NLRB: Collier cleaning company discriminated at Nova Place
A Collier-based cleaning company illegally discriminated against workers at Nova Place who engaged in certain union activities, the National Labor Relations Board alleges.
When Checklist Facility Maintenance took over cleaning last summer at the North Side complex, 100 S. Commons, the company told workers they had to give up membership in the Service Employees International Union 32BJ division and join another union in order to work for Checklist there, according to an NLRB complaint that SEIU spotlighted Friday.
The company didn’t hire 15 workers employed at the property under a previous cleaning contractor, The Huber Group, the NLRB concluded last month. An SEIU rally denounced Checklist as people arrived for work Friday at Nova Place, the former Allegheny Center Mall.
“I am currently conferring with my counsel as to the level of libel that was orchestrated today,” Checklist founder Cori Bingham said via email Friday afternoon. Last year, he denied an SEIU claim that his company wouldn’t interview organized laborers already working at Nova Place.
Labor law generally protects union activity. At the rally Friday, regional SEIU Director Sam Williamson urged Checklist to rehire workers who weren’t kept on.
“Over and over again, Checklist engaged in illegal behavior that is not in keeping with the standards that workers have created across this city, that is not in keeping with our values as Pittsburghers and that, frankly, has no place in any office building anywhere in this city,” Mr. Williamson said.
Checklist’s violations include barring cleaners from discussing their wages with one another, the NLRB alleges. Workers denied ongoing employment at Nova Place were involved in SEIU activities, according to the complaint.
The NLRB is seeking several actions, including opportunities for SEIU to meet with cleaners at the property. Although a written response filed on behalf of Checklist wasn’t immediately available Friday, a Downtown hearing on the
matter is set for April 22 before an administrative law judge.
SEIU, which sought the NLRB intervention, drew supporters Friday including Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, state Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-West View, and state Rep. Jake Wheatley, D-Hill District. More than two dozen backers gathered and chanted along a narrow street where commuters and buses arrive.
Mr. Fetterman said the issue boils down to “basic fairness.”
“I’m proud to bring the weight of the governor’s office with me, and Gov. [Tom] Wolf and I have your back every opportunity, every time,” he said.
A representative for Faros Properties, the New York developer that owns Nova Place, did not answer a message Friday.
When they were employed under Huber, the prior cleaning contractor, workers were paid $15.25 an hour, Huber’s president has said. At least one former Nova Place Huber employee visited the Checklist office and was hired for full-time work, according to a PostGazette report last July.
Mr. Bingham, the Checklist founder, was in the Nova Place concourse over several days last summer to interview potential candidates for several full-time positions, he said at the time. Because he was working with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, he said, he couldn’t display signs letting people know he was interviewing “because it would be viewed as poaching” workers from SEIU.
But employees on the property were likely aware that he was interviewing, Mr. Bingham said then.
“We’re always looking for more qualified men and women,” he said at the time.