VOTE ‘NO’ ON D AND IGNORE A HOLLOW THREAT

Measure D — placed directly on the Nov. 8 ballot by the San Diego City Council — would repeal 2012’s Measure A, an initiative backed by 58 percent of San Diego voters that banned the city’s use of unionfriendly project labor agreements. PLAS, as they are widely known, require successful bidders for government projects to employ union and nonunion workers at similar pay, benefits and terms. Supporters of Measure A persuaded voters in 2012 that such rules give a monopoly to a minority of workers, discouraging competition that keeps costs down for taxpayers and creating significant disadvantages for nonunion construction companies that employ more than 4 in 5 local workers. Opponents asserted that PLAS had a record of leading to better-constructed projects that would come in on time and on budget. Supporters criticized the long history of racial discrimination in building trade unions. Opponents countered that union jobs fight income inequality, fuel economic gains, are good for all workers and increasingly go to women and people of color.

The same arguments are being raised again this year. And, yes, reasonable people can see the need for competition as a sound argument against repealing the PLA ban and worry about construction unions’ troubling racial history. And, yes, reasonable people can see the need to create uniform, fair wages and benefits on government construction projects as cause to repeal the ban and lament the extent of private sector hostility to unions.

Yet once repeal supporters — starting with Mayor Todd Gloria and Council President Sean Elorivera — get down to their central reason to reverse the voter-approved ban on PLAS in San Diego, it has nothing to do with PLAS’ alleged efficacy in getting projects completed. Instead, they say the repeal would ensure the state or federal government doesn’t cite any PLA ban to allow it to deny potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in state or federal funding to local governments with such bans. Their argument hinges on California legislation — backed by unions to limit bans by ostensibly independent charter cities — that was signed into law in 2011 as part of the broader battle over proposed bans like Measure A in San Diego. And it hinges on the fact that President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating project labor agreements on federal projects with certain exceptions in February.

But the twist is this is a hollow threat — at least when it comes to San Diego. Measure A has a specific exemption allowing PLAS to be used on projects where to do otherwise would put state or federal funding at risk. And there is no evidence the ban has cost the city any funding since its passage, as The San Diego Union-tribune reported last month.

Should there be vigorous debate over both union and corporate influence in government contracting decisions? Of course. Should such debates also consider sensitive diversity issues — not just historic obstacles to Black people in the construction industry but the fact that in the U.S., 1.5 million-plus undocumented people, generally Latinos, work in the industry without full legal protections? Absolutely. But that broad, healthy discussion is not what is happening with Measure D. Instead, voters are being told they have to act or the sky will fall in, denying the city the state and federal funding it needs to complete many badly needed civic projects.

That claim can’t be backed up. The bottom line is project labor agreements restrict fair competition and put smaller — and especially many Black — businesses at a disadvantage. Nothing in Measure D changes that. The San Diego Union-tribune Editorial Board recommends a “no” vote on Measure D.

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