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PRESS RELEASE January 18, 2013
Contact: Eric Christen
(858) 431-6337
Union Crafted Project Labor Agreement (PLA) Created Behind Closed Doors by City's Contractor and Trade Unions is Clearly a Public Document Group Argues
Coalition Gives Clark One Week To Make PLA Public or Face Legal Action
San Diego, CA - Today the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction sent letters to Clark Construction's National and Western Region offices demanding that the "agreement" they had signed with the San Diego /Imperial County Trades Union be made public, as mandated by city code.
"Despite the citizens of this city overwhelmingly voting twice to ban PLAs Clark Construction has insulted them with this back room deal crafted by local union bosses." said Eric Christen, Executive Director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction. "To add insult to injury Clark Construction then decided to hide this document that will cover the building of a $600 million public project despite the fact that city code states that documents like this PLA must be made public. It is as remarkable as it is illegal, not to mention tone deaf."
The enclosed letter explains why the PLA must be made public and what the result of not making it public will be.
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January 17, 2013
Dear Mr. Heim,
The UT San Diego reported on Nov. 8, 2012 that "Clark/Hunt, a joint venture of the Clark and Hunt construction groups, confirmed...that it has signed a project labor agreement with local unions" and on November 15, 2012 that this Project Labor Agreement would not be made public until you seek bids from sub-contractors.
Please be advised: The Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) Pre-construction Services Agreement you signed with the City (Exhibit I) explains that any documents pertaining to the performance of the contract are public records.
As you know, your contract is authorized under the City's Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) ordinance. Section 22.3808 (d) of that ordinance states:
All construction manager at risk contracts shall be open book among the City, the construction manager at risk and subcontractors, and shall provide for full disclosure to the City of all documents and information by the construction manager at risk entry, including but not limited to estimates, schedules, records of direct and indirect costs, field and home office overhead calculations, subcontracts, records of payment, and any other data or document deemed by the City to be relevant to the project.
The City obviously deems this agreement to be "relevant" to the project since it was announced at a City press conference in announcing the Building Trades Unions' decision to drop its environmental claims against the convention center expansion.
Therefore we ask that you immediately release a copy of the Project Labor Agreement to the City and to the public.
San Diego Municipal Code Section 22.4401 explains that it is the policy of the City to post construction project contracts online to help citizens evaluate the City's performance in promoting fair and open competition. As a good citizen of our community, we hope you will likewise post your PLA online for easy public review. Should you not release the Project Labor Agreement by January 25th, 2013, legal action will follow.
Eric Christen
Executive Director
CFEC
cc: Robby Moser, President
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This past Friday I had the opportunity to speak in Fresno at a gathering of the 6th Annual San Joaquin Valley Region Public Contracting / Central Valley High Speed Rail Conference about the Project Labor Agreement that will govern the building of Phase 1 of the $68 billion California High Speed Rail System. At this event I was scheduled to be on a panel of both supporters and opponents of PLAs, each being given a chance to give their perspective to the assembled. The other panelists were Nicole Goehring of the Associated Builders and Contractors Northern California Chapter and John Hutson, the "head" of the Fresno/Kings/Tulare/Madera Counties Building Trades Council.
Little did I know this was going to turn into a union-bosses-gone-wild reality show replete with vulgarity, mental meltdowns, and ugly accusations.
During Mr. Hutson's opening statement he decided it would be appropriate to use my children who were in attendance as the basis for a crude if hard to quite understand anecdote about bulls servicing cows, which you can view here. During his next opportunity to speak he literally melted down in front of those in attendance while telling me to "fu@k off", calling me a "bit*h" and then accusing me of having had a "sex change operation," all before storming out of the room with his four union brothers who hurled a few insults of their own, as you can see for yourselves here.
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With $68 billion at stake you would think that news media all over the world would be searching high and low for the union crafted monopoly agreement that the California High Speed Rail Authority was only recently forced to admit, thanks to our efforts, even exists. You would be wrong. Instead it is CFEC and our allies that have discovered the actual PLA in all of its predictable and unoriginal glory.
Working with CFEC, Labor Issues Solutions' Kevin Dayton has dissected the "agreement" and found it to be a standard boilerplate PLA that will predictably add another layer of bureaucracy to this $68 billion boondoggle. At the same time it will place an impediment in the way of any contractor, especially small, women and minority owned companies (who are overwhelmingly union-free), that will be hard to overcome.
Please read this entire analysis and be prepared to be both outraged and disgusted that a special interest could have so much influence over how billions of tax dollars from North Carolinians, Texans, and of course, Californians, could be wasted like this.
Stay tuned as CFEC is now fully dedicated to seeing that this choo choo to nowhere is exposed and opposed every step of the way.
As we have been predicting for some time now Big Labor special interests appear to have gotten their pound of flesh as it pertains to California's latest boondoggle known as the California High Speed Rail Project.
Last week CFEC's Eric Christen, Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of Northern California's Nicole Goehring, and Richard Markuson of the 
Western Electrical Contractor Association (WECA) and Plumbing Heating and Cooling Contractor's of California (CAPHCC), all spoke at the California High Speed Rail Authority's Board of Directors meeting held at Sacramento City Hall. After comments from each of the speakers about how the "Community Benefits Agreement" or "CBA" they were voting on is more than likely just another name for a PLA, the speakers were called out by Board President Dan Richard and informed that PLAs are just super and have all kinds of support in the "minority contracting community."
