Somerville union workers and residents engaged in a contracting dispute with a private realty company have over the past few weeks picketed and rallied at the construction site of a proposed housing complex about a mile east of Davis Square, claiming that the company has violated promises to the city of Somerville that they would hire local union workers.
The dispute started late last year, when KSS Realty Partners awarded the contract to develop the first condominiums on the site, the former location of a MaxPak paper factory, to a nonunion contractor.
Somerville resident and union organizer Rand Wilson said that in doing so, KSS violated an agreement it signed with Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone in 2007 that said the city would "encourage" the Boston−based developer to hire union workers.
City of Somerville Spokesperson Michael Meehan said KSS is in full compliance with the covenant, despite selling a portion of the project to a nonunion contractor, because that stipulation is not legally binding.
"‘Encouraged' means ‘encouraged,'" he said. "It is, by definition, nonbinding."
Somerville Board of Aldermen President Rebekah Gewirtz told the Daily that the aldermen nevertheless expect KSS to respect the 2007 agreement.
"The members of the board feel really strongly that when there's this kind of language in the covenant, it should be honored," she said. "There's a certain level of frustration that an acceptable outcome hasn't been met."
KSS Realty will on Friday meet with the Boston Building Trades union, one of the unions involved in the dispute, KSS Director of Acquisitions Ted Tobin told the Daily.
Wilson said the campaign against KSS would continue until Tobin signs a project labor agreement guaranteeing that the company would hire union workers and establish universal−standards labor hiring practices on all of their projects, rather than separate standards for each trade.
"He can sit and meet with the building trades all he wants, but he's got to sign a project labor agreement," Wilson said.
Somerville Ward 5 Alderman Sean O'Donovan voiced strong support for unions and the Somerville laborers working on the project.
"The optimal outcome would be a substantial amount of union employment at that site, coupled with Somerville people in the non−union positions that would be needed to complete the project," O'Donovan told the Daily.
The projects' developers, employing workers from the firm GFC Development, plan to start construction this summer on the first of what will eventually be 199 housing units on the five−acre MaxPak site.
Pickets forced construction to a halt at the MaxPak site on March 3 and 4, and workers picketed again on March 9.
Tobin noted that the only contractor he has so far hired to begin excavation on the site, RSG Contracting, is a union contractor. RSG backed out of the project after last week's protests, the Boston Globe reported.
O'Donovan said the aldermen are counting on Curtatone's support in negotiating an agreement with KSS.
"The mayor could be instrumental," O'Donovan said.
Curtatone has been facilitating talks between KSS, Boston Building Trades and the New England Regional Council of Carpenters since late last year, Meehan said.
Somerville Alderman−at−Large Bruce Desmond introduced an amendment to the city's responsible−employer ordinance that would require all developers receiving city funding to hire local workers, though the amendment would not apply retroactively to the KSS, Gewirtz said.
"Boston has a similar ordinance that hasn't been challenged legally that has been prohibiting Somerville workers from getting jobs at Boston sites," Gewirtz said, adding that the aldermen have heard a legal opinion that the Boston ordinance would withstand a court challenge.
