10
Thursday, February 14. 1980
University Daily Kansan
Wolf Creek workers allege contractor prejudices
By JEFF KIOUS
Staff Reporter
The general contractor of the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant near binghamton, New York, threatened to fire workers who are attempting to organize a union shop, according to Steven Ingram, an official of the Building and Construction Trades Council.
"Workers have told me that their foreman said that if they talk to a union, they will be fired," Inram said recently.
Workers want to unlearn, Ingram said, because they have no employee benefits, such as health insurance. They also say they want to learn that experience inexperienced foremen, Ingram said.
DANIEL DOES not want a union shop, he said, because it could not have the control and flexibility it has now.
"They would have to check with the union if they wanted to fire someone or switch them to another craft," he said.
For example, union welders must be hired through a union hall, Ingram said. The contractor must call a hall to get welders
rather than recruit nationwide through advertising.
Bob Banks, vice president of industrial relations for Daniel, said the company hired both non-union and union workers at their construction sites.
"We hire both open and closed shop workers as long as they can meet welding tests to nuclear specifications." he said.
Ingram said he did not know of any union welders who were working at the Wolf Creek plant site.
"If there are any there I don't know about them," he said. "If they're working at the plant, they were not sanctioned by a union and don't have any right to affiliation with a union. Daniel likes that."
INGRAM SAID all inexperienced welders at the plant went through a six-week training program during which they went to five hours and worked five hours each day.
"After 120 hours, the welder, according to Daniel, is able to plate weld and pipe weld," Ingram said. "After 240 hours or 12 weeks, the welder is able to plate weld that will eventually handle radioactivity."
Pat Joyce, Buffalo, Kan., a union welder, said he had applied for a welder's job at Wolf Creek Jan. 24 and was denied employment.
"I have 13 years of welding experience," he said. "But when I went in for an interview they just told me, 'We don't think we can use you.'"
Joyce said that non-union workers who had applied when he did had gone to work that day.
BANKS SAID they liked to hire at the site because the company preferred to use the local work force.
"We will set up welding schools at the plant so that local workers can train and then have a job," he said.
After they had trained, Ingram said, the non-union workers would be making a higher starting hourly wage than union welders.
"If they pass the welding test they will make $12.24 an hour," he said. "It takes a union welder 42 months to make $12.42 an hour."
But despite the high wages, workers at the plant are not satisfied with job treatment from supervisors, Ingram said.
Ingram said some welders at the plant were making $12.98 and $13.43 an hour.
"Daniel makes employees subservient," he said. "They don't want them to say anything if something takes place is wrong
"The workers feel no sense of fairness on the job site. There is not job satisfaction."
"Some welders are working on high-pressure steam lines," he said.
"Kansas Gas and Electric co-owners of the plant) has administrated 58 percent of those welds that have been x-rayed, were rejected," he said.
AND JOB satisfaction, according to Ingram, is the most important element behind good quality work.
Ingram said that having union welders on the job would drastically reduce that percentage.
HOWEVER, ONE worker at the plant, who asked to not be identified, said many workers feared harassment from supervisors if they talked to a union.
"After the company found out that if inquired, he said, "they send me to a different work area to pick up trash. I felt it was unfair," she replied. I was asked to fire me because they said I was need
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But Banks said that Daniel promoted open-door communication between workers and supervisors.
"But one month ago, they put me back in work area works. You are a firefighter, and you're beating water up my腰. It will be a witness at a trial for three workers who were fired in October for trying to set the fire."
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Last October, he made inquiries to a union hall and requested information about the nature of a union shop and subsequent benefits.
The worker has been in the plant's pipe fabrication shop since March 1977.
oriented management with a genuine concern for employees."
THE CASE has been reviewed and charges have been filed against Daniel by the National Labor Relations Board. The national court April 1 in Emporia, Ingram said it a
"Workers can talk to supervisors without fear of reprisal," he said. "We are people-
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He said there were morale problems at the plant and that many workers were interested in getting literature about unions.
"Nobody gives a damn now," he said.
"We need more pride and workmanship."
Ingram said it was not uncommon for a worker to be transferred from one job to another if he inquired about a union.
"He would be transferred to a job that he is not trained for and that has a lower wage," he said. "The company hopes that the work will be discouraged and put."
Another worker at the plant, who also asked to not be identified, said Daniel got the names of non-union workers who attended union meetings.
Since October, the worker has been distributing union authorization cards to other workers at the plant.
"We need 30 percent of all workers at the plant to sign the cards, and then we will qualify to have an election," he said. Then the workers took the vote, and the workers vote for a union in the election."
"They would try to find reasons to fire these people by setting them up to do something wrong," he said. "Or they force them to quit."
Police Beat
Lawrence Police charged Johnson with operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
A 22-year-old Lawrence resident
remained hospitalized yesterday after he was struck by a pickup truck in the 2700 block of Haskell Avenue at about 6:32 p.m. Lymvot Wound, Route 2, was attempting to pull his mother's pickup truck from a ditch near them; then another pickup truck, driven by Clyde P. Johnson, Route 2, struck Votaw's truck.
At the time of the collision, Votaw was underneath the truck. Lawrence Memorial Hospital officials said Votaw was in a condition with several leg and chest bruises.
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