Dollar Tree Protests Continue Upon Opening

Members of the Carpenters' District Council of Greater St. Louis and Vicinity continue to picket the new Dollar Tree in Warson Woods as the store prepares to open Tuesday.

Their message is simple: Dollar Tree should have awarded construction of the new store to a Missouri company that would have employed local workers. According to Scott Byrne, business representative at the Carpenters' District Council of Greater St. Louis and Vicinity, the contract for construction of the new store was awarded to Concept Construction from Michigan, a company that employed out-of-state workers to build the store.

According to the Union, Concept Construction paid wages and fringe benefits to out-of-state workers below established area standards.

“We want to bring awareness to the community that (the Dollar Tree) decided to farm construction work out to out-of-state workers,” Byrne said.

Dollar Tree did not return a request for comment about construction of the new business.

“They ought to have hired people in Missouri,” union carpenter Ray Heinsohn said as he stood with two peers next to the union’s “Shame on the Dollar Tree” that has hung in the parking lot of the new store near Manchester and Sappington Roads.

“We would all love to be in there working,” he said, adding that the parking lot is full of vehicles with out-of-state plates.

Ideally, said Byrnes, the contract would have been awarded to a company that uses union carpenters, however, the award of the contract to a Missouri company that hired any in-state workers, whether they belonged to a union or not, would have been preferable to work being hired out to out-of-state workers.