Dive Brief:
- Apple has alienated contractors and local building trade groups working on its $50 million flagship store in San Francisco, according to critics, by not paying for completed work and violating labor agreements.
- Build Group, who has said Apple is six months past due in paying its $5.2 million bill, has filed a lien against the project. And members of Carpenters Local Union No. 22 have been picketing Apple Stores and started a website called the Ugly Half of Apple Inc.
- When Apple first proposed a store for the site, the company appeased detractors by redesigning the exterior of the store and agreeing that it would hire a general contractor that exclusively employs members of local craft unions — an agreement that Apple violated, Jay Bradshaw, director of organizing for Local 22 told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Dive Insight:
Build Group President and CEO Ross Edwards said his company was contracted to perform $7.5 million of seismic work on the project, designed by British firm Foster + Partners, and that Apple is not disputing the quality of the work competed.
"We finished our work in July and basically they are just not paying us anything — they just don’t care," said Edwards. "Everybody says we did amazing work — and the largest company in the world just won’t pay us. They keep blaming the other guy. We just don’t understand."
A spokesperson for Apple said the company is working to resolve billing issues as quickly as possible.
As for Apple’s promises to use local union workers, Bradshaw said Apple replaced the original general contractor, Pepper Construction Group — a company that is signed on with local unions — with Ledcor Construction, Inc., a company that has been unwilling in the past to meet standard union pay scale on its other jobs in the region.
Apple, according to its spokesperson, maintains all workers on the project are union, but Bradshaw said, "Our deal with Apple was on the general contractor level, not just on this project but all projects. Apple made that commitment. Pepper made that commitment. Ledcor has the opposite business model. They have subs that do not pay area standards."