After almost a year of protesting due to “unfair labor practices,” members of the Carpenters and Teamsters Local 107 are asking Democratic leaders not to book the Pennsylvania Convention Center for the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.

Letters were sent out last week to Democratic leaders across the country. “We are asking all Democratic state party chair people and leadership not to book any events at the Pennsylvania Convention Center until their management comes to their senses and ends this unfair lockout,” said Martin O’Rourke, spokesman for the union.

The Carpenters and Teamsters Local 107 walked out of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in May of last year over a disputed deadline for signing a customer satisfaction agreement with the authority's board. Approximately 1,000 workers have been without work since then.

According to NBC, last year the Convention Center CEO John McNichol said, “the carpenters had every opportunity to be part of this deal and for them to feign consternation over the fact that they're not made part of it now is disingenuous.” 

O’Rourke says the carpenters signed the agreement within a 10-day extension for negotiating their contract.  “After the carpenters signed it, the Convention Center refused to accept it and at that point locked the carpenters out of  the convention center and refused — and continues to refuse — to let them go back to work.”

He added that the carpenters will continue exerting their right to protest: “We will employ all legal measures available to exert First Amendment rights to protest this unfair and illegal lockout of members from the Convention Center.”