Union pickets at Sharon Heights country club Union pickets at Sharon Heights country club (March 06, 2002)

If you drove down Sand Hill Road near the Interstate 280 entrance last week, you might have noticed the dozen or so picketers holding jaunty signs at the entrance to the Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club.

They were from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 617, which represents electricians in San Mateo County, they said, and their issue March 1, and the day before, was with S.J. Amoroso, the general contractor working on the country club's new clubhouse.

A spokesman for the picketers, who declined to give his name, said representatives from S.J. Amoroso had taken pictures and written down license plate numbers of the protesters when they were picketing another company at that location earlier in the week.

Such tactics are intimidating and amount to an "unfair labor practice," the man said. "We don't have an issue with the country club," he added.

"S.J. Amoroso denies any wrongdoing and is in full compliance with all NLRB standards," said CEO Dana McManus. The NLRB is the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that investigates unfair labor practices.

The picketers originally came to the site February 26 to picket Rex Moore, electrical contractor on the clubhouse project, because they don't pay their workers standard area wages and benefits, the same spokesman picketer said.

Greg Anderson, human resources director for Rex Moore, defended his company's $29 an hour wage (plus benefits), saying union wages are not necessarily an area's standard.

The mean hourly wage for electricians in an area made up of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties was $29.01 an hour in 2001, according to an employment statistics survey done by California's Employment Development Department. The median wage was $27.49, the survey said.

Union wages in San Mateo County were $35.80 in 2001, according to Mr. Anderson.

S.J. Amoroso chooses subcontractors based on quality and price, and union as well as open shop subcontractors were asked to provide proposals for the project, said Mr. McManus.