RECREATION CENTER PROJECT BACK ON TRACK

Construction has resumed on the Student Recreation Center project at Southeast Missouri State University.

Workers returned to the New Madrid Street job site Thursday after university officials received assurances that painters on the job would be paid the state-mandated prevailing wage.

"I understand everybody was back at work today," said Al Stoverink, facilities management director for the university.

A labor union's dispute with a painting subcontractor shut down the project Tuesday, except for work being done by the subcontractor's non-union painters.

Workers in other trades walked off the job after Painters Local Union 1292 picketed the construction site.

Leon Lefler, field representative and organizer for District No. 2 of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades, said the union suspected Jerry Hotop Painting wasn't paying the prevailing wage.

The Missouri Division of Labor Standards sets the prevailing wage in a region for any construction work that is done for local governments and state institutions and agencies.

Contractors have to pay the prevailing wage, but they don't have to use union labor.

Jerry Hotop, who owns the Perryville painting company, said he is paying his workers the required wage.

Stoverink said Sverdrup, a St. Louis firm that is managing the construction project, insisted that the wage law is being followed.

He said the university informed the Missouri Division of Labor Standards of the situation.

"As long as we continue to monitor and make sure those wages are being paid as we routinely do, I don't see there will be any problem," Stoverink said.

The $5.3 million project to expand the Student Recreation Center is slated to be finished by the end of the summer.