Richard Hurd, professor of labor studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
In Newburgh, union laborers protested a runway extension project at Stewart Airport by Schoharie County-based Lancaster Development Inc. Although its a small project, Diorio said, "we want to make sure companies from out of our area are not coming down here and undermining the wages and conditions we've worked for."
Lancaster put in a $ 49.9 million low bid for the Drury Lane extension project at Stewart Airport and hasn't said yet if it will use union labor if it's awarded that job.
Reporter Tim Logan contributed to this story.