Street repair projects in the south and southwest suburbs are seeing potential delays as a strike against Chicago-area producers of key building materials continues. (Seth Perlman / AP)

A strike against Chicago-area companies that provide key ingredients for road-building materials such as concrete and asphalt has some south and southwest suburban officials concerned about completing planned street repairs this summer.

The strike began June 7 against three companies with operations throughout the Chicago area that produce aggregates such as sand, gravel and crushed stone, with 300 members of Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers setting up picket lines at 35 locations.

The last negotiating session was held Monday and no new talks are scheduled, according to Ed Maher, spokesman for Local 150, based in Countryside.

The strike comes as communities throughout the Chicago area prepare to undertake annual road repair and resurfacing projects, but supplies for needed materials are starting to get tight, some public works directors said Thursday.

“Talk about the worst time to have all of this happen,” Bill Meyer, who oversees the Oak Lawn Public Works Department, said. “I am definitely getting concerned.”

The strike by Local 150 is against big materials producers LafargeHolcim and Lehigh Hanson, which operates a massive quarry in Thornton, and Vulcan Materials.

The stone they quarry and process goes into ready-mix concrete and fresh asphalt, and some asphalt plants have had to close because of a lack of aggregate, Meyer and other public works directors said.

At a Village Board committee meeting Monday in Orland Park, Joel Van Essen, public works director, said that the village is able to do some preliminary work in advance of repaving streets, such as removing existing curbs.

If a street isn’t being completely rebuilt from the bottom up but instead resurfaced, the top layer of asphalt is ground up and asphalt companies will use that to produce recycled asphalt, and a new layer is laid on top and rolled smooth.

Van Essen and other public works officials said that unless there is a fresh supply of new asphalt to put down, grinding that top layer and leaving the base exposed can cause problems, particularly if there is rainy weather. He said that, for now, supplies of asphalt seem to be the most directly affected by the strike.

“You don’t want to leave it open to the weather longer than it needs to be,” he told village officials.

In Flossmoor, where $2 million is planned to be spent on rehabilitating streets, the village is holding off on grinding, or milling, that upper layer because of the uncertainty about asphalt supplies, said Public Works Director John Brunke.

“You don’t want to grind off the surface layer of a street and leave it for too long because that layer thickness is part of the overall pavement strength, so when it is removed, the pavement is weaker until the new surface is installed,” he said.

Brunke said the village will wait to mill streets slated for new asphalt until the strike is over and production is back up and running.

The strike has also halted work on a $3 million drainage improvement project along Berry Lane because the contractor can’t get stone needed to backfill a new storm sewer pipe, he said.

In Oak Lawn, street resurfacing work is expected to get underway after the Fourth of July holiday, but Meyer said the village’s engineer is already warning village officials to expect delays, primarily due to tight asphalt supplies.

Like Van Essen and Brunke, Meyer said the village doesn’t want to start grinding or milling streets slated for new asphalt until a guaranteed supply of fresh blacktop is available.

Meyer said delays in getting street projects started can mean extending work into colder fall temperatures, and running into the possibility of asphalt plants shutting down for the winter before some streets are completed.

“You only have that very tight window,” he said. “Hopefully they can make a settlement and come to an agreement.”

Even for patching potholes the village is running into supply issues, and Oak Lawn is looking for alternatives.

For instance, Gallagher Asphalt, based in Thornton next to the Lehigh Hanson quarry, has asphalt plants still running in Bourbonnais and Joliet, but that distance adds to the cost of hauling asphalt, Meyer said.

Gallagher is not being directly struck by Local 150, and a message left Thursday with the company seeking comment about the trickle-down effect of the strike on its operations was not immediately returned. Public works directors interviewed said that the company’s plant in Thornton is not operating.

For hot patching of potholes, Meyer said he is looking at the Bourbonnais and Joliet sites that Gallagher continues to operate as possible alternatives.

With the price of diesel being one factor in venturing farther afield for asphalt, the temperature of the product is also a consideration, Meyer said.

“The hotter the asphalt the better,” he said, noting that a temperature above 300 degrees makes it easier to pour and roll smooth. “You’re losing heat for every mile you drive.”

Local 150′s Maher said that other employees at the aggregate plants, including management, are being pressed into service to continue operating, and the three companies are bringing in employees from other plants around the company.

A message left Thursday seeking comment regarding the strike with Irving, Texas-based Lehigh Hanson was not immediately returned. Along with the Thornton quarry, the company also operates quarrying and stone crushing operations in McCook.

The three companies collectively negotiate with the union through an organization called the Chicago Area Aggregate Producers Association.

Maher noted the impact of the strike is starting to be felt by other suppliers of construction materials, including ready-mix concrete and asphalt, and is “needlessly delaying projects” around the Chicago area.

He said the union and producers association have, since mid-May, held nine bargaining sessions and had yet to get into the meat of talks on financial matters, such as wages.

“Even if we don’t reach resolution on Day 1, that dialogue is important,” Maher said of the union’s desire to continue negotiations.

Before calling the strike, Local 150 had filed charges of unfair labor practices against the three companies with the National Labor Relations Board.

Maher said allegations include company bosses unlawfully interrogating union members about union activities and threatening union members if they participated in a work stoppage, Maher said.