Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1940 [PAGE 700]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1940]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Urbana, Illinois

697

Office of the President Honorable J. J. Madigan Acting Commissoner of Public Federal Works Agency Washington, D. C.

DEAR S I R :

January 16, 1940 Works _, . In re: Projects and Statistics—JAC:shp Docket No. 111. 1745-F

T h e progress of construction on the Illini Union Building about which you wrote me on January 8 has likewise been of concern to the Board of Trustees and to other officials of the University, particularly in view of recent labor difficulties of which we understand your office had been advised by the Regional Director's Office in Chicago prior to January 8, 1940. A good deal of the time lost in the early stages of the construction of this building has been made up since September 1. On January 2 the plumbers and steam fitters not only on this building but on two other P W A projects now under construction at the University of Illinois were ordered to cease work by a representative of the national office of the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steam Fitters. T h e avowed purpose of this strike according to statements made to University officials by representatives of the union is to persuade the University to let a contract for the installation of piping and accessories in a tunnel, under construction as a part of a new Power Plant, to a private contractor for reasons explained below. The Board of Trustees of the University had previously rejected bids on this installation because they were too high and in excess of funds available for this phase of the work. T h e Board, therefore, directed the Physical Plant Department of the University to install the tunnel piping with union labor to be employed by the University. No Federal funds are involved in the construction of the Power Plant and tunnel, which are being financed entirely through a Stale appropriation and have no connection with the construction of the three P W A projects named below on which strikes have occurred. On November 4 Mr. T. E. Cunningham, general organizer of the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steam Fitters notified the University that if this work were not let to a contractor no union labor would be made available to the University for the installation of the piping. On December 29 he notified contractors on steam fitting and plumbing jobs on three other buildings now under construction at the University that members of the local union would not appear for work on Tuesday, January 2. These three buildings which are being constructed as P W A projects are Gregory Hall, a classroom building (No. 111. 1962-F), Illini Union Building (No. 111. 1745-F), and the Natural Resources Building ( N o . 111. 1894-F), which is being constructed on the campus of the University by the State of Illinois Department of Public Works and Buildings for the State Natural History and Geological Surveys. As already stated, there is no relation between the construction of these buildings and the Power Plant and tunnel project. Cessation of work on the three P W A projects is not due to any complaint about wages, hours, or labor conditions, but simply because the University had not engaged a contractor to install the piping in the Power Plant tunnel. T h e demand that a contractor be engaged for this work would cost the State of Illinois several thousands of dollars in excess of what it will cost if the work is done by the University. This is no new policy as far as the University is concerned. It has many times since its organization constructed buildings and completed improvements when the public interest seemed better served by not letting the job to a private contractor. In all such construction work undertaken by the University only union men have been employed and for union wages, on union hours, and under union regulations. It has been admitted that the relations of the University with local union men and the local labor organization have been satisfactory in the highest degree. Hence there is no labor issue involved in this strike but simply the question of whether the University will yield to the demand, not of the local labor organizations but of one of their national officers, that the installation of piping in a project wholly unrelated to the ones on which the strike occurred be