SEATAC — The Washington State Labor Council voted Saturday to support a resolution asking officials and “friends of labor” to boycott the Sept. 14-18 Elwha dam removals celebration.
The resolution was presented during the council’s convention in SeaTac, where the membership passed the resolution during its Saturday morning session, said Lee Whetham, the Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council president who spearheaded the boycott effort.
The Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council is based in Clallam County and also has membership from Jefferson, Kitsap and Mason counties.
The Washington Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed the resolution a week earlier.
“Celebrate Elwha!” will be a cluster of mid-September events ranging from a science symposium to sunset cruises and concerts.
Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman, and Russ Veenema, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce executive director, both declined to comment on the passage of the resolution Saturday night, saying they wanted to review the resolution first.
The resolution, spearheaded by Whetham, said the $324 million dam removals project — the largest in the nation’s history — should not be celebrated because the Park Service didn’t create a project labor agreement to govern dam removal workers’ wages.
“It is in support of the injured 19 Watts Constructors employees,” Whetham said Saturday.
Whetham said Watts, which had to pay $32,721 in back wages to 19 workers building a water treatment plant for the project for misclassifying their jobs, also brought in workers from as far away as Guam to do work that could have been done by local labor.
“With one voice, we ask in support of the affected workforce that all friends of organized labor boycott the Elwha River celebrations,” said the proposed resolution he sent to the council.
The proposed resolution also asked that Washington’s congressional delegation contact President Barack Obama about the lack of a project labor agreement.
The wording may have been changed before it was adopted. The wording of the adopted resolution was not available Saturday evening.
Workers will be paid prevailing wages for the area, a requirement of the federal Davis-Bacon Act, which governs wage structures for public works projects, according to the National Park Service, the lead agency for the project.
Samantha Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Park Service’s Denver Service Center, has said prevailing wages exceeded $31 an hour for power equipment operators, $35 an hour for carpenters and $40 an hour for electricians.
Whetham said a project labor agreement would guarantee that workers not be misclassified on a pay scale lower than what they should be.
Barnard Construction Co. Inc. of Bozeman, Mont., won the $27 million, three-year contract to tear down the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams, beginning Sept. 17.
Company project manager Brian Krohmer has estimated that the company will have 12 to 14 of its own workers, about half of those administrative personnel, out of an estimated 40 workers at the peak of construction.
Krohmer said local subcontractors include Bruch & Bruch Construction Inc., Northwestern Territories Inc., Straits Electric, Pacific Office Equipment Inc., Star Welding & Wrenching, N C Power Systems and United Rentals, all of Port Angeles, and D&H Enterprises of Forks.
Tear-down of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams on the Elwha River is expected to last three years.
The Elwha River Restoration Project is intended to restore salmon habitat.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.