At the base of the monolithic Matthew Knight Arena construction site, a small gathering of local electrical workers picketed their cause to passing cars and doled out flyers to pedestrians.
About a dozen members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ central Oregon chapter, IBEW 280, a local union based out of Tangent, stood on Franklin Boulevard wielding signs. One read, “Shame On Hoffman Construction, JMI and U of O.”
They gathered to protest the University’s decision to contract Hoffman Construction, which in turn contracted Bergelectric for the massive arena project. Bergelectric is headquartered in Escondido, Calif., but has a branch in Portland.
“The biggest thing is that it’s not going locally,” union representative Bill Kisselburgh said. “It’s an out-of-state contractor, and it’s not doing this community any good at all.”
Kisselburgh said the decision to outsource the electrical work for the arena was especially souring to local workers, given the current economic climate.
“This is a huge job, and in these economic times it’s really devastating to this community,” he said. “We would prefer that it went union, but that is not our biggest gripe here — our biggest gripe here is that it did not go local. It’s just local taxes and taxpayers’ money going out of state.”
IBEW 280 member Les Roberts interjected from behind his sign, “Just ask how many of our guys have season passes?”
Representatives from Bergelectric did not respond to interview requests.
Representatives from Hoffman Construction could not comment by press time.
Kisselburgh also said he was suspicious of the bidding process in the lead-up to the
arena construction.
“We’re having a hard time getting all the payment records from the University,” he said. Kisselburgh said the University-Bergelectric deal lacked transparency.
But Darin Dehle, the University’s director of capital construction, maintained there was nothing unorthodox about the project’s contracting.
“We followed the same process this time around,” Dehle said. “Every contractor in the area had a chance at the bid.”
“Some of the complaints, I know, had to do with getting the records,” he continued. “I believe that information on the prevailing wage rate and the bid solicitation have been released — maybe not in as timely a fashion as some would like.”
The IBEW 280 flyers implored those with allegiance to their cause to e-mail University President Richard Lariviere and ask him to consider hiring local electricians for the project.
“The records show that, of the 28 employees on this project, 26 are from Oregon,” Dehle said. “It is a Portland contractor, so they’re going to bring on some workers from that area.”
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