"Scores of unemployed, sign-carrying laborers took to the streets Tuesday in hopes of winning jobs at an under-construction power plant in Fluvanna County.

At their “Put Virginians First” rally outside the Pantops Mountain offices of the Gilbert Southern hiring agency, the workers called on Nebraska-based Tenaska Inc. to give more work to locals as the plant goes up.

Jim Underwood, president of the Richmond Building and Construction Trades Council, said months of surveillance has revealed that few of the project’s workers drive to the construction site with Virginia license plates on their vehicles.

“Eighty percent of the construction workers are from out of state, and they’re taking those good-paying jobs,” Underwood said. “But if they let local workers take them, that money’s staying in the local counties and municipalities.”

To make their point, roughly 100 workers representing 15 different trades paraded around Gilbert Southern with signs and a bullhorn proclaiming: “Come on, Tenaska! Do the right thing and be a good neighbor.” After a brief rally, the assembly filled out work applications en masse.

Underwood said that, while being employed at the half-completed plant is the first priority, the workers he represents also want to do everything they can to be considered for work at another Tenaska facility planned for Buckingham County.

For the company’s part, Tenaska spokeswoman Jana Martin pointed out that Tenaska is doing business with more than 150 Virginia subcontractors — a third of whom are based in Charlottesville — and expects to spend $50 million locally.

“We think that the contractors made a lot of effort to find local, qualified and experienced people,” Martin said. “They’ve had a job fair, they’ve been advertising locally and they put an employment office there in Charlottesville.”

But at Tuesday’s rally, everyone from the marchers to Charlottesville vice mayor Meredith Richards called on the company to take immediate steps to hire more local masons, electricians, ironworkers and the like.

Clay Nesbitt, a welder from Richmond, said that moving from state to state in search of a job is common for construction workers in today’s wintry economic climate. But on the other hand, he said, companies have a moral obligation to hire locally when possible.

“They said they would bring employment and revenue into the state,” Nesbitt said of Tenaska. “If they’re going to say it’s going to help, how can it if 80 percent of the workers are from out-of-state?”

The demonstrators cited reason upon reason for Tenaska to hire Virginians, arguing that they will help create a better-trained workforce in the state and ensure continuity between the two projects and safer on-site conditions.

But in the end, one out-of-work Richmonder said, the issue is simple: It’s about getting a steady job.

“I don’t have one, and this is one,” he said." (Austin Graham, The Daily Progress, May 7, 2003)

Contact Austin Graham at (434) 978-7237 or tgraham@dailyprogress.com.

Editor's Note: At the rally, Meredith Richards harkened back to her campaign slogan in the last Virginia 5th District Congressional race, "Good Jobs - Now." Recently, she was also briefly mentioned as a possibility for chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

In the meantime, Sprint Corporation has cut more than 40% of its local work force in the Charlottesville area.