manufacturer whose employees were represented by a union unaffiliated with Sheet Metal Workers International Association. The Sheet Metal Workers Local Union took the position that local contractors could not purchase grills from a manufacturer whose plant was organized by an "inferior" union and that all grills must be purchased from a manufacturer having a collective bargaining agreement with an affiliate of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. A number of local contractors decided to ignore the Union's demands inasmuch as the local manufacturer was delivering a quality, reasonably priced product without causing job delays. To purchase grills from companies "approved" by the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union would have cost an additional 10% in purchase price, but more significantly, delivery time would have been extended from a few days for the local manufacturer to four to six weeks for the "approved" manufacturers.

One contractor, who decided to continue doing business with the local manufacturer after the Union registered its objections, arrived at one of his residential projects one morning only to find that dozens of locally manufactured grills had been smashed beyond repair. Not only was the Union unsympathetic to the contractor's plight, but instead the Union representatives immediately demanded that the contractor pay penalties ranging from $150.00 to $300.00 for purchasing grills manufactured by the "wrong" union on this and similar projects.

What followed was a virtual reign of terror of threats. grievances, work stoppages, and demands for monetary penalties directed against the sheet metal contractors and malicious damage to stored and installed grills manufactured by the local company. The end result was that the local contractors could no longer afford to buy grills from the local manufacturer at any price.

4. One contractor, in estimating a small garden-type apartment building, determined that the air conditioning system would require only a small amount of duct work and that, therefore, costs on the job would be much lower if rigid fiberglass pipe could be used instead of metal duct. The contractor felt that the Union should have no objection to this substitution on a "residential" job. Unfortunately, the contractor was in error. The Union quickly took the position that this small apartment building was not a "residential" job and that the use of rigid fiberglass pipe deprived Union members of work and was, therefore, impermissible. In addition to refusing to permit the men to install the pipe, the Union filed charges against the contractor alleging violation of the labor agreement and seeking monetary penalties. The charges were eventually heard by a grievance panel which included a representative of the International Union. While concluding that the contractor had committed a technical violation of the labor agreement by purchasing rigid fiberglass pipe, the panel decided the Local Union's position was somewhat unreasonable and that the contractor should be permitted to complete some seven or eight small apartment projects for which fiberglass pipe had already been purchased. According to the contractor, the President of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association advised the Local Union that the contractor should be permitted to complete his existing jobs without restriction.

Quoting the contractor: "I took a bath on those next seven or eight jobs; never have I seen sheet metal workers work slower. . .”

5. A local roofing contractor, having a labor agreement with the Roofers Union, undertook to perform roofing work on a high-rise complex. In his thirty years in the roofing business in the Miami area, the contractor had always purchased roofing sheet metal items, including stucco stops, gravel stops, and assorted flashings, from local distributors and had installed these items on job sites utilizing his normal complement of Union roofers. When the roofing contractor began his highrise project, the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union decided that the roofing company was going to fabricate its own stops and flashings rather than purchase them from a local distributor and that these stops and flashings would be installed only by Sheet Metal Workers. When the Union determined that the roofing contractor was taking a hard-nosed attitude, it commenced a harassment campaign consisting of threats of work stoppages, demands for monetary penalties, and grievances seeking assorted damages. At one point, the roofing contractor complied with the Union's demands for payment of a monetary penalty for purchasing non-union sheet metal roofing materials.

The highlight of the Union's harassment campaign occurred when a Union business agent advised the roofing contractor that if he did not capitulate to the Union's demands, the Union would file "more and more grievances and more and

more charges" and would attempt to put him out of business as it had done with other companies, including the roofing contractor's brother-in-law.

Faced with the equally unpalatable alternatives of either purchasing sheet metal fabrication equipment and hiring Union sheet metal workers or purchasing the materials in dispute from a construction sheet metal shop at twice the normal price, the roofing contractor decided to resist the Union's demands and seek relief through the procedures of the National Labor Relations Board. (Under current principles of labor law, private parties cannot proceed directly to court to obtain injunctive relief against a labor organization in a case of this nature.) For some unexplained reason, the Board, although agreeing with the roofing contractor's position, took many months before it sought and obtained injunctive relief. Even then, the injunctive relief applied only to the Union's threats of work stoppages and did not restrict the Union from filing harassment grievances seeking damages against the roofing contractor in the amount of the difference between the purchase price of his roofing sheet metal materials from his normal supplier and the cost of producing the same materials in a Union sheet metal shop paying construction wages.

Inasmuch as the roofing contractor purchased a substantial volume of such products and the application of the aforementioned formula would more than double his material costs, he capitulated to the Union's demands, purchased sheet metal fabrication equipment, and hired Sheet Metal Workers. Ironically, the Labor Board, over a year later, decided that the Union's harassment grievances were just as unlawful as its threats to picket and engage in work stoppages. (The decision of the Board appears in 196 NLRB No. 12.) Unfortunately, even if the Union elects to comply with the Board's decision and permit the roofing contractor to resume purchasing rather than fabricating the subject sheet metal products, the contractor has already suffered a year of substantially increased costs as a result of the unavailability of a private right of enforcement, including injunctive relief, without the involvement of a federal agency.

6. At about the same time as the aforementioned roofing material case, the Sheet Metal Workers Union engaged in a boycott of factory-fabricated products at four major federally assisted projects. While these projects involved hospital and airport rather than residential construction, they are noted here for the purpose of showing the extremely flagrant and unreasonable nature of the Union's product boycott activities.

On each of the four projects, the design engineer specified certain high and medium efficiency filter assembly units manufactured by two out-of-town manufacturers. These pre-tested medium and high efficiency filter assembly units were designed to be used in conjunction with specified filters ranging in efficiency from 30% to 90%. (The average low efficiency filter--e.g., household filter, has an efficiency rating of less than 10%.) According to the design engineers, these specified factory-fabricated filter assembly units had to be installed at the airport job because previously installed low efficiency filter systems had been incapable of handling the extreme air pollution at the airport and properly protecting the air conditioning units from fouling. With respect to the hospital jobs, the special factory-fabricated high and medium efficiency filter assembly units were necessary to filter out minute particles, including bacteria, before they reached the critical hospital areas.

Upon inspecting the filter assembly units after receipt by the sheet metal contractor and prior to installation, the Union representatives and members determined that they did not bear yellow Sheet Metal Workers Union labels indicative of fabrication by members of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association receiving construction wages. In fact, both manufacturers were "union"-one having a contract with a production local of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association and the other a contract with the United Auto Workers. Based on the fact that the filter assembly units lacked the "proper" union label, the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union took the position that no installations would be made at the respective job sites unless the sheet metal contractors paid a substantial monetary penalty. (The formula to be used to determine the amount of the penalty was as follows: The difference between the wages paid to local construction sheet metal workers and the wages paid by the manufacturer to his production employees multiplied by the hours it would have taken for local construction Sheet Metal Workers to field fabricate the units.)

After experiencing about two weeks' of the Union's refusal to install the filter assembly units, one of the two sheet metal contractors involved capitulated and paid the penalty demanded by the Union. The other contractors stubbornly refused to comply with the Union's outrageous demands and elected to await the outcome of Labor Board charges filed by the manufacturers against the Union. In the meantime, five months elapsed before the filter assembly units were installed. Even then, they were installed only after the Labor Board advised the Union that it would seek injunctive relief based on the charges filed by the manufacturer many months before the units were installed.

The irony of the case is that the Union claimed that it had a right to fabricate the high and medium efficiency filter assembly units at construction wage rates. Yet, none of the local contractors had the expensive tools, dies, and testing equipment necessary to fabricate such units and guarantee that they performed as specified by the design engineer. To purchase the type of testing equipment and hire the quality-control personnel necessary to guarantee the efficiency of the units (as did the out-of-town manufacturers) specified by the engineer would involve an expenditure of many thousands of dollars.

7. In March, 1972, at about the same time the Labor Board was finding that the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union had engaged in illegal product boycott activities in both the roofing material and the filter assembly unit cases, the Union struck again. This time, the Union claimed that certain kitchen equipment purchased by an owner-developer for installation at a high-rise apartment project had been made by an "inferior union". The Union directed its members not to install the kitchen equipment and picketed the project causing a complete cessation of operations. As the "price" for installation, the Union demanded that the contractor pay a penalty of 25¢ for each pound of kitchen equipment purchased. When it became apparent that the Sheet Metal Workers would not install the kitchen equipment, the equipment was stored in a vacant area of the building.

A few weeks later, the general contractor decided that preparation must be made to install the kitchen equipment with or without the Sheet Metal Workers. Accordingly, supervisory personnel installed some tap-outs (i.e., links to the duet exhaust system) to prepare for installation of the kitchen hoods, which were included in the boycotted kitchen equipment. The next day, it was discovered that persons, thus far unknown, had poured acid over the kitchen counter tops and had smashed and scratched the hoods and refrigeration equipment. Coincidentally, when the manufacturer sent a crew to the job for the sole purpose of trying to salvage and repair the damaged equipment, the Union reinstated its picketing, which it had earlier removed once it became apparent that the kitchen equipment could not be installed. Once again, all of the crafts refused to cross the picket line and the job was completely shut down. The picketing continued until the manufacturer's repair crew was removed from the job and Labor Board charges were filed. Damages resulting from the Union's actions may run as high as $100,000.00.

Apart from the ad hoc product boycotts and restrictive work practices engaged in by the Union, it should be noted that the base labor agreement itself contains numerous clauses which restrict the contractor's ability to utilize cost-saving materials, methods and procedures. (A copy of the labor agreement is attached as Exhibit "A".) Examples of such clauses are the following:

A. Article II-Section 2: This clause states that the sheet metal contractor can only purchase sheet metal material "claimed" by the Union from manufacturers, who pay their employees wages equivalent to the construction rate of $10.00 per hour. Inasmuch as there are no manufacturers, who pay their employees $10.00 per hour, the practical impact of the clause is that almost every local sheet metal contractor has been forced to become a manufacturer, to purchase expensive shop equipment, and to hire large numbers of shop Sheet Metal Workers at the $10.00 an hour construction rate in order to produce sheet metal products, which can be purchased elsewhere at 10 to 50% of the contractor's cost.

B. Article VIII-Section 3: This clause permits purchase of some prefabricated sheet metal products from companies having contracts with production locals of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, but expressly limits the use of prefabricated pipe and fittings to single-family residences. According to local contractors, the use of purchased, fabricated pipe and fittings would result in a substantial reduction of costs on most federally assisted projects. For

example, the purchase of three-inch pipe from a manufacturer would cost about 15¢ per foot, while the same pipe fabricated in a local construction shop would cost about 45¢ a foot. Similarly, elbows can be purchased at 27¢ a unit, while local construction shop fabrication would cost $1.80 to $2.50 a unit or six to eight times the available purchase price. In addition to the savings resulting from the purchase of the fabricated pipe and fittings, the purchased pipe is available in lengths desired by the contractor, but similar construction shop fabricated pipe comes only in very short lengths. Thus, where construction shop fabricated pipe is used, different pieces of pipe must be taped and screwed together at the job site in order to achieve the desired length. This results in the expenditure of an additional one-half a man hour (i.e., $5.00 at the current construction rate) to prepare for the installation of eight to ten feet of pipe.

C. Article XXX: This clause requires the sheet metal contractor to bid and perform any and all the general contractors and/or owners work, which the Inion is claiming or can claim as sheet metal work, even if the general contractor does not desire the sheet metal contractor to perform some of this work. This clause restricts the general contractor's right to effect economies by purchasing prefabricated products and/or utilizing other crafts and subcontractors to perform work, which would have the effect of eliminating the need for additional sheet metal work. For example, the general contractor on a military barracks project, decided that he could avoid having to lay certain sheet metal duct work in a given area because his union carpenters had constructed a double ceiling, which could be used to convey air from the air conditioning units to the individual rooms in the barracks. The Sheet Metal Workers took the position that the double ceiling should have been built by its members and the sheet metal contractor had violated the labor agreement (although he had never been invited to bid the disputed work). Another defect of this clause is that the sheet metal contractor cannot restrict his bid to the work, which he is capable of performing profitably, efficiently, and economically. By the same token, the general contractor knows that if he does not assign almost anything that can even remotely be considered sheet metal work or a substitute thereof, he runs the risk of "trouble" from the Sheet Metal Workers.

D. Article XXXI: This clause severely restricts the use of flexible hose. Flexi ble hose has practical application in situations where wiring and other hardware set in a ceiling makes it difficult to utilize straight metal duct work and rigid elbow fittings. In these circumstances, the use of flexible hose eliminates the need for extensive lay-out work and fabrication of costly fittings and angled duct work. Further, there is a substantial savings in installation costs inasmuch as the flexible hose is easily bent on the job site to circumvent the ceiling ob stacles encountered.

We submit that there can be no valid contention that restrictive work practices and restrictions on the use of prefabricated products are more than offset by the increased productivity of the individual Union members at the job site. In this regard, one sheet metal contractor recently advised us that six years ago his Union Sheet Metal Workers earning from $6,000.00 to $7,000.00 could make complete fiberglass duct pipe installations in eight houses in the course of a 40-hour work week. The same worker today earns $16,000.00 to $18,000.00 a year, works a 35-hour work week, and installs only four homes in a week. (Other contractors point out that the seven-hour a day Sheet Metal Worker physically works only 41⁄2 hours a day inasmuch as he spends 22 hours a day eating lunch, taking coffee breaks, washing up, and loading and unloading his tools. Of course, should he be "forced" to work beyond the seven-hour work day, he must be compensated at the rate of $20.00 per hour.) Should there be any doubt in the minds of the members of the distinguished Subcommittee that there exists a productivity crises in the construction industry, both the FECSMCA and the AGC invite each of you, at your convenience, to participate in a guided, visual tour of South Florida construction job sites.

In summary, the associations believe that there exists no justification for restrictive work practices and restrictions on the use of prefabricated materials. From our experience, these restrictions result in substantially increased costs in all types of construction, including federally assisted residential projects. Accordingly, we endorse and support S. 3373 as an appropriate and necessary measure to increase productivity in our industry.

EXHIBIT "A"

1969-72 AGREEMENT ENTERED INTO BETWEEN FLORIDA EAST COAST SHEET METAL CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION, INC., AND SHEET METAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL UNION No. 223

Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties, Fla.

STANDARD FORM OF UNION AGREEMENT

SHEET METAL, ROOFING, VENTILATING AND AIR CONDITIONING CONTRACTING DIVISIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Agreement entered into this 1st day of July, 1969, by and between Florida East Coast Sheet Metal Contractors' Association, hereinafter referred to as the Employer, and Local Union 223 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, hereinafter referred to as the Union for Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties, Florida.

ARTICLE I

SECTION 1. This agreement covers the rates of pay, rules and working conditions of all employees of the employer engaged in but not limited to the (a) manufacture, fabrication, assembling, handling, erection, installation, dismantling, conditioning, adjustment, alteration, repairing and servicing of all ferrous or non-ferrous metal work of U.S. No. 10 gauge or its equivalent or lighter gauge and all other materials used in lieu thereof and of all air-veyor systems and air handling systems regardless of material used including the setting of all equipment and all reinforcements in connection therewith; (b) all lagging over insulation and all duct lining; (c) testing and balancing of all air-handling equip ment and duct work; (d) the preparation of all shop and field sketches used in fabrication and erection, including those taken from original architectural and engineering drawing or sketches, and (e) all other work included in the jurisdictional claims of Sheet Metal Workers' International Association. See addenda, article XXX, XXXI, and XXXII.

ARTICLE II

SECTION 1. No Employer shall subcontract or assign any of the work described herein which is to be performed at a job site to any contractor, subcontractor or other person or party who fails to agree in writing to comply with the conditions of employment contained herein including, without limitations, those relating to union security, rates of pay and working conditions, hiring and other matters covered hereby for the duration of the project.

SECTION 2. Subject to other applicable provisions of this Agreement, the Employer agrees that when subcontracting for prefabrication of materials covered herein, such prefabrication shall be subcontracted to fabricators who pay their employees engaged in such fabrication not less than the prevailing wage for comparable sheet metal fabrication, as established under provisions of this Agreement.

ARTICLE III

SECTION 1. The Employer agrees that none but journeymen and apprentice sheet metal workers shall be employed on any work described in Article I.

ARTICLE VIII

SECTION 1. The minimum rate of wages for journeymen sheet metal workers covered by this Agreement when employed in a shop or on a job within the jurisdiction of the Union to perform any work specified in Article I of this Agreement shall be $ per hour, except as hereinafter specified in Section 2 of this Article. (see addenda article XIV)

SECTION 2. On all work specified in Article I of this Agreement, fabricated and/or assembled by journeymen sheet metal workers and/or apprentices within the jurisdiction of this Union, or elsewhere, for erection and/or installation within the jurisdiction of any other Local Union affiliated with Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, whose established wage scale is higher than

80-741-72-11