Union Members Protest Work at Moorestown Friends School

Union carpenters picketed on Main Street Tuesday after learning a local contractor had subcontracted with a non-union firm for below “area standard wages” for work on Moorestown Friends School’s .

Roughly a dozen members of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters walked the sidewalk in front of the former Greenleaf Retirement Community—where Moorestown-based Grace Construction has been working on the school’s math classroom expansion—with signs reading “Pentel does not pay area standard wages and benefits.”

Council representative Andrew Bulakowski said the group’s protest was “not a union/non-union thing.”

“We’re protecting the area standards. That’s our purpose for being out here,” said Bulakowski, who led the picketers with bullhorn-enhanced chants of “Same work, same pay” and “Every day till the rat goes away,” among others, as they marched in a circle in front of the Greenleaf driveway.

The Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters represents about 40,000 members in New Jersey and New York, according to Bulakowski.

Grace Construction hired Pentel Drywall, a subsidiary of Burlington-based Pentel Enterprises, to do the carpentry work after inviting five union carpenters to bid on the project, according to Grace president Joe Barbara.

“And not one of them bid on the job,” he said. “I think it’s extremely ridiculous they’re coming after the fact (and protesting) … Where were they eight months ago?”

Barbara said Pentel’s rates are lower than the “standard wages” paid to unions because, “They don’t have all of the add-ons the unions would have,” like extra rates for pensions and health benefits.

Pentel declined to comment.

A call to the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters was not returned as of press time.