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Cedar Fair tries to make nice with unions

By BRANDI BARHITE
brandibarhite@sanduskyregister.com

SANDUSKY - Cedar Fair has withdrawn its charges against a labor group encouraging a boycott of Geauga Lake and Cedar Point, said company attorney Jeffrey Belkin.

"There is an attempt to work this out," Belkin said Friday without elaboration.

Meanwhile, Geauga Lake, in Aurora, is inviting the labor unions that canceled their picnics because of the non-union work done at the new Wildwater Kingdom to attend Thursday's "Paradise Party."

Paradise Party will begin with exclusive tours of the first phase of the 20-acre waterpark for media and special guests. After a day at the waterpark, there will be a private dinner at the Lakeside Catering Pavilions. The waterpark opened Sunday.

"We are very concerned (about the boycott)," said Bill Spehn, Geauga Lake's vice president and general manager, last Saturday. "Families and children have been coming for years to picnics at Geauga Lake. We certainly want their business."

In May, parent company Cedar Fair filed unfair labor practice charges against the Tri-County Building and Construction Trades Council after Tri-County called on unions to consider if they wanted to spend money at Cedar Fair parks. Belkin said that Tri-County wanted 100 percent of the construction to be done by union contractors.

Tri-County also tried to force Cedar Fair to stop doing business with firms it had disputes with, according to the documents sent to the National Labor Relations Board in Cleveland.

"We had an open bid process, and we awarded jobs based on who can do the best quality work, including (looking at) price and past performance," Spehn said.

Spehn said that more than half of the work being done on Wildwater Kingdom is by union contractors.

David Moran, president of the Tri-County Building and Construction Trades Council, said that Tri-County wanted Geauga Lake to use all local union contractors.

Moran said Thursday that Tri-County tried to contact Geauga Lake through letters about the $24 million project before construction began in November, but never heard back.

When they met with the park in the first part of 2005, Tri-County was told the company had made a business decision to use union and non-union contractors, Moran said.

The company has the right to make that decision, but union employees can also decide if they want to spend their money at the parks, Moran said. Cedar Point in Sandusky was included in the boycott because it is owned by the same company, he said.

Picnic cancellations have come from construction unions, firefighters and the credit union that sponsors a summer picnic for as many as 10,000 participants from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880.

Moran said his Akron-based council represents as many as8,000 people.

The Associated Press inaccurately reported last week that the Cleveland office of the NLRB dismissed both complaints without comment, according to NLRB attorney Karen Neilsen. Neilsen said Cedar Fair withdrew the charges, and the board approved that on Thursday or Friday.

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