THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607040586
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 76 lines
Planes towing banners along the Virginia Beach Oceanfront this weekend will be advertising more than the usual seafood buffets and drink specials.
One tow-plane banner will offer tourists advice on how to get home: ``Avoid Bay-Bridge Tunnel construction, Take I-64 and I-95 home.''
The banner is just one sign of an escalating labor dispute between several local unions and the contractor building a second span of the 17.6-mile Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel.
The unions in May said they would encourage a ``consumer boycott'' of the bridge-tunnel in an attempt to hit the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel District where it hurts - right on its $10, one-way toll.
They've tried passing out handbills on the bridge-tunnel and demanding answers at the tunnel district commission's monthly meetings. Now, they're taking their case directly to the public in the form of a travel advisory on The Weather Channel, a billboard on Interstate 95 and the planes flying over the beach.
The latest union tactics don't spell out much about the dispute. They just suggest that travelers face ``potential delays due to construction'' on the bridge-tunnel. The unions' names aren't even on the tow-plane banner, which made its debut in June.
But their names are on two other advertisements. A trailer that has rolled across the bottom of reports on The Weather Channel since last month says, ``To avoid construction and reduced speed limits on the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel, use alternate routes I-64 and I-95'' and is signed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners local 613 in Norfolk.
A billboard in Wilmington, Del., scheduled to be completed today, offers similar advice and is sponsored by the Operating Engineers, local 147. The billboard is strategically located just before travelers would exit onto U.S. Route 13 to head down the Eastern Shore and across the bridge.
Jim Brookshire, executive director of the bridge-tunnel district, says the commission has no plans to counter the unions' message with advertising of its own. But the commission is not pleased.
``There's freedom of speech in this country, and their wording is not an untruth but it is misleading,'' Brookshire says. ``These ads give the impression of being a public service announcement, which they are not.
``They are public disservice ads, I believe.''
There have been few delays on the bridge-tunnel due to construction, Brookshire said, and the speed limit has been reduced from 55 mph to 45 mph on just a small stretch of the span.
The unions claim the contractor, a joint venture called PCL/Hardaway/Interbeton, pays substandard wages and provides substandard benefits.
The contractor and the tunnel district commission say PCL/Hardaway/Interbeton won the $200 million job fair and square - by offering the lowest bid - and can hire as it wishes.
So far, the boycott seems to have had little impact on the public's travel habits. Last month, 236,682 cars and light trucks crossed the bridge-tunnel, an increase of 1.8 percent over June 1995. Last month's total was the highest June number the commission had counted since the bridge-tunnel opened in 1964.
Nonetheless, the unions say they are pleased with the responses they get when they pass out handbills at the Seagull Pier on the bridge-tunnel. And they'll continue to use whatever methods they can think of to pressure the tunnel commission and the contractor.
Already, they jumped at the chance to make their case that the contractor is not hiring local workers when six alleged illegal aliens were arrested last month while working on the project.
They've also photographed alleged safety violations and sent the pictures to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And they've written to Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street underwriters suggesting that the boycott may ``impact bondholders and projected revenue streams'' that would be used to make bond payments.
``We are going to escalate this thing and do what we have to do,'' says Ray Davenport, president of the Virginia State Building and Construction Trades Council. ``This is just the beginning.'' ILLUSTRATION: The Virginian-Pilot color file photo
Unions hope to encourage a boycott of the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge
Tunnel. by CNB