The issue came to light Tuesday after the council awarded a $7.2 million bid to Quigg Bros. of Aberdeen for the first phase of rebuilding Percival Landing.
In the public-comment period that followed, two people spoke against the bid, saying Quigg Bros. pays substandard wages. Chuck Gotcher of Rainier, a representative of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said the city should delay awarding the bid.
“They’re not an area standard contractor,” he said in an interview later. “There’s an area standard wage that is a wage that is basically decided between labor and management that’s a fair wage. They don’t do that on all their projects all the time.”
State rules require the city to pay a “prevailing wage” on the project that is essentially the area standard wage, but Gotcher said the company doesn’t pay that on private projects.
When companies don’t pay the wage, “it just drags us all down,” he said.
In an interview, Quigg Bros. President John Quigg said the union is bitter because it hasn’t been able to organize his company, and his benefits package is better than those union workers receive.
“I guess with respect to their allegations, fundamentally, none of it is true, for starters,” he said. “We don’t have a relationship with them (the carpenter’s union). There is no dispute.”
Quigg said his employees are happy and have worked for him for decades.
Councilwoman Rhenda Strub moved to reconsider the contract after hearing the union’s concerns. The motion failed 5-2, with Strub and Councilwoman Janine Roe voting for reconsideration.
There are very specific criteria to approve or deny a bidder, and labor disputes aren’t one of them, Deputy City Attorney Darren Nienaber said. There also was concern that delaying awarding the project would cause the city to miss a “fish window” to do construction in Budd Inlet – a limited time because of fish habitat.
At the end of the meeting late Tuesday night, Councilman Craig Ottavelli asked that the city’s bid-award process be discussed further by the council’s general government committee, of which he is chairman. Strub asked that the city take a broader look at its contracting policies.
In an interview later, Strub said she wasn’t sure exactly what language the city’s contracts should have, but personally, “I’d like everything we do to be done with union labor.”
There is precedent for the city to have stronger bid requirements than state law. For example, the city requires all contractors that provide benefits to married couples to also offer them to domestic partners. The city turned down one of the bidders for the new City Hall, Skansksa, because it did not meet that criterion.
“The City of Olympia holds itself to a much higher standard when it comes to human rights then does the state or federal law,” she said.
Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869 mbatcheldor@theolympian.com
