YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Commissioners last week voided a contract with a local contractor, and now the company is speaking out.

Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to reject bids from Rudzik Excavating of Struthers for a Lake Milton water line replacement project valued at $1.2 million and a sanitary sewer replacement project in Poland Township worth $571,000.

The resolution states that the bids were rejected because Rudzik was “nonresponsive” and now the county will contact the next two lowest bidders to see if they still want the jobs.

Rudzik’s president and senior project manager both spoke with The Vindicator on Friday. They said the county has voided the contract because of the company’s objections to a project labor agreement (PLA) that would require them to use union workers for the project.

“The whole deal here is with this PLA, but it should not affect the county one bit,” said Rudzik president Jeff Rudzik. “The commissioners, they all have these talking points about manpower and safety timeliness, reducing change orders. But when you ask them how any of that is improved by the PLA, they can’t answer that.”

“They are solely doing this for political purposes,” he said.

Rudzik said that while the base wage paid to employees does not change, whether the job is staffed with union or non-union workers, the PLA would require the company to pay fringe benefits like health care and retirement to the union at the expense of Rudzik’s own employees.

“We don’t feel we should be bound to agreements with the union,” Rudzik said.

Senior Project Manager Jim Tressa said the company has the best workers around, and both men said they want to know why Rudzik is good enough to handle the largest project in the county right now but not good enough for the two projects commissioners stripped from them.

Rudzik is managing the $20 million sanitary line replacement that runs along Western Reserve Road from Hitchcock Road in Boardman to Five Points in Poland.

“That line already has been installed. We’re a year ahead of schedule on that project,” Tressa said.

Tressa said the next lowest bids were placed by union contractors and will cost the county $500,000 more.

“They’re not getting gold pipes for that, it’s going to be the same pipe,” he said. “It’s just costing the taxpayers half a million dollars more.”

Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said the county cannot say much.

“We have 20 unions in Mahoning County that we deal with everyday. So labor has never been an issue for us,” he said.

Beyond that, Traficanti declined to comment.

Rudzik and Tressa said the ball is still in the county’s court because the company has not yet been officially notified of the rejection.

But both men said litigation over the contract is a possibility.

“If there’s something we can do – because it’s not right what they’re doing. It’s costing the taxpayers money – if we can fight it and make a point, we will,” Rudzik said.

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