WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, Members of both the Buffalo and Rochester Building Trades Councils gathered in Batavia Wednesday (December 18th) to protest the Genessee County Economic Development Center’s (GCEDC) granting of a waiver of a local hiring provision that would have been attached to the half-billion-dollar, 500-megawatt Cider Solar Project - New York State’s largest, that’s being built in Elba and Oakfield.  Trades Representative protested the removal of guardrails needed to ensure local Workers are employed on the massive project and vowed to continue public actions until they can get answers and work to turn the situation around.  (WNYLaborToday.com Photos)

(BATAVIA, NEW YORK) – Anger and frustration doesn’t even begin to describe how the Buffalo and Rochester Building Trades Unions feel about the exclusion of local Workers on the half-billion-dollar, 500-megawatt Cider Solar Project - New York State’s largest, that’s being built in nearby Elba and Oakfield when taxpayer dollars are being used by the Genessee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) and New York State to fund the project.

And when you factor in a poverty rate of 13.6% in Genessee County and the dire need to provide good-paying jobs with benefits and pensions for those resident taxpayers to help pull themselves out of their own problems, the Trades’ anger and frustration is beginning to boil over.

That’s why on Wednesday (December 18th) nearly 50 Unionized Trades Representatives and Members protested outside the County’s Economic Development Center in Batavia to call public attention to what is going on and to begin the process of holding GEDC President and CEO Mark Masse (whose face was painted green like a Christmas Grinch on a banner created by the Trades and used at the protest) accountable for what his organization has done to Working People by providing the developer - Chicago’s Hecate Energy, with a local hiring waiver on the project. 

The project is being developed on 2,200 acres of land and it is anticipated as many as 600 construction jobs will be created over the course of time.

Those who participated in the process carried signs that read: Local Jobs For Local Workers, while a nearby Laborers’ video truck flashed several individual messages: Why Did The Genessee EDC Sell Our Local Workers Down The River?, Why Is Hecate Not Doing Right By Our Local Workers?, When You Think Solar Think Genesee Laborers and NYSERDA Must Know What The Genesee EDC Is Allowing To Happen!

In a Building Trades press release, the Unions said: “This means skilled, local Workers will be cut off from solid, good-paying jobs that support their families, while out-of-town Workers not trained to perform this work reap the benefits.”

Building Trades Leaders from Buffalo and Rochester - whose jurisdictions both cross over to include Genesee County, want to know why a waiver was provided to the company that allowed them to slip out of an agreement to hire local Workers.

They also want the local hire agreement to be reinstated.

The GEDC’s policy - normally, is for 90% of the project’s workforce to be hired locally when taxpayer dollars are provided for a project.

“‘We want people to pay attention to what is going on here,’” Rochester’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 86 President Tim Longbine said, “because the government is giving away our tax dollars” without a return or promise to hire local Workers.

According to Rochester Building Trades President Grant Malone (who also serves as District Manager of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 158/District 832), the GEDC applied for a waiver for Hecate after failing to address a Project Labor Agreement for the project.

That GEDC decision came via advice from a third party (the Rochester-based Construction Consulting Group of Loewke & Brill) that reviewed the GEDC project hiring provisions, Malone said.

“‘We’re asking how that decision (the hiring waiver) was vetted, but it hasn’t been answered,’” Malone told WNYLaborToday.com.  “‘We have a lot of local people here who could be working on this project.’  ‘Now they’ve pushed us into a corner and we have got to react.’”

Laborers Local 435 Business Manager Dan Kuntz said: “‘Each dollar spent here goes through the local economy seven times’ (alluding to the fact that money made by out-of-town Workers on the solar project will not ultimately stay within Genesse County).  ‘It’s our tax money that comes out of our community’ (that fund these types of projects).  ‘We understand most of the solar work will be done by out-of-town’ Workers.  ‘We want answers, but (the GEDC) keeps kicking the can down the road.’  ‘All we are getting is excuses.’”

Buffalo’s International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 17 Business Manager Bill Fekete (pictured below, addressing Trades Members) said: “‘We feel the GEDC laid down on this one (waiving a local hire provision) and just didn’t do their due diligence.’”

Asked what may be next if the Building Trades Unions don’t get answers or whether or not the project is indeed allowed to ship in out-of-town Workers in the end, Fekete said: “On the job demonstrations.”

Representatives from Buffalo’s IBEW Local 41 also participated in the protest.

Meanwhile, with State funding also going into the project, Trades Leaders have reached out to the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to not only make them aware of what is going on in Western New York, but for answers on the exclusion of a local hire agreement.

In addition, from what WNYLaborToday.com has been told, there is also a high degree of anger and frustration on the State Building Trades level. 

Just this week, the New York State Building Trades discussed what is transpiring in Batavia.

If it is allowed to happen on this solar farm project in Western New York, State Trades Leaders are fearful that other county industrial development agencies could mimic what the GEDC has done on similar projects in their locals in the future, sources said.

Two Trades Reps who requested anonymity told WNYLaborToday.com that the Building Trades Unions are tired of continually calling attention to the problem of IDAs getting away with bypassing the use of local Labor while cutting deals with out-of-town contractors who eventually get away with bringing in hundreds of Workers from across the country to their area.

“These people ‘don’t live here and they don’t pay taxes here - tax money that our Members pay and are being used on projects like these,’” one said. “‘I’m so damn tired of being out here drawing attention to a major problem that they don’t care about correcting.’”

“‘I’m fed up and I know more and more in Labor have had it too.’  ‘There comes a time when you finally learn a lesson,’” the other said.

The two also offered that maybe it is time for Organized Labor to take a long, hard look at the process and begin to draw a line in sand, including not issuing political endorsements and/or make monetary contributions unless those who say they passionately support Working People put their money where their mouths are.