LABOR DISPUTE AT UNIVERSITY CONSTRUCTION SITE RESOLVED

A labor dispute on a Southeast Missouri State University construction project has been resolved, a contractor and a school official said Tuesday.

Operating Engineers Local 513 last week picketed at the construction site of the Otto and Della Seabaugh Polytechnic Building on the north side of the university campus.

The labor union picketed over a labor dispute with Kenneth Foeste Masonry of Cape Girardeau.

About 32 construction workers from various trades had been working on the project. But on Thursday, only seven workers crossed the picket line.

But by Monday, the problem had been resolved, said Al Stoverink, facilities management director at Southeast.

The picketing prompted Foeste to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. But Judy Foeste, one of the owners of the masonry construction firm, said the National Labor Relations Board won't be issuing a ruling since the dispute has been resolved.

The union had charged that the contractor wasn't paying the correct prevailing wage to its workers operating construction equipment.

But Foeste said her firm had been paying the wage scale as set by the Missouri Division of Labor at the beginning of the project. "I have always paid the Operating Engineers' scale any time I have a laborer on a (fork)lift," she said.

Foeste said the wage rate increased slightly since the wage initially was set. The total difference was minimal, she said, amounting to $14.28 over three weeks.

"I was legal as far as the Prevailing Wage Law went," she said.

St. Louis lawyer Ron Gladney represents the Operating Engineers union. He couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.