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 The political tradition of the Building Trades, both nationally and in San Francisco, has emphasized practicality over ideology. We ask of our politics exactly what we ask every day on our job sites: What works?
In San Francisco, Gavin Newsom works.
For many Building Trades workers the evidence that Gavin Newsom works is before them every day. They start by counting tower cranes. They can make their rent or mortgage payments on time. The food on their tables is a little better. Their children’s shoes fit better. A rainout doesn’t bring desperation, but a chance finally to relax.
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Try it sometime, if you have a weekday morning free. Get in your pickup truck. Take the Cesar Chavez exit from Highway 101. Head west on Cesar Chavez several blocks, to Valencia. Turn right there, then double back along Twenty-sixth. All along the way a dozen men on one corner, half a dozen on another will raise their arms and try to catch your eye. If you slow down and pull over they will come running to your passenger-side door. They want what most of us have or want: Work. In most of their cases, immigration status hinders them from seeking work by means more standard here. With a notable exception, the best shot at work for these “day laborers” is on the street corner.
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Building Trades workers should have no questions about which Arnold Schwarzenegger is real – the anti-union Arnold of 2005, with his attack on worker pensions and his efforts to silence unions politically, or the “moderate” and “bipartisan” Arnold of 2006, flexing his bill-signing muscles again and again before the camera.
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Project Labor Agreements and the “Small, Local Contractor” Argument |
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Most readers of Organized Labor will be familiar with project labor agreements (PLAs) in concept. In the private sector these agreements usually mandate that all work be performed with union-signatory contractors. In the public sector this mandate is legally prohibited; contractors must be permitted to bid on, obtain, and perform the work regardless of whether or not they are union-signatory. Public sector PLAs, then, generally mandate that all contractors pay union wages and benefits and work under union conditions.
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A New Consensus on Construction |
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Common wisdom would say that advocacy of construction and advocacy for the environment are opposing concepts, not to be held together in the same thought.
In the case of San Francisco that common wisdom would be wrong.
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