Organized Labor

By Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

The California Labor Federation and State Building and Construction Trades Council held their annual Joint Legislative Conference in Sacramento March 16 and 17 to give union members an opportunity to learn about Labor’s legislative priorities for 2009 and meet with local legislators to advocate for bills that benefit California workers.

The 2009 legislative agenda focuses on restoring economic justice and includes enforcing worker protections, winning the right to organize by gaining support for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, fighting for a fair budget, making government work for workers, and reforming the initiative process.

The San Francisco and San Mateo County Building Trades Councils hosted a series of meetings with Bay Area legislators March 17 along with the San Mateo County and San Francisco Labor Councils. Assemblymembers Fiona Ma, Tom Ammiano, Jerry Hill, and Ira Ruskin, and State Senators Leland Yee, Mark Leno, and Joe Simitian were asked about their positions on labor-backed bills.
Building Trades Bills

Bills sponsored by the Building Trades will increase oversight and expand the accountability of the state agencies responsible for ensuring that building trades union members get every protection and advantage afforded by law.

With the state prepared to spend billions of dollars generated by the $9 billion High Speed Rail bond, $16 billion in local school construction bonds, the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the voter-approved 2006 infrastructure bond package, the State Building Trades public works legislative package will incentivize choosing Building Trades contractors and putting union members to work.

All the Bay Area legislators expressed support for the package of building trades sponsored bills. AB 26 would require a state agency awarding a public works project to provide a 2 percent bid preference to a contractor who provides healthcare to its workers; SB 45 would prohibit a contractor from working on public works projects if the State Labor Commissioner’s Office determines that the contractor willfully misclassified workers as independent contractors in order to avoid paying workers’ compensation insurance and overtime pay; and SB 258 would increase oversight and accountability of contractors bidding on public works projects by requiring a public works license certification, to ensure contractors have the required knowledge of the state’s prevailing wage and public works law.

Bills dealing with vocational education or Career Technical Education were also supported. CTE has proven to improve student achievement and graduation rates while exposing students to good paying career opportunities for life after high school. AB 554 would allow a student, with parental and district permission, to substitute one or more non-core graduation requirements with a state approved CTE course that is academically rigorous and teaches the hands-on technical skills needed in the 21st century economy. SB 147 would require the California State University system to count CTE classes towards admission entrance requirements. SB 675 would provide funding for CTE and workforce training opportunities for disadvantaged youth in danger of dropping out of high school, while also promoting the emerging green technology and renewable energy economy throughout California. SB 725 would establish career technical education partnerships between the California Department of Education’s Regional Occupational Programs and the Building Trades joint labor-management apprenticeship programs promoting construction career opportunities.

“I’m a big believer in vocational education and think we need more opportunities for young people and for re-training workers.” said Fiona Ma. She said she would support the Assembly bills and that while she had not yet seen the Senate bills, she was supportive of Labor.

Terry Dunnigan of Iron Workers 377 said that SB 258 was important because there would be many contractors bidding for public works projects who do not have experience with the state’s prevailing wage and public works laws. Mark Leno said he agreed and that, “With the federal economic stimulus funds for infrastructure, there may be opportunities for misbehavior by some contractors.” Leno said he would support the building trades bills.

Leland Yee said he was supportive of Career Tech Education, “To maximize the opportunities for students. Public education now is tailored for sending students to college, but there also needs to be other paths to careers.”

Ira Ruskin said he supported the bills and that “we need to be careful as we spend the federal stimulus money that we train workers through the apprenticeship programs.” Assembly members Tom Ammiano and Jerry Hill also expressed support for the Building Trades bills.

Joe Simitian said he would support AB 26 and that “When employers put workers on the job without health care, it’s a cost to the state,” as uninsured workers may be forced to use County hospitals and emergency rooms.

State Budget

The recently passed state budget was discussed and criticized for having provisions that will hurt California workers, including a spending cap that could lead to more layoffs of state workers and cuts in services, and reductions in funding for In-Home Health Services and education.

San Mateo County Central Labor Council President Linda Gregory asked each legislator to support a more open budget process and to go to the public to seek support for a fair budget through public hearings. Gregory criticized the “hermetically sealed” budget negotiations between the “Big Five” Assembly and Senate leaders and Governor that led to concessions and compromises with the Republican minority. “Will you talk to your fellow Democrats and take a public stand to change the requirement for a two-thirds majority vote to pass a budget?” she asked. “Will you support SCA 9 to change the requirement from a two-thirds vote to 55 percent?”

Senator Yee said he would support efforts to change the two-thirds vote requirement, including putting a measure on the ballot. “These are difficult times,” Yee said. “You have to put pressure on the Democrats to not accommodate the Republicans’ demands. We gave up a lot to get three Republican votes. We’ve given up everything already except for work rules.” The Republican minority had tried to weaken overtime provisions and take away guaranteed lunch breaks.

Yee said he was one of only three Senate Democrats to vote against the budget because, “I couldn’t go back to you in my district and say I support working people while voting for budget cuts. What we did was embarrassing and a disaster.” He said he was disturbed that his fellow Democrats “gave up on an issue that is important to us, the open primary.”

Fiona Ma said, “It’s important that we get our message out to the public. The closed negotiations are a flaw. We were hunkered down here and didn’t get the message out to the public about what was happening.” She said she supported a more open process, would vote for SCA 9 and that she would work to try to get Democrats elected in some of the Republican Districts.

Mark Leno pointed out that, “$30 billion was squandered by the governor with his ridiculous vehicle license fee cut. Now he supports a partial restoration to fill in the hole he dug.” Leno had introduced legislation in previous years to allow cities and counties to reinstate the fees. He said San Francisco could receive between $35 and $70 million under his legislation.

Leno said he would support going to the public to change the state’s 2/3-vote requirement to pass a budget. “I’ll work with you, as I did in 2005,” he said.

Assemblymember Ruskin said he would support an educational campaign to get voters to support changing the two-thirds budget vote requirement. He said that the Assemblymembers and Senators were aware and informed about the closed negotiations and did have some input in the process. He said he voted for provisions of the budget deal that he didn’t like because, “The state was going over the edge and the deal kept getting worse.”

Jerry Hill said he would support a more open budget process and had introduced a bill (ACA 4) to allow for a simple majority vote on budget increases of up to 5 percent. Hill said he voted for the budget deal that would put a spending cap measure on the ballot because, “That was the deal we needed to make or 20,000 state workers would be laid off. The Republicans don’t care how bad it gets.”

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano said that, “The process was not perfect and difficult decisions had to be made. No one is happy about the service cuts, layoffs and tax increases that were a necessary part of this plan.” He said he voted for the budget that “made painful cuts to human services … as well as deep reductions in education spending … with great reluctance in the hope that some of these cuts will be restored through the recently passed federal stimulus bill.”

State Senator Joe Simitian said he supported a more open process and disagreed with “the notion that we can simply cut our way to a balanced budget.

California Labor Federation Bills

The Bay Area delegation was asked to support AB 1000, the Paid Sick Days bill introduced by San Francisco Assemblymember Fiona Ma. Machinists Local 1782 Representative and IAM District 141 Trustee Greg Brown asked the legislators to support expanding the bill to make sure that workers aren’t punished for taking paid sick days off. Brown said that workers at United Airlines are disciplined and classified as “unreliable employees” if they take three sick days in a year when they are ill or to care for a sick family member.

Over six million California workers have no paid sick days and often must continue working while they are sick, exposing their coworkers to injury and illness. AB 1000 would set a minimum standard for all employees to be eligible for a specified number of sick days. All the elected officials support AB 1000; Ma said a provision against retaliation by employers was included in the bill, which is based on a San Francisco ordinance. Assemblymember Jerry Hill said he had signed on as a co-author of AB 1000 and was happy to support the bill.

For more information on other Labor bills, check the California Labor Federation’s website at www.calaborfed.org.

Many unions were represented at the meetings, including the Electrical Workers, Machinists, California Federation of Teachers, Hotel Workers, Iron Workers, Airline Flight Attendants, United Food and Commercial Workers, Carpenters, AFSCME, Airline Pilots, Letter Carriers, Sign and Display, Theatrical Stage Employees, Plumbers, Hotel Workers, Cement Masons, Screen Actors, Laborers, Operating Engineers, Sheet Metal workers, Painters and Tapers, Office & Professional Employees, and Transport Workers.

The Legislative Conference also included a series of workshops on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Plan; Renewable Energy, the Union Workforce and Consumers; the Open Primary and Prop 11.
For more information on labor’s legislative agenda, check the websites of the California Labor Federation (www.calaborfed.org), and the State Building Trades Council (www.sbctc.org).