The two men have almost 50 years of ironworking experience between them. As they turned into the construction site, Coles spotted a red pickup truck that he immediately recognized as belonging to a particularly hostile foreman of a nonunion company. "Uh-oh. If he sees me here, he's going to cuss me out," Coles said.
He and Calvin are often on uncertain legal ground when they enter a construction site.
Union organizers Hayes Calvin, left, and Mark Coles seek recruits for Ironworkers Local No. 5. More and more, their efforts are aimed at attempting to win over nonunion Latino workers.
(Michael Robinson-chavez -- The Washington Post)
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If some of the workers belong to a unionized company, organizers of the union have a right to walk on to talk to them. And while they're at it, there is nothing to stop the organizers from exchanging a few words with nonunion workers, particularly if those workers are on a break.
But if none of the workers on a site belong to the union, the organizers are technically there at the contractor or site owner's forbearance. If a foreman asks them to leave, they must do so immediately.
Some foremen are sympathetic to the union and welcome visits from Coles and Calvin. Others seem indifferent or oblivious to the organizers, who try to escape notice by matching their hard hats and safety vests to the style or color worn on each construction site.
Then there are foremen like the owner of the red pickup. He glared silently as Coles and Calvin got out of their car. Only a few ironworkers -- all of whom appeared to be Latino -- were working, and they were balanced high on steel beams in full view of the foreman.
"Let's come back some other time," Calvin muttered.
Wooing Some Prospects
Their next stop, a sprawling complex under construction in Suitland for the U.S. Census Bureau, proved a more promising recruiting ground. The union men navigated around mounds of dirt toward a multistory steel frame and then scrambled up a narrow ladder to the second level.
Keeping an eye out for the foreman, Calvin approached one of the workers. "Are you making the right money?" he asked after a quick introduction.
In response, he got a blank look.
"Cuanto dinero?" Coles asked, rubbing his thumb against his index finger.
"Fifteen," the worker said, haltingly.
"Fifteen. You should be making $24 an hour on this job," said Calvin, as Coles showed the man a listing of union wages and benefits.
"Call me," Coles said, handing one of the Spanish translation cards and pointing to his phone number.
"Okay," the man said.
The union organizers did not ask the man for his name or contact information. "It's like your first acquaintance with a date," Calvin said later. "Sometimes you don't ask for the phone number right away. You've got to work your way in and sense it."
So it went with two more workers before the organizers decided they should head back to the car to avoid wearing out their welcome.
Maybe now that the workers have the union's number, one of them will give a call the next time he has trouble with his boss, Calvin said, as they turned onto the Capital Beltway toward a job site in Virginia.
"Yeah," said Coles with a smirk, "that guy who was making $15 will probably call me even quicker."
