KEEP PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENT LIMITS
On Tuesday, the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council will ask the City Council to approve ballot language in a measure that could overturn Proposition A. In June 2012, Proposition A, a ballot measure aimed at activating fair and open competition in the San Diego construction industry, was passed by nearly 60% of San Diego voters. It passed because the people wanted all construction workers, regardless of race, gender or union affiliation, to have equal opportunity and equal access to compete for jobs on city taxpayer-funded construction projects.
The public also wanted to prevent politicians from imposing what could be called a monopoly through unfair project labor agreements, which — on the surface — appear harmless. But harmless they are not. They are cleverly designed project labor agreements to organize nonunion workforces by forcing non-union contractors to utilize workers dispatched from union hiring halls.
The current Building Trades Council leadership is now attempting to have the City Council adopt ballot language to reverse Proposition A. The irony is that Proposition A does not ban all project labor agreements. Conversely, Proposition A was designed to allow flexibility, protecting the city from the forfeiture of state or federal funding. Incredibly, this potential loss has become the number one argument from the current building trades leadership in asking for a ballot measure that, if passed, would overturn Proposition A.
If recent building trades history is followed as observed with similar efforts at school districts and some regional cities, we will see a phase two that will ultimately replace
Proposition A with a requirement that all taxpayer-funded work be accomplished under a project labor agreement favorable to the construction unions. Building trade leadership is attempting to use its considerable political clout to push the ballot measure through legislative action, thereby eliminating the requirement to obtain the necessary signatures for such a ballot measure.
Why is the building trades leadership, once again, putting forth a fight against construction workers, universally, by asking the City Council to approve a ballot measure for the upcoming election? The answer is anyone’s guess but should be obvious. It most likely is a push to funnel more money into the pockets of the unions, instead of into the households of San Diego’s construction workers.
In fact, the reversal of Proposition A will hinder the very hardworking men and women who are either currently enrolled in or have graduated from apprenticeship training programs, for example like those offered by the Black Contractors Association of San Diego and other non-union construction training programs. This is accomplished by inserting project labor agreement wording that eliminates apprenticeship participation for all state of California and federal government apprenticeship programs except those managed by the construction unions. That does not even come close to fair and open.
The success stories we have seen with these apprenticeship programs have changed lives. Apprentices hired from these programs by both open shop and labor union contractors are now construction project superintendents, project managers and, even more importantly, emerging small minority business contractors. Why would anyone think that putting these important inner-city apprenticeship programs at risk is a good idea, unless the goal is to legislate these programs out of existence? To think that the extinction of these important, life-changing programs — especially within our inner cities — may be at play is simply unacceptable.
To be clear, it is a well-known fact that many of San Diego’s major construction projects have been successfully built without the use of project labor agreements. In the past, under more enlightened building trade union leadership, both union and non-union contractors have worked side by side on numerous high-profile construction projects for the betterment of San Diego.
We reached out to the building trades union early on to talk about crafting ballot language that would benefit the entire industry. The union rejected that offer, but we again invite enlightened labor leaders to come together and work with us to find middle ground where the beneficiaries are the construction workers who come from all walks of life and are the backbone of our industry. We are here, we are listening and we are at the table. There is a better solution than a blanket project labor agreement mandate in which the unions are the only winners.
There is a better solution than a blanket mandate in which the unions are the only winners.