A small group of union protesters marched outside the Legends at Sparks Marina construction site Friday morning to fight for certain fringe benefits — a fight that they will be taking on without the help of the city government.

Russ James, who organized the protest on behalf of Local 567 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said the union’s complaint is against Custom Painting and Decorating, one of the subcontractors working on Scheel’s All Sports, for “non-responsible” contracting. Custom Painting, James said, does not pay workers’ family health care coverage, provide pension benefits or fund pay for apprenticeship programs.

“Our issue is a moral issue,” said Todd Koch, regional director for the local union. “When (workers or their families) go to the doctor and can’t pay for it, we all pay for it.”

Dan Warren, president of Sparks-based Custom Painting and Decorating, said that his employees, all of whom are non-union, have money added to their paychecks for medical coverage and their pensions. The difference from union employees, he said, is that his employees are able to choose where to get their medical coverage and how to invest money for their pensions. Warren said the amounts added to employee paychecks are determined using state-mandated compensation formula.

“(My employees’) check is bigger than union employee’s check,” Warren said.

As for the apprenticeship program, Warren said he trains is own people using the same training system used by the union, though his is not an accredited training program.

James said that on Wednesday he presented some language to Sparks Mayor Geno Martini that he hoped the city would include in a revised financing contract for the Legends project, which is set to come before the council next week. This language, taken directly from the law governing the California public employees retirement plan, would require that all contractors and contractors working at Legends be “responsible,” meaning they would provide family health insurance, pension benefits and apprenticeship programs.

“Scheels is really starting to take off now,” James said, “and we’d like to see (the contract terms) fixed before it gets too much further down the road.”

Friday afternoon, Karen Todd, Sparks Planning Department’s customer service coordinator, said the city would not be adding any “responsible contractor” requirements to the Legends financing arrangement with RED Development.

“(The City) will not get into contractual issues beyond prevailing wage because state law does not require it,” Todd said. “It is important to leave that to the developer and his or her agents.”

State law requires that all projects using public financing ensure workers are paid the prevailing wage – or the wage determined to be fair for skilled tradesmen, taking into account the area’s cost of living. Public financing for Legends has not yet been issued, but a planned major funding source is Sales Tax Anticipated Revenue (STAR) and other publicly financed bonds.

Sparks City Attorney Chet Adams said Nevada law only addresses prevailing wage and health and safety issues in its requirements for jobs paid for with public funds.

The Sparks City Council approved a contract for $70,560 with Poggemeyer Design Group, Inc. on Feb. 25 to track payroll records and do random worker interviews for Q&D Construction’s work at the Legends site through its October grand opening for phase one. The February contract with Poggemeyer adds to and extends a $43,680 contract, approved on Nov. 13, to track prevailing wages for the Scheels construction.

James said the picket line was also protesting the use of eight non-local subcontractors on the Scheels job. These contractors are from as close as California and as far as Illinois.

“It’s not illegal, we just think it’s irresponsible,” James said “If we’re giving away sales tax dollars it should be to our people who live and work here already. There are plenty of people out of work who could be working out here.”

Protesters started at 6 a.m. on Friday and some other union workers left the Scheels job site in a show of solidarity, James said. Scheels project manager Justin Schultz said he did not know an exact number of union workers who walked off the site Friday.

Local 567 was joined on the picket line by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 401 and Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers Local 13. Local 567, located in Sparks, has been chartered for more than 100 years and has more than 500 members, according to a union release.