Police called to Batavia school construction site strike

School officials asked police Friday to intervene in a disagreement about where striking construction workers could picket at Batavia High School.

According to an e-mail sent to subscribers to the district's BPS Messenger service, police were called "to compel union pickets to remove illegal pickets and to deter blockage of entrances" to the school, which is undergoing a $68 million renovation and expansion.

Pickets are allowed at the south entrance to the campus, off Main Street, where workers affiliated with Lamp Construction enter. The Laborers District Council of Chicago and Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers have named Lamp in their strike.

But union observers are only allowed at the "neutral" northern gate off Wilson Street, where workers from other companies, who did not have strikes filed against them enter. The Laborers and the Operating Engineers started a strike July 1 against Chicago-area contractors represented by Excavators Inc., Mid-America Regional Bargaining Association and the Chicago Area Independent Contractors Association.

However, picket signs have been placed at that northern gate the last several days, said Superintendent Jack Barshinger, and when school officials asked workers to take them down, they refused. Barshinger said the workers also refused to speak to school officials.

No one was arrested, he said.

Barshinger said pickets have been taking pictures of people entering the school grounds, and that they have asked them to stop taking pictures of students who do so.

Unlike Naperville District 203, Batavia has not struck a side contract with the unions to keep work going at the site. Barshinger said the district was interested in talking about it, but has not received a reply from the unions. Naperville 203 is expanding and renovating Naperville Central High School.

Barshinger is concerned about renovations to rooms that are to house the school's special-education classes, returning to the campus after a 10-year absence, and to the existing gymnasium and locker rooms, particularly as practice for fall sports begins Aug. 11. Next week is "drop dead" for getting those areas ready on time, he said.

The school board will meet either Monday or Tuesday to discuss the situation, Barshinger said. The meeting date and time will be posted on bps101.net when it is determined.

Lamp Construction belongs to the Fox Valley General Contractors Association, which belongs to MARBA.

A Laborers District Council spokesman could not be reached for comment.