When The Bulletin editorial board says protesters at Facebook don’t deserve your sympathy, you are saying that working families in Central Oregon don’t deserve to live and work here with dignity. We respectfully disagree.

Your editorial responds to operating engineers protests. However, the work described is not the typical work performed by operating engineers, but by ironworkers.

Ironworkers are the ones who raise, place, install and erect structural steel beams, columns, bar joists and trusses to form completed structures and frameworks; place and secure rebar in concrete; and fabricate and install ornamental ironwork, such as metal window and door frames, handrails, stairs and steel fencing.

It’s hard, skilled work we proudly do with quality and care.

In addition, a rally of community members assembling peacefully and displaying a stationary banner is not a picket. Protests are activities protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. While we weren’t part of the protests the week of your editorial, we were there this week. Here’s why:

Dozens of community allies and out-of-work ironworkers were protesting Facebook’s decision to import out-of-state contractors and workforce to build two new massive data centers.

At the heart of the protests is the real question facing Prineville and Central Oregon: As data center construction brings renewed economic prosperity to the area, do the working families here deserve to grow and prosper alongside? We say yes. Don’t leave Oregon’s middle class behind.

Trade unions mean family wages and the ability to retire with dignity.

Iron work — and the construction trades — are among the last sectors that provide good family wages, health care and benefits — much better than the anticipated wages for Facebook employees, if anyone is asking.

Anyone willing and able to do the work can earn enough to support a family, have a career path, and retire with dignity. Unlike out-of-state, nonunion contractors, the union provides the training, expertise, experience, safety and the opportunity to prosper, without any financial burden on Oregon taxpayers.

We have members in Prineville and throughout all of Central Oregon, ready to work, who would love to be able to work to benefit their communities. Construction jobs and careers are central to building a new economy for all in Prineville.

Companies receiving public incentives have an obligation to pay it back and to pay it forward.

To date, Facebook has saved more than $71 million in property tax breaks and will continue to receive $300,000 a year for the next several years. In return, Facebook projects that they will make over $9 million a year in profit after construction is completed.

With these levels of profit, Facebook can afford to make sure that the everyone who works at Facebook prospers, including the people building the buildings to make those profits possible. Bring union construction jobs on-site — no exceptions.

The choice is simple: Facebook — and Prineville — can be part of the race to the bottom for families in Central Oregon, or they can partner with us and Oregon-based contractors to build a new economy for the future. Build it right, right now, and set the standards for the region’s future economic growth.

We’re ready. Are you?

— Shane Nehls is the president of Ironworkers Local 29, representing Oregon and Southwest Washington.