 |
Read the latest announcements about the Bay Area Roofing & Waterproofing Apprenticeship Program and our upgrading classes for journeymens. You can also view some photos from our different apprenticeship classes. 
Our program is pleased that our retired Director of Apprenticeship Training M. Duane Mongerson has been inducted into the California Apprenticeship Council Hall of Fame!. The announcement came during the recent California Conference on Apprenticeship in San Diego. The California Apprenticeship Council (CAC) established the California Apprenticeship Hall of Fame in 1981. Its purpose is to officially recognize individuals who, through their effort, devotion and commitment have made significant and long lasting contributions to apprenticeship in the State of California. M. Duane Mongerson is precisely such an individual. Among Duane’s noteworthy accomplishments and contributions were professionalizing the Bay Area Roofing Apprenticeship Program; authoring roofing text that are still used throughout California; testifying before the CAC on innumerable occasions; serving on countless CAC committees; and serving in leadership roles with a variety of apprenticeship organizations, including the Bay Area Apprenticeship Coordinators Association, the California Apprenticeship Coordinators Association and the California State Roofing/Waterproofing Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee. M. Duane Mongerson is the very first representative of the roofing trade to be inducted into the CAC Hall of Fame and the honor is richly deserved. Congratulations, Duane!
Shape Up at City Lunch By Yves Barbero San Francisco – It promised to be a nice warm day. At 7:30 a.m., the men, mostly of Mexican descent, or possibly from other places in Central America, were milling around, waiting to be picked up by vehicles ranging from old banged up pickup trucks, to the most modern of roofing trucks with equipment costing five or six figures.
The men can expect to work from dawn to dusk, 12 or more hours, for $60 to more than $100 if they have experience. There are no benefits, no workman‚s compensation. Payment is in cash, which is occasionally not forthcoming. Not much he can do, Sal added, even if they come to him later. There are no records. These men could be undocumented, but Sal never asks. His reason is the same as that of cops and medical personnel, who also never ask – the fear that the men will avoid contact. Cops need to be able to talk to everyone so they can’t risk alienating any group by seeming to be an arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Medical personnel want people to come to them if they have serious medical conditions. They cannot seem to be interrogators. There is no need to know patients’ immigration status to treat them. It’s not an easy task organizing these men. The shops, when they can be located, are often owned by folks who see only profit, are from vastly different cultures, and simply do not see these individuals as human beings. Hiring them is no more important than buying a ladder. It‚s something they have to do. City Lunch is located at the southern corner of Van Dyke Avenue and Ingalls Street in the bleak industrial area known as the Bayview District. Around the corner, cash changes hands at Bayview Roofing Supply for the needed materials. Some of the men loading trucks in front of the supplier objected to being photographed. Further down Van Dyke were a number of semi-permanently parked cars and vans where many of the men drink beer after work, and sleep at night. Piles of uncollected garbage are present. Many of these men, according to Sal, send the greater part of their incomes to Mexico to support their families. They can expect to make three times what is possible at home if there is work to be found in the first place. They are mostly family men doing what they can for their families. Death finds Miguel Moncada Ortiz Known to everyone as “Carlos,” Miguel Moncada Ortiz, 32, fell from a roof on July 26, 2000 in the early morning hours. He had no safety harness (none was supplied – he used a rope which he took off after “testing” the roof), no insurance, and a boss who simply didn’t care. Christie Binn Chung, the owner of 101 Roofing, the company for which Carlos worked, said to Cal/OSHA investigators when told that safety was a priority, "money first, safety second." Chung was indicted and spent a year in jail (for more details of Carlos’s death, see “Blue Collar Crime” by Adam Clay Thompson of the Bay Guardian. The story was reprinted in Organized Labor and can be found on-line at Blue Collar Crime. Details of the death were drawn from that article.).
GRC Roofing is around the other corner from City Lunch on Wallace Avenue. Steve said that there are 30 to 50 underground roofing companies in the area. That, he concedes, is a guess. There may be many more. The danger is not only the possibility of death. Roofing is one of the most dangerous jobs in construction. Dozens of roofers in the area are injured every year, and with no workers compensation, emergency room treatment is their only hope. There is no recourse for those who suffer permanent injury. The prosecution of Chung was the exception rather than the rule. His notorious behavior forced the hands of the authorities. Initially, some underground roofers were scared by the imprisonment of one of their own, and cleaned up their act to some extent, but it didn’t take long for old practices to return. If you work non-union, you will be underpaid. Compare $100 a day for a 12 hour shift with just under $40 an hour, including benefits, and overtime after eight, that a union worker can earn. And you are taking your life in your hands without insurance for your family or yourself. The equation for these men, however, is that the needs of their impoverished families take precedence over their own safety A homeowner hiring one of these underground contractors also faces a danger. Few carry liability insurance, and safety precautions remain a joke (remember also, that insurance companies insist on inspections and permits). Some techniques in roofing, such as the ‘Modified Roof System,’ use an open flame torch, and on several occasions, this technique has caused the burning down of someone’s house, or even a neighbor’s house. Homeowners should be wary, Steve warns. Not paying attention to safety can be dangerous for people passing by as well as the residents of buildings. Besides the potential human costs, lawsuits can be expensive even when you “win.”
At 51, Sal Botello has no illusions that organizing is easy. But he notes that 85% of Local 40 is Spanish speaking, so it can be done. There’s a lot to be done, he indicated, as he drove slowly up and down the seedy blocks surrounding City Lunch, pointing out which shops were unionized and which were not. Many of the latter had no business signs. He knows about these shops because he spends a lot of time in the area talking to a lot of people. The technique he uses is more than just focusing on one shop at a time, but involves understanding a whole, and largely invisible, sub-culture that exists in a world that is easily distracted. Sal has a lot to teach other union organizers. (Yves Barbero is a former member of Local 8, International Union of Elevator Constructors, and present member of the National Writers Union, UAW, AFL-CIO. He proudly maintains the website of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council at www.sfbctc.org. He is a computer consultant and can be reached at ybarbero@yvesbarbero.com.) by Steven Tucker
Stan had the foresight to know that education is important and made some long lasting improvements that are still being implemented. After a member Russell Imbeck donated some money to the Local Stan had the foresight to start a Scholarship fund for our members children that where graduating and going on to collage. During the six years that Stan was here he also was making his mark on the Labor movement In the Bay Area. Stan was Vice- President of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council and served as an Executive Board Member for the San Mateo Labor Council. Stan left Local 40 on July 2000 to take on the Secretary Treasurers position at the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council.
Stan is survived by his wife Geri, and three sons, Trent, Spencer, and Gage. I am asking that every Member make a donation to the Warren Family. Please make checks out to Geri Warren, and either send them to Local 40 or you can send them to United Labor Bank, 100 Hegenberger Road, Suite 110, Oakland, California 94621. Attention Lori.
Only after taking on the Position of Business Manager after Stan left can I truly appreciate what Stan did for Local 40. On behalf of the members of local 40 I would like to convey our deep sorrow to Geri, Trent, Spencer, and Cage for their loss.
Sincerely,  Duane Mongerson Director of Apprenticeship Training for the Bay Area Counties Roofing And Waterproofing Apprenticeship Program retired after 25 years of his life dedicated to the training needs of apprentices employed by Local 40 and 81. Duane established the pathway of our Apprenticeship Training Program and served on a Statewide Committee as an Adviser for the publication of a series of ten individually bound units of instruction for roofing apprenticeship classes establishing a rigorous curriculum on training roofers. He brought recognition and respect to the Bay Area Roofing Apprenticeship Training Program not only in the Bay Area, but to the State Level were he served as Secretary Treasurer of the California State Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee for 22 years. Thank you Duane for all your contributions to our Apprenticeship Program and enjoy your retirement. |
Sal Botello, the organizer for Roofers Local 40, had grabbed a cup of coffee from inside City Lunch (officially, City Café) and was chatting with one of the men. Some will talk to him readily, and others avoid him, afraid that the underground contractors who come around looking for bodies might avoid them for fear of the union. This man, with five years experience as a roofer, was a talker. They chatted away in Spanish.
101 Roofing is now called GRC Roofing. Same location, same people, same trucks, “different owner,” Sal said with an ironic smile. This is one of the larger underground roofers. They’re not as big as before, according to Steve Tucker, business manager of Local 40, since they no longer bid on city contracts (a scandal exposed at the time Carlos died). That would bring unwanted attention. These days, GRC only does residential work. At the time of the death of Carlos, 101 Roofing was reporting an income of $1.2 million, but prosecutors, also indicting Chung on tax fraud, said it was more like $4.3 million.
Sal came from Mexico at age 15. He worked non-union for many years. For the last 17 years he has been a union roofer, and for the last three of those years, he has been an organizer for Local 40. He enjoys listening to Spanish broadcasting as he drives from one location to another. He and Steve are responsible for organizing three shops, no mean accomplishment in an era of hostility to unions by various government entities. It is an even greater accomplishment if one considers that the employers, a good many from Asia, have no tradition of labor rights, and the workers are governed by fear of retaliation and the plight of their families.
February 1, 2005: Stanley Warren passed away at the age of 44 years old. Stan became a member in May 1979 working for Adams Roofing In Redwood City Stan also worked at Ace Roofing, Izmirian Roofing, and Blues Roofing. Stan was appointed business Manager in April of 1994 when then business manager Merv Kissinger retired, as Business manager, Stan understood that educating the members was very important and started implementing some changes to the Apprentice Program he started by having all our curriculum translated into Spanish and had the Apprenticeship Committee to agree to teach classes both in English and Spanish . Stan also realized that our Journeymen need to stay current in changes within the Industry and started Journeyman upgrade classes. Stan started a fund for a training facility for Roofers and Waterproofers that we hope will become a reality in the very near future.