A group of about 30 carpenters started a picket line on Wednesday morning at the Bainbridge Bethesda construction site, part of a larger protest against construction companies region-wide.
The Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters started a strike on May 1 against a number of D.C.-based construction contractors after it claimed the contractors “demanded a $13 per hour decrease in your compensation package, among other things designed to erode your quality of life.”
The carpenters at the Bainbridge Bethesda site directed their ire toward Tompkins Builders, a subsidiary of Turner Construction Company, which is the main contractor on the 17-story, 200-unit apartment tower in Woodmont Triangle.
The strike resulted from a contract impasse that has gone past an April 30 deadline, said a union official participating in the picket line. The official declined to be named and provided little information as to how the impasse was affecting carpenters at the Bainbridge project.
Construction work at the nearly completed apartment went on despite the protest, which continued on Fairmont Avenue.
Developer Bainbridge hopes to finish the apartment this year. Last year, a County Circuit Court judge ordered Bainbridge to pay the next-door landlord $3.2 million for structural damage its construction contractors caused to the former Fresh Grill building.
Bainbridge, Turner and its foundation contractor Schnabel face more lawsuits from Fresh Grill and the same landlord over similar problems on the St Elmo Avenue side of the project.
