Labor peace breaks out for Post Bros. project

For five months in the middle of 2012, Philadelphia's building trades laid siege to the Goldtex construction site just north of Center City, where two brothers in their 30s decided to use a mix of union and nonunion labor to convert a 12-story loft building into apartments.

It was ugly.

Accusations of violence and intimidation flew, along with some punches, as pickets halted construction for five months.

Observers said the brothers were mounting a direct challenge to union control over Center City construction.

These days, something like peace has broken out on the brothers' current development, the highly visible Atlantic Building project at Broad and Spruce Streets.

Michael and Matthew Pestronk, whose business is known as Post Bros., say they will use all-union labor to turn the 21-story building into condominiums, apartments, and retail.

"Unlike a rental apartment, where you have flexibility when you rent, when you sell condominiums, the promise of when you can deliver is very important," said Michael Pestronk, the CEO.

"As we saw on Goldtex, when the unions are upset with you, they do a lot to obstruct the schedule and delay things," he said.

In this project, "the promised delivery date is really critical," he said. "We can't have any risk of delays with the type of issues we had last time."

Peace negotiations took place over lunch at Spasso Italian Grill on the Delaware River, with Pestronk breaking bread with Electricians union leader John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty.

The lunch took place in November, shortly after Dougherty assumed leadership of the Building Trades Council.

The lunch, Dougherty said, was one of his first priorities.

"We both made mistakes in the past and we learned from them," Dougherty said. "You have a minor indiscretion that leads to a lot of issues.

"We're excited about the new partnership," he said. "We want to bring the job in on time, under budget, safe, and make the Post Bros. a lot of money."

Pestronk and Dougherty said the unions did not offer or pay any contract discounts to get the work.

Joining Dougherty and Pestronk at Spasso's were Fred Cosenza, a Building Trades Council official, and Pierce J. Keating, chief executive of Daniel J. Keating Co., the general contractor on the site.

"Both the union trades and Pestronks want to put [Goldtex] behind them," Keating said.

"I think that there is a personal interest on the part of John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty to [make] this a successful project," Keating said. "And economically, it's very important for the Pestronks to get the project done on time.

"This is an ideal project so everyone can show their true colors," he said.

Pestronk said he and his brother decided to hire a general contractor, specifically Keating, instead of acting as their own contractor, as they did at Goldtex. Keating, he said, is a union contractor used to handling multiple trades on a building site.

Keating and Dougherty plan to sign a project labor agreement at the Atlantic. The contractor and unions will agree to resolve disputes without stopping work.

The Philadelphia Area Labor Management Committee, led by Tony Wigglesworth, will administer the agreement.

During the Goldtex battle, the Pestronks released a video that appeared to show Cosenza punching a security guard. At the time, Cosenza said the guard was the aggressor.

Cosenza "was the frontline bad guy," Pestronk said Monday. But at that November lunch, "both of us said that neither of us cared to go through that again."

Source: Philly.com