As Chinese workers build the Martin Luther King memorial, a union investigates

[Omaha Steve]

My union (AFSCME) has been fund raising on this since day 1: http://www.afscme.org/about/mlk-memorial.cfm



I'm not happy about this at all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112304298.html

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 23, 2010; 1:33 PM

Francis Jacobberger's plan was simple - show up with a six-pack of beer and talk his way into a Crystal City apartment. An investigator for the Washington area union that represents stonemasons, Jacobberger was working a case dear to the members: Who should build the centerpiece of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial - Americans or imported Chinese workers?


Chinese sculpter Lei Yixin works on the granite head that will cap the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the Mall. (Courtesy Of Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation)


In September, the foundation building the $120 million memorial on the Mall promised in writing to use local stonemasons to assemble and install the 159 blocks of granite that will make up two massive sculptures at the center of the site, including one bearing King's likeness.

But when construction of the sculptures began three weeks ago, it appeared that the foundation had reneged. Jacobberger, a wiry 32-year-old former bricklayer from Delaplane, was asked to find the Chinese laborers who were brought in to work on the King memorial and determine whether they were being exploited.

One evening last week, Jacobberger and a Mandarin translator, Josh Bassan, sat parked beneath the Arlington high-rise where the workers live. As they waited for the men to return from the construction site, Jacobberger schooled Bassan on how to chat them up.

"This should be easy going," he said. "It's like leading a horse to water."



If all went well, Jacobberger would finally know what the workers were paid and what their living conditions were like. His suspicion was that they were not being paid anything close to the prevailing wage for an American stonemason - $32 an hour, plus $12 an hour in benefits.

Bassan's efforts might not mean more jobs for American masons, but union members had demanded that their leadership do something. The possibility that cheap imported labor was being used to build any portion of the King memorial was anathema to them. King was assassinated in 1968 while in Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike.

FULL 2 page story at link.

This Story

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Graphic: Some assembly required
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Head lowered on to MLK monument
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Location
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As Chinese workers build the Martin Luther King memorial, a union investigates
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MLK memorial's blocks 11,000 miles closer to D.C.
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From dream to very solid reality

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[Meeker Morgan]

1. Saving public money by getting it done on the cheap? n/t

[csziggy]

4. Getting less tax money by using cheap foreign labor

Instead of paying American workers what has been determined a fair wage for skilled workers. In addition, costing more tax money by not employing Americans who may need unemployment and assistance to live since they are unemployed.

[baldguy]

2. And why isn't the US Imigration Service interested in this?

[KharmaTrain]

6. If The Chinese Workers Have Visas...It's All Legal

IRC, they can spend up to a year if they have a "sponsor". There are many companies that have tapped into the underground for cheap labor...either legally or illegally. If anyone should investigate it is the IRS regarding their status of "contractors".

[Starry Messenger]

3. I'm glad they are investigating.

There is a winery in Napa that is a "castle" that the owner built using all imported labor from Italy. They boast about it on the tour. I was so pissed off afterward I could barely see straight. The place is frikking huge. There are plenty of artists and stoneworkers here that would kill for work.

[Recursion]

5. Razing half of the DC War Memorial was bad enough

Now this. Sigh.

[w4rma]

7. The people that imported these workers have no respect for Martin Luther King's name.

Otherwise they wouldn't have sullied his monument like this.

[Angry Dragon]

8. K&R

[somone]

9. Is China importing American workers to build their national monuments?

This is disgusting.

[pampango]

10. Wiki: Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._National_Memorial#Controversy

It was announced in January 2007 that Lei Yixin, an artist from the People's Republic of China, would sculpt the centerpiece of the memorial, including the statue of King and the "Stone of Hope". The commission was criticized by human rights activist Harry Wu on the grounds that Lei had sculpted Mao Zedong. It also stirred accusations that it was based on financial considerations, because the Chinese government would make a $25 million donation to help meet the projected shortfall in donations. The president of the memorial's foundation, Harry E. Johnson, who first met Lei in a sculpting workshop in Saint Paul, Minnesota, stated that the final selection was done by a mostly African American design team and was based solely on artistic ability.

Gilbert Young, an African American artist known for a work of art entitled He Ain't Heavy, led a protest against the decision to hire Lei by launching the website King Is Ours, demands that an African American artist to be used for the monument. Human rights activist and arts advocate Ann Lau and American stone carver Clint Button joined Young and national talk show host Joe Madison in advancing the protest when the use of Chinese granite was discovered. Lau decried the human rights record of the Chinese government and asserted that the granite would be mined by workers forced to toil in unsafe and unfair conditions. Button argued that the $10 million in federal money that has been authorized for the King project required it to be subject to an open bidding process.

The memorial's design team visited China in October 2006 to inspect potential granite to be used.<22> The project's foundation has argued that the quality of the Chinese granite exceeds that which can be found in the United States.

Young's King Is Ours petition demands that an African American artist and American granite be used for the national monument, arguing the importance of such selections as a part of the memorial's legacy. The petition has received support from American granite workers and from the California State Conference of the NAACP.

In May 2008, the CFA, one of the agencies which must approve all elements of the memorial, raised concerns about "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed sculpture," noting that it "recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries." The commission did, however, approve the final design in September 2008.

In September 2010, the foundation gave written promises that it would use local stonemasons to assemble the memorial. However, when construction began in October, it appeared that only Chinese laborers would be used. The Washington area local of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers union investigated and determined that the workers are not being paid on a regular basis, with all of their pay being withheld until they return to China.