By David Taber

The Board of Aldermen last week took a stand in support of striking billboard workers, unanimously requesting the city to cease any efforts to accommodate Clear Channel Communications. The company owns at least 32 billboards in the city.

‚ÄúThis is a multibillion dollar corporation that is not paying a fair days wage for a fair days work,‚Äù said Ward 6 Alderman Rebakah Gewirtz.  The board unanimously passed a resolution, proposed by Gewirtz, calling for an amendment to the municipal code punishing billboard maintenance violations with a permanent revocation of permits.

Additionally, the resolution requests that inspectional services investigate the structural integrity of city billboards and the certification status of out-of-state workers who have been flown in to replace the 25 striking members of the Sign and Pictorial Workers Union Local 391. ‚ÄúInspectional Services is very responsive to these types of things. I expect they will start right away,‚Äù Gewirtz said. She plans to follow up with them by the end of the week. 

And if the law department is forthcoming with language for the amendment, Gewirtz is confident the permit revocation amendment will make it through the legislative matters committee quickly and meet with approval from the board, she said.    

Union member John Breault, who has been working on the billboards for 28 years, and has been participating in roving pickets following the replacement workers from site-to-site, said some of the replacement workers’ safety habits have left something to be desired.

‚ÄúThere are guys who don‚Äôt wear safety belts or hard hats.  Some of them are throwing paper off the boards onto the ground without checking what they are going to hit,‚Äù he said.

The union has been on strike since mid-March, said John Laughlin, director of public and political relations for Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35, with which Local 391 is affiliated.   ‚ÄúClear Channel purchased the billboards in 2005, and we have been trying to negotiate a new contract since then,‚Äù he said.

The union has represented the billboard workers for close to 50 years under three different employers.  Their last contract was signed with their former employers, The Ackerly Group, and expired in 2005.   On March 16, claiming negotiations were at a standstill, Clear Channel unilaterally established a new set of policies, including a switch from salaried work to ‚Äòproduction pay‚Äô piecework system, which will have the effect of cutting pay by about 30 percent.  Senior billboard workers generally make between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, Laughlin said. 

The company also got rid of workers’ pension and healthcare plans and instituted a seven day workweek, Laughlin said.

In addition to Somerville, the cities of Cambridge, Revere, Everett and Chelsea have filed ordinances in support of the striking workers.  The city of Boston is considering legislation, and the mayors of a number of cities have required Clear Channel to pay for police details to deal with roving pickets following the non-union replacement workers.  Somerville‚Äôs resolution calls for police details as well.

Clear Channel has been effectively barred from Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) property as well, Laughlin said. ‚ÄúThe MBTA employees told the T, ‚Äòwe are not going to cross a picket line,‚Äô‚Äù he said  ‚ÄúThis is 25 workers facing off versus a $25 billion corporation, but communities here have been great about standing up for a small group of workers,‚Äù Laughlin said.
 

On April 19, Clear Channel stockholders will be voting on whether to sell the company to a group of private equity firms including the Boston-based company Bain Capital, Laughlin said.   If the deal goes through, the union is hopeful the company‚Äôs new owners will be more open to negotiating, Laughlin said. ‚ÄúIf they decide not to sell we are prepared for a long-term strike,‚Äù he said.

Clear Channel did not return phone calls by press time. Bain Capital spokesman Alex Stanton declined to comment on the company‚Äôs union policy. 

The dispute is especially galling, Laughlin said, because workers have been strong advocates for billboards in the state. ‚ÄúThe one real upside to billboards is the jobs they create.  We go to cities and towns and say please work with us,‚Äù he said.