The Coast Community College District on Wedensday shot down a request to draft an agreement that would pre-negotiate hiring terms with local unions for almost $700 million in construction projects.
The idea has split the Board of Trustees and drawn sometimes-heated debate for months.
And that acrimony could continue, according to one trustee.
For 33 years, electrical contractor Alfred Dennison's bread and butter have been public-works projects, mostly at public schools and community colleges.
But Dennison's company isn't unionized, and the 20 electricians and apprentices who work for Dennison Electric in Los Alamitos aren't interested in joining a labor union, Dennison said.
At least three project labor agreements have been used by county governments in recent years.
The Coast Community College District Board of Trustees was scheduled today to discuss a Project Labor Agreement for construction projects funded by Measure M – a $698 million bond measure passed in November for capital projects in the district's Coastline Community, Golden West and Orange Coast colleges.
A PLA is a collective-bargaining agreement that ensures projects are awarded to unionized firms. While unionized work isn't innately bad, Measure M was promoted as a taxpayer-friendly bond measure that would fund projects without such a requirement.
Article Tab: Screen shot of Coast Community College District website.
Screen shot of Coast Community College District website.
The district sought the approval of the Orange County Taxpayers Association for Measure M. OCTax does not make endorsements on school bond ballot initiatives, but does tell voters whether a proposed bond meets its 13-point criteria.
When Orange County voters approved $698 million in new borrowing for the Coast Community College District last fall, they received reassurances from the county's preeminent taxpayer organization that the measure took a responsible approach to long-term indebtedness. That helped the district garner 57 percent of the vote on Measure M on Nov. 6, just above the 55 percent threshold for passing such bonds. The bond money will be repaid with tax increases on property owners.
OC Tax doesn't endorse or oppose school bond measures, but it does offer an exhaustive 13-point list of criteria for the public to judge bond measures. The last item of OC Tax's list is: disclosure of whether the agency intends to use any project labor agreements during construction. A PLA is defined as, "when the government awards contracts for public construction projects exclusively to unionized firms."
Back in September, when the district was desperately seeking OCTax's coveted seal of approval, Reed Royalty, then-president of the organization, directly asked the district to address the PLA issue.
The Port strike is finally over. So what did we learn?
Well one lesson we learned is that any union will shut down the ports at the drop of a hat and all the other unions will support their "brothers" in organized labor.
This port-wide shutdown seems odd because time after time, I attend meetings at the Port of Long Beach, where deals are proposed to give Big Labor control over construction projects and one of the main justifications is that the Port Commissioners are receiving jobsite certainty that the workers will not strike. These deals are called Project Labor Agreements, or PLAs, and they discriminate against non-union workers.
During a community input meeting hosted by the Port of Long Beach and the West Long Beach Neighborhood Association, a young woman confronted port officials, asking them what was being done to ensure that port jobs reach Long Beach residents. She had her resume in her purse she said, and she wasn't kidding.
While new construction projects would bring even more badly needed jobs to the communities surrounding the Port of Long Beach, only about 10 percent of the jobs actually go to Long Beach residents.
Currently, port contractors are mandated to allot 30 percent of their employment to locals, but "local" doesn't necessarily mean Long Beach. The port's contractors have surpassed their required number of Los Angeles and Orange County employee hours, but labor agreements do not require a mandatory number of Long Beach employee-hours.
Gov. Jerry Brown has been predictable and unpredictable in signing and vetoing legislation this session, but has a few more important decisions to make before Sunday's deadline to decide the fate of bills still on his desk.
We were pleased the governor vetoed Assembly Bill 101, which would have forced unionization of child-care workers without a vote by those affected. To his credit, Gov. Brown criticized this union-backed bill for its magnitude and potential cost. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed similar legislation. Occasionally, common sense crosses party lines.
Labor unions wield incredible power in Sacramento and during the final days of the legislative session their agenda is revealed in stark relief. Two recently introduced bills illustrate their plans.
Senate Bill 922, which was the subject of a Sacramento Bee editorial today, would prevent cities and counties and even local voters from banning so-called “project labor agreements,” agreements that require governments to award public construction contracts to unionized companies.
The Bee’s editorial board called it a “a blatant attempt to forestall a campaign by nonunion contractors to ban PLAs on the local level. The nonunion contractors argue that such agreements deter them from bidding for public construction projects. … A statewide coalition led by non-union contractors has managed to pass ordinances that ban PLAs in nine local jurisdictions so far.” SB 922 would stop that non-union campaign in its tracks.
Governments at all levels are running out of money, the result of chronic overspending and a continually troubled economy. So agencies are struggling to find the money to build the roads, schools and other infrastructure projects that are, at least arguably, among government's core functions.
In the private sector, when money is tight corporate managers tighten their belts, cut back on unnecessary expenses and strive to provide new efficiencies so that the product or service they offer doesn't suffer. If it does, they will lose customers, and the future of their business could be threatened.
It doesn't work that way in the public sector, which often cuts back those very services that most affect the public. It's not as if commuters can take their driving business elsewhere or parents can easily send their kids to another district if the local schools are overcrowded and ill-performing. Not only do cash-strapped government agencies cut back on services directly used by the public, they also seem too willing to squander scarce resources to satisfy interest groups.
Governments at all levels are running out of money, the result of chronic overspending and a continually troubled economy. So agencies are struggling to find the money to build the roads, schools and other infrastructure projects that are, at least arguably, among government's core functions.
In the private sector, when money is tight corporate managers tighten their belts, cut back on unnecessary expenses and strive to provide new efficiencies so that the product or service they offer doesn't suffer. If it does, they will lose customers, and the future of their business could be threatened.
It doesn't work that way in the public sector, which often cuts back those very services that most affect the public. It's not as if commuters can take their driving business elsewhere or parents can easily send their kids to another district if the local schools are overcrowded and ill-performing. Not only do cash-strapped government agencies cut back on services directly used by the public, they also seem too willing to squander scarce resources to satisfy interest groups.
EDITORIAL
