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Business owner says union action ‘outlandish’
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Students arriving back at Boise State this week surely noticed the “Does BSU Support a Tax Cheat?” labor dispute banners in front of the Student Union Building and the University Inn.
The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, , set up the banners early last week to protest a non-union drywall company that contractor Keith Ormond hired on the newly-started nursing building project.
“Our issue is that Ormond … has brought a subcontractor onto the project by the name of Great White Drywall,” Ron Robbins, regional director of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said.
The union accused Martin Palasch, the owner of Great White Drywall, of withholding wages, engaging in criminal activity and accruing upwards of $2 million in tax liens.
Tax records indicate the business owner periodically failed to file quarterly tax returns to the IRS over a 10-year span. Palasch does not deny these debts.
“I’m not trying to shirk any responsibility,” Palasch said. “I can only explain what my actions were when I found out I had a serious problem.”
Palasch stated it was approximately one year ago when he discovered the tax situation. He contacted the Internal Revenue Service, as well as local tax attorney Larry Dunn, who helped Palasch make scheduled payments to decrease his debt.
“If you’re going to work on the state’s university campus you should be at least an upstanding businessman,” Robbins said. “The owner [of Great White Drywall] is not an upstanding citizen
and has no business benefiting or being paid basically in tax dollars when he’s having trouble paying his own taxes.”
Robbins also asserts that Great White Drywall withheld pay from employees and currently pays far less than industry standard.
“He’s cheated workers out of their paychecks and been convicted of that,” Robbins said.
According to the union’s document, “Great White: Unfair Predator,” eight former employees filed a wage withholding suit against Palasch in 2003.
Palasch said the employees involved were contract labor and not technically employees of the company.
“I personally never wanted to not pay someone for the work they did,” Palasch said, stating that wage disagreements are fairly common when dealing with contract labor. According to Palasch, the 2003 suit has since been settled.
Palasch also stated “industry standard” wages are subjective, and he pays his workers between $30,000 and $40,000 per year dependent on skill level.
A 2007 report by the Idaho Department of Labor sets the average wage for drywall labor at $15.37 per hour (approximately $30,000 per year).
“The union … they’re a business. They’re a big business,” Palasch said. “They have so much more money than I do. I’m just an easy target.”
He named four other non-union construction firms in the area currently being picketed by labor unions.
Palasch also said the union, which pays demonstrators $12.50 per hour to man the banners and distribute reading material, uses intimidation tactics to get its message across.
“The union pulls in front of my office … they have stickers on the back their car that shows a fist with brass knuckles on it,” Palasch said. “Brass knuckles were only made for one purpose … it’s not to do drywall.”
Almost half of “Great White: Unfair Predator” consists of Palasch’s criminal records including possession of marijuana, driving under the influence and petty theft.
Palasch explained he was raised in a bad neighborhood, and continued his deviant behavior when he moved to Idaho in 1993. All but one of the criminal charges listed occurred before 1995.
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend I walk around with a halo over my head, because I don’t, but I do think we try to be honest,” Palasch said. “And in construction not everyone tries to be.”
But union demonstrators maintain that Palasch’s financial and criminal history have given him and his company an unfair advantage in the struggling local economy.
“Healthy communities are not made up of businesses like this,” Robbins said.
MATT ALMEIDA AND CHARLOTTE TAYLOR
Arbiter Staff
