March 1, 2019 (Nashville). Last Friday, over 30 workers and community members passed out soggy flyers, raised dampened signs, and chanted under ponchos across the street from the latest construction site overseen by Skanska, one of Nashville’s biggest general contractors (and a multinational corporation). Now, still missing two weeks of earned wages and facing a lawsuit for their efforts, workers are calling on supporters to urge Skanska to do the right thing: Drop the suit. Negotiate a settlement for work completed at the JW Marriott for which they were the general contractor. Implement high-road standards with worker-led monitoring for all of their Nashville-area worksites to ensure no more workers have to experience the same mistreatment.
Downpour didn’t dampen workers’ spirits
Despite impending severe weather and a downpour, people rallied in an ongoing fight to urge contractors and companies to take responsibility for workers on their job sites. Several workers and supporters gathered 2 hours before the rally to talk to nearby workers and community members on the sidewalk. Passersby were greeted with chants in Spanish and English, accompanied by rhythmic drumming and flags waving, “Justicia, Justice” and “Pay your workers!”
The crowd stood directly across from a Skanska worksite on 5th and Broadway, “one of Nashville’s largest single-mixed use developments” according to the company’s official website. “We want workers here to know that they have rights, and in case–God forbid–this happens again, that we’re here to back them up, just like we’re here to back each other up,” shared one construction worker. Another asked, “Look behind us. Is there money or isn’t there money? So I don’t know why Skanska doesn’t want to take responsibility.”
Rigoberto, a worker still waiting on the pay he was counting on, addressed those gathered, saying “We’re here to draw a line and say ‘Stop!’. [The issue] is not resolved. I still don’t have my money.” Workers and community members plan to keep the pressure on Skanska and JW Marriott to do the right thing: pay workers what they say they’re owed and drop the counter-lawsuit against them. The workers who build Nashville should not face empty pockets and lawsuits, while luxury hotels like JW Marriott rake in an average of $85,000 in revenue per night and billionaire general contractors like Skanska profit while workers on their sites face abuse.
In May, nearly 100 workers who completed construction of luxury hotel JW Marriott filed a federal lawsuit against their employers alleging widespread wage theft on the $285 million project. In December 2018, workers led a delegation to Skanska offices to ask the company to meet with those affected by the alleged wage theft because Skanska was the General Manager of the project. One week later Skanska and JW Marriott owners filed a lawsuit against them! Earlier this month, workers took their struggle to City Hall at a public press conference featuring multiple Metro Council members.
Let’s hold billionaire construction contractors accountable!
Construction workers have called two more actions, on International Women’s Day, March 8 in front of the mega-construction project 5th + Broadway, and a 7AM Wake Up Call! Action at JW Marriott on March 16. Will you join us in saying that worker abuse has no place in Nashville?
