My brother inspects for his company for potential EPA violations they may incur during their routine inspections. He found Some debris and fifty gallon drums in an area that had dangerous contamination. He had it roped off and submitted a clean up asap order through the chain of command, high priority as the state inspection agency and EPA were coming in five or six weeks for an inspection and it was easily over a $100K fine for the company. Those that were supposed to clean it up were union employees.
Two weeks go by and nothing is done, my brother submitted a follow up inquiry as to why this wasn’t being cleaned up through the chain of command. Another three weeks go by with an inspection eminent and he finally goes to his supervisor and says if they walk in here you are looking at a huge fine, plus they will see management was told this was an issue and probably penalties. The management dithered about saying I can’t get them to clean it up, I’ve told them.
My brother said fine, I’ll get it done and pulled his team in and they suited up, prepped their equipment and moved in and started the clean up. After a couple of hours the head union thug showed up and demanded they cease their activities this was a union job. My brother looked at his team and said continue and finish this up and looked at the union thug and said I submitted a clean up order nearly six weeks ago and follow up requests and you lazy bastards haven’t even replied. We have an inspection in two days and I’m not going to lose $200K in fines because of you sorry cracks. Get off my work site! The foreman was furious, I’ll file a complaint on you! My brother said that will take some effort and work out of you so I’m not worried about you filing a complaint, get out of here.
The EPA and state showed up the next morning, inspected and they got a clean bill of health. The union thug filed his complaint and it fell on deaf ears. Before my brother moved on to another position he had several complaints filed by the union thugs. They hated him and he returned their feelings.
My folks moved to Downingtown, PA about 35 miles west of Philadelphia when I graduated from high school in 1969 and I spent my college summers with them. During my last summer with them (1972) a huge labor dispute erupted between unions and the James Leon Altemose construction company.
Wiki --> Altemose owned and headed the non-union development and construction company and believed that employees should have the right to choose if they wanted to belong to a trade union. Altemose wanted to employ at least a portion of trade employees as non-union. The unions thought otherwise.That was the first time I ever encountered unions (that I recall) and, although I was not personally involved, I remember the violence and arson that summer very clearly (it was front page news in the papers). It was only a couple years later I encountered the union problems in Washington and Arizona.A thousand construction workers arrived at his Valley Forge, PA construction site at dawn on June 5, 1972 in cars and buses chartered by Roofers Local Union No. 30. More than $300,000 of property damaged occurred, including firebombing of equipment and construction trailers. Fire trucks were not allowed to respond because of the chaos at the site. The destruction would continue until midday when the state police arrived in riot gear. On August 17, 1972, Altemose was assaulted by two dozen men in downtown Philadelphia. The protests were estimated to have cost Altemose more than $2 million. They would delay, but not halt, the completion of construction as the hotel would eventually open in September 1973.
Altemose received the Award of Excellence in 1973 from Engineering News-Record for his work for the right of contractors to work open shop. The cover of the February 15, 1973 ENR magazine announcing the award showed Altemose and his armed bodyguard.