Allied

ALLIED MECHANICAL SERVICES CONTINUES TO SUE ITS CUSTOMERS

The Contractor’s Critic views court cases and liens as a plague on our construction industry. Contractors, employees, their organizations and construction customers should be working together and settling their differences outside of the courthouse. But the trend in our industry is towards more court suits, not fewer. Allied Mechanical Services is one of the contractors who often resorts to suing its customer and fellow contractors. This concerns the Critic and should concern present and potential future customers of Allied Mechanical Services. As the Engineering News-Record of February 15, 1999 editorialized:

"If your only tool is a hammer, then every problem will look like a nail. When it comes to the construction industry, the main dispute resolution tool remains a lawyer and every disagreement still looks like a lawsuit... Lawsuits go against the basic nature of the industry. Construction is not an individual endeavor... but rather a business of team building... Successful teams and projects are built on the strengths of each member, while lawsuits and unsuccessful projects are founded on the weaknesses of team members... A decade or more may pass before there is any resolution of a dispute by the courts, leaving no one a winner. Some industry sources claim that the tide of dispute resolution may be turning back towards the courts. This may indicate that the [construction] industry has become too complacent... to combat creeping litigiousness."

The Critic could not agree more with this editorial. These are the reasons why the Critic devotes so much of its resources to researching and publishing details on litigation in the construction industry. We feel that the sheer numbers and types of these lawsuits should be of grave concern to every contractor and construction customer. Contained within are some recently discovered examples of court suits involving Allied Mechanical Services.

LABOR PROBLEMS DOG ALLIED MECHANICAL SERVICES JOB SITES, DELAY CONSTRUCTION

Although Allied Mechanical Services touts its non-union status, this doesn’t mean that Allied Mechanical Services is free from labor problems. On occasion, these bitter problems spill over onto its customers’ job sites. At the Battle Creek High School construction project in May 2000, Allied Mechanical Services was picketed by angered protestors because of its failure to pay area standard wages. The school had a tough time keeping the other contractors on the job when the protestors appeared.

The general contractor had to switch entry gates for several contractors, in an effort to limit the protestors against Allied Mechanical Services to a single gate that was not used by other contractors. Despite their efforts, many employees of an electrical contractor did not report to work because of the protestors, causing project delays.

At one point, the general contractor even sought to limit Allied Mechanical Services’ hours on the site to 4 p.m. until midnight, in order to keep the protestors away from the job site.