Niagara Falls Business Manager Arrested Protesting Out-of-State ContractorsAugust 2, 2012 In June, Business Manager Russell Quarantello, Niagara Falls, N.Y., Local 237, was appointed to the celebrated town’s bridge commission by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
During the most recent picketing, Quarantello crossed a street to check on a pickup truck owned by a Local 237 member that police were threatening to tow. He was handcuffed and shackled and held seven hours. Quarantello told the Niagara Falls Reporter:
Once completed in 2013, Norampac’s plant will house the largest cardboard containerboard production machine of its kind in North America. The factory is expected to employ about 100 About $16 million out of $19 million in electrical work has gone to out-of-state contractors. Out of 150 cars on the construction site’s parking lot, Quarantello says 50 percent are out of state. That’s a raw deal, when “such a large portion of the construction cost is subsidized by the state,” says Quarantello, who adds, “And Norampac still has their hands out.” More than 26 percent of Niagara Falls’ residents have incomes below the poverty level. The region suffers from 7.3 percent unemployment. Richard Lipsitz, Western New York AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation president, says:
Funding incentives for the Norampac plant include $60 million in brownfield (redeveloping old industrial site) tax credits, 10 megawatts of hydropower form the New York Power Authority, $5 million in Empire.
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