Union's protest tour targets homebuilding industry

The US labor union representing construction workers is crisscrossing the country this month to target the homebuilding industry for its role in the subprime mortgage crisis. From Miami to Denver to Los Angeles, the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) has shown up at the annual shareholder meetings of US homebuilder companies to protest a $6 billion tax benefit that Congress has offered to the industry. The LIUNA tour bears the unsubtle title of Pigs At The Trough, a criticism of the high salaries that homebuilder executives have received as the subprime crisis fuels a global economic slowdown. The union's tour stopped on Apr. 30 at a conference given by the homebuilding industry's trade association in Washington, where LIUNA has launched an advertising campaign that condemns a housing aid bill passed by the US Senate last month. The housing bill won support from Republicans as well as Democrats, but the latter have acknowledged that the bill does not go as far as they would like in helping cash-strapped Americans keep their homes. LIUNA–which represents largely commercial construction workers as opposed to residential–summarized the opposition in its radio adverts: "Why does [nearly] half the cost of the bill consist of tax breaks for corporate homebuilders and those on Wall Street who helped create the crisis?" If the Senate's plan is approved in the House of Representatives and becomes law, the biggest homebuilding companies stand to save an estimated $6 billion. LIUNA claims a membership base of about a half-million, while the homebuilders' trade association claims more than 225,000 members.