 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.
When the lens turns away Arnold continues his assault on us. All of us in the Trades have seen coworkers be permanently disabled by accidents or the daily physical wear to which our work subjects us. All of us know that workers’ compensation payments were inadequate even before Arnold brought changes to the system. Those changes resulted in reductions of forty to fifty-four percent in payments to permanently disabled workers. The “moderate” and “bipartisan” 2006 Arnold vetoed a bill that would have restored those payments to about their former level. His office said that any increase in benefits should wait for the conclusions of an eighteen-month study. No one in his administration offered any pointers on how disabled workers were supposed to eat and pay the rent during the eighteen months. (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/06 and 9/29/06)
Most of us in the Trades have graduated from state-certified apprenticeship programs. We graduated side-by-side with other apprentices, often dozens of them. Some non-union apprenticeship programs rarely graduate anyone, but continue to receive state money. This is a clear waste of that money, an unnecessary drain on a state treasury that has seen problems and will see them again. The chief purpose of state financial support for such programs would be to prop up the rickety claims of some parts of the non-union sector that they are as serious about worker training as we are. Yet the same Arnold who boasts of being so devoted to cutting waste in state government has vetoed bills that would allow state funding only to apprenticeships that graduate at least one apprentice in two years, submit evidence of suitable facilities, and demonstrate employer commitments for on-the-job training. (Building Trades Bulletin, 10/2/06)
“Prevailing wage” laws protect workers and contractors from one region from contractors that bring in poorly-paid workers from another region. Under California law state funding for construction triggers prevailing wage requirements. Special tax credits are clearly a form of state funding; if the state tells me that I don’t have to pay a tax everyone else has to pay, it puts money in my pocket. John Rea, Arnold’s Acting Director of Industrial Relations, ruled that developers who received state low-income housing credits to build projects didn’t have to pay prevailing wages on them. The State Building Trades challenged the ruling in court. The San Francisco Superior Court agreed that, yes, the tax credits were state funding and, no, Mr. Rea was wrong in insisting that the credits didn’t mean workers would have to be paid prevailing wages. Arnold’s man is challenging the court’s decision; Arnold’s man is thereby challenging our ability to make a living. And this is not the only instance in which Mr. Rea has attempted to undercut prevailing wages. (Building Trades Bulletin, 9/28/06)
The stridently anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) aren’t fooled by the “moderate” and “bipartisan” Arnold. Arnold appointed the ABC’s Ann Quick to the California Apprenticeship Council. The ABC for its part contributed twenty thousand dollars to Arnold’s campaign. (San Francisco Chronicle, 10/7/06) Those are twenty thousand testimonials that the enemies of labor believe that Arnold remains their friend. Those are twenty thousand votes of confidence that an Arnold returned to office in 2007 will work actively against us.
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