Bad quality?  Calling on leaders!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

In the following letter, which I have sent to board members, candidates, union leaders, and local media, I call on all stakeholders to join me in attempting to document the truth about building workmanship at new CPS buildings.

Dear School Board Members, Candidates, Union Leaders, and Local Media:

Since I’ve hit the campaign trail, I’ve heard allegations about poor workmanship in many of the new buildings at CPS.  Teachers have told me stories while I’ve been out distributing flyers.  Union members have said the same thing at church festivals.  Even this morning, at the Avondale Youth Council forum (when I brought up the issue in response to a question), students nodded their heads in agreement.  Everyone with some inside perspective seems to know about deteriorating new buildings in the district.

But the general public does not seem to know about this.  And if it is the truth, we all have a responsibility to make it known.

I recently received an email from Steven Huffman (who gave me permission to make the letter public).  Check out this excerpt:  “Since there was no prevailing wage language included in the bid documents, the first round of schools were done mostly non-union.  Building Trades organizers were able to take pictures of some of these projects.  The craftsmanship was extremely shoddy…  A Mr. Chad Day and Chris Fridel of the IBEW may still have some of these photos in their files.”  I have tried to reach these individuals via email, and I have not yet heard back.  If there are pictures substantiating these rumors, don’t we all have an interest in acquiring them?  Will you join me in trying to make public the truth of this matter?

More from Mr. Huffman:  “One school I recall was in Avondale.  All of the contractors had high cost overruns due to the fact the the school drawings placed the school 15 feet higher than the finished product.  The plumbing contractor had over $500,000 in cost overruns to rearrange all of the pipes (this amount was higher than the total amount they had bid for the whole project).” 

Too often, the issue of union versus non-union workers is caught in political ideology.  I am not interested in ideology, but instead in the reality of our public schools.  Today, at the Youth Forum, when I mentioned that some union guys told me shoddy work was conducted by non-union contractors, some nodded their head in agreement, while some people openly scoffed—including some candidates sitting at the table right next to me.

I am not interested in opinions about unions versus non-unions.  But what is the truth here?  Are non-union jobs of poor quality compared to union jobs?  If we have spent more money than we should have paying for non-union cost-overruns, or if non-union workers have done a poor job—we all have an interest in knowing.

The opposite is also equally as informative.  If this is not true, and is just an attempt by union advocates to smear non-union contractors, then we deserve to know about that, too.  The bottom line is that we deserve to know the truth. 

Mr. Huffman explains why non-union workers might not perform work with as high a quality as a union worker:  “A reasonable explaination for this disparity is that the better trained union workers can look at a set of drawings and know that something isn’t right before it is installed, correct the problem while it is small and save future costs overruns.  Lesser trained workers may install something incorrectly because they are in a rush or uninformed.  Or their employer may wish to generate original revenue by following the drawings to the letter, then making changes later.”

So, if you get this message and you are a board member—don’t you have it in your ability to document the truth?  To either substantiate or refute the claims put forth by someone like Mr. Huffman?

If you get this message and you are a candidate—will you join me in raising this issue, advocating for openness until we manage to document what’s going on?

If you are a union leader, can you help me acquire the information needed to take awareness to the next level?

And if you are a member of the media—will you be willing to investigate this?  If you send me a response, I’ll forward you all the individual contacts Mr. Huffman gave me, along with phone numbers.

This issue goes beyond party affiliation and election-year politics.  But by virtue of our status as standing board members, candidates, union leaders, or members of media, we are all well positioned to raise public awareness—especially if we join together.

Respectfully,

Jason Haap
Candidate, Cincinnati School Board