Local Unions Protest Planet Fitness Contractor

A local electricians union is among a group of unions claiming that the company renovating the new  at  is not complying with area pay standards and using non-union workers.

I.B.E.W. Local 134 and other local unions say Griffith, IN-based Meyer's Cos., one of the contractors renovating the former Office Depot, is exploiting workers by paying them lower wages without benefits.

Workers “should be able to afford (necessities) and if they get hurt, they should be able to afford care,” according to Sean Lee, a union electrician who protested the property last week. “If they don’t want to use them, that’s fine, but not at the peril of the employees making substandard wages and benefits."

Local trade unions are taking turns protesting the construction company. Lee said carpenters and tilesetters unions have picketed.

Bill Cosgrove, another Local 134 member and nearby Mt. Greenwood resident, said Meyer's Cos. is not following union safety standards either.

Both he and Lee, an Englewood resident, said they have been out of work for nearly two years. Cosgrove said the low wages and safety issues are a byproduct of the bad economy, and that not enough is done to assist building construction.

“The president gave money to construction, but that just included infrastructure … roads and bridges," Cosgrove said, adding that construction projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 did not include building construction—something he believes could have improved on current conditions. “Everybody cries about putting people back to work and then they go and let this happen. Then (unions) are usually the ones they call to fix the problems.”

In a village where many union members and construction workers live and are out of work, Mayor James Sexton said he's dismayed few of them work on the project.

"We always encourage people to hire local and union people so we can put some of the local people here to work, but it didn't appear to me that they had a lot of local contractors," Sexton said, nothing that by law, the village can't mandate whether a company uses union or local labor. "There are quite a few union workers in and around Evergreen Park and we hope to get them all back to work. They're in tough times."

Meyer's Cos. is responsible for constructing the electrical, mechanical and plumbing for the new fitness center, according to the . Company representatives did not return calls for comment.