USA: Great Falls trade union officials are calling a meeting Monday evening to air concerns about the construction of International Malting Co.'s $50 million to $65 million malt plant north of Great Falls. "Right now we are trying to define exactly what our concerns are and perhaps after Monday's meeting we can do that," said Carpenters Union Local 286 Business Manager David Warner. Warner and Joe Pejko, president of the Central Labor Council, said although they've had one meeting with IMC Director of Corporate Engineering Philip VanRensburg, it's been tough to get the company's ear.
But Ralph Beltrone, president of Allsteel Building Co./Beltrone General Contracting, says Great Falls trade unions haven't done much of a job building a relationship with IMC either. "They are putting out bids on a Web site through the Billings engineering firm CTA, very similar to the way the U.S. Air Force puts out bids," Beltrone said.
Warner argues that the malt plant project falls under the state's definition of heavy highway construction so the union pay scale for carpenters is $19.85 per hour. Union pay scale of carpenters on building-class projects is $15 per hour.
But the malt plant isn't being built by a public entity and isn't subject to state construction classification regulations, Beltrone said. "The union could have gone with building-class wages on the office," Beltrone said.
Milwaukee-based IMC is acting as its own general contractor but there are Montana contractors at the site, including Mesaros Excavating, Great Falls Sand and Gravel and Wickens Construction of Lewistown.
The concrete foundation bid was won by Northcentral Construction, a Fargo, N.D., firm.
Pejko said because the project is receiving state coal tax money that the work should go to Montana businesses.
But although the Montana Board of Investments approved $33.6 million in loans for the plant from the state coal trust fund, there are no requirements to hire Montana companies to construct it.
VanRensburg was out of town until Monday and unavailable for comment. However during an interview in mid-September he said construction jobs are being awarded to the most competitive, qualified bidders, noting IMC is a private, for-profit business.

03 October, 2003