Organized Labor

The State Building and Construction Trades Council and California Labor Federation held their annual Joint Legislative Conference in Sacramento March 8 and 9. This gave union members an opportunity to learn about Labor’s legislative priorities for 2010 and meet with local legislators to advocate for bills that benefit California workers.

The 2010 legislative agenda focuses on restoring economic justice. It 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 9 along with the San Francisco and San Mateo County Labor Councils.

The Bay Area legislators expressed strong support for Labor’s 2010 legislation. All have voted overwhelmingly in favor of labor’s bills in the 2009 legislative session, with Leno, Yee, Hill, and Ruskin having voted 100 percent of the time with labor in the 2009 session.

The legislators were also asked to sign a Middle Class Bill of Rights resolution that calls for our state government to “prioritize rebuilding the middle class through good jobs, quality education, a clean environment with safe and secure communities. The state must commit to raising the necessary revenue and prioritizing spending to meet the basic needs of California families.” The Bay Area labor representatives referred to it as not just a Bill of Rights for the middle class, but a Working Class Bill of Rights; all the Bay Area legislators signed on in support.

Building Trades Bills

Bills sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council (SBCTC) focus on creating family-sustaining jobs, spurring economic development, and getting construction union members back to work. There is widespread unemployment in the construction industry—reaching 30 percent and rising. Building Trades leaders said that California needs to create employment opportunities, not spend money on job training programs for jobs that do not exist.

SBCTC bills dealing with energy issues and implementation of AB 32, which calls for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and mandates that at least 33 percent of the state’s energy is produced from renewable energy sources, were also supported by the Bay Area delegation.

Painters and Tapers Local 913 Business Rep. James Ruigomez urged the legislators to vote for AB 677 and SB 1193. AB 677 would require the payment of prevailing wages for renewable energy projects located on public school sites that are financed through public-private partnerships called power purchase agreements. SB 1193 will help to provide up to $3 million per school to install energy efficiency improvements.

Ammiano said that, “There’s an attack on AB 32 now [by some Republican legislators], but this is the future and we have to start with workers’ rights on the projects that interface with AB 32.”

Leno said he supports renewable energy said he has been involved in developing plans for solar energy installations on some of San Francisco’s covered reservoirs for many years. Senator Leno and Yee and Assemblymembers Hill, Ruskin and Ma also expressed support for the bills.

Senator Joe Simitian said that he was generally supportive of the energy-related bills and would likely vote for them once the bills are finalized. Simitian said that a renewable energy bill he authored had passed but was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, who called it “protectionist” because called for jobs and tax benefits to go to Californians. Simitian said he was perplexed by the governor’s veto at a time when workers need jobs. “I’ve been in public office for 26 years and I’ve never seen people hurting as much as now,” he said.

Ironworkers Local 377 organizer Danny Prince asked the legislators to support SB 1397, which revises how California oversees state approved apprenticeship programs and provides the Division of Apprenticeship Standards with the authority to expose fly-by-night programs that are not committed to training, and AB 2726, which would require that state funded training in apprenticeable occupations be formally connected with state approved apprenticeship programs. All the legislators offered support for the bills.

Senator Simitian said the issue of apprenticeship programs was another area where legislators can be educated. “People need to grasp the idea that it’s important to have a pipeline to bring skilled workers into jobs,” he said.

Assemblymember Ammiano said he had worked on labor enforcement issues as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and would absolutely support the bills that would require building and construction trades apprenticeship programs to be audited when they fall below acceptable standards. Leno said he would sign on as a co-sponsor of SB 1397. Hill, Ma and Ruskin also said they were in favor of the bills.

“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.

Plumbers Local 467 Business Agent Mark Burri asked for support for AB 2161. The bill would help school districts save money on public school construction projects by increasing the number of bids they receive. A school district would be required to advertise its bid, at no cost to the district, in construction journals and on the school district’s website in order to reach a wider audience and to promote fair, open competition and reduce the chance of favoritism in awarding contracts.

Simitian said the bill would help the public to trust the bidding process and see that it is competitive and broad-based. The other legislators also supported the bill, as well as AB 1853, which would require a state agency awarding a public works contract to provide a 2 percent bid preference to a bidder whose employee health care expenditures, and those of the subcontractors, are at least 6.5 percent of the wages paid to its employees.

SF Building Trades Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault thanked Leno for working to pass SB 792, which preserves open space at Candlestick Point while allowing the developer Lennar to proceed with a project there that will create construction jobs.

State Budget

With the state facing another massive budget deficit, the governor and Republican legislators have proposed budget cuts that would reduce education spending, eliminate essential programs, and slash wages and benefits for public sector workers. The California Labor Federation’s 2010 legislative agenda notes that, “Times are bleak for California’s working families. We’re losing 50,000 jobs a month, spiking California’s unemployment to a post-World War II record. For those who still have a job, wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living. Budget cuts, furloughs, and foreclosures have unhinged our state’s once stable middle class. Food banks and shelters now overflow with families who can no longer make ends meet. Our social safety net has shredded and no longer supports the most vulnerable among us. The perfect storm of job losses, slashed wages, massive cuts in state spending and skyrocketing health care costs threatens to drown any chance of an economic recovery.” One way for California to emerge from this deep, dark recession is to invest in the creation of good jobs with decent pay and benefits.

American Federation of Teachers Local 3267 President Melinda Dart asked the legislators if they would support raising taxes to help fund education and other social services. Jerry Hill said that he would and that he supported eliminating the two-thirds vote requirement for passing a budget or raising taxes. He said he had introduced a bill to allow for a simple majority vote on budget increases of up to 5 percent.

Yee said, “These are difficult times, with a governor who’s hell-bent on destroying the gains made by working people. We do need to raise taxes to fund education and social services. If we vote not to make any cuts, we’ll force a stalemate, then you can roll in and start pressuring the people holding up the budget. We can’t solve it on the backs of working people, children and seniors. If the Governor and his Republican colleagues are going to say taxes are off the table, then Democrats should say cuts to education are off the table.

“We’ve been cutting more and more,” Yee said. “I decided I wasn’t going to be part of that and won’t vote for any cuts at all. I’ve grown a spine because of the work you in the labor movement have done.”

Mark Leno said that corporate benefits keep getting extracted by the Republican minority in the budget negotiations, and “that’s enough of a reason to repeal the two-thirds requirement. They’ll go after guaranteed lunch breaks and the eight hour day next.” Leno said he is still hoping to see his bill passed that would allow counties to restore the vehicle license fee cut by Schwarzenegger. “That would provide $70 million annually to San Francisco,” he said. “$30 billion was squandered by the governor with his vehicle license fee cut. We had the vehicle license fee for 50 years before Schwarzenegger repealed it. That was when California was the best in education and other areas, and the vehicle license fee helped to pay for that.”

Leno said that he and fellow Democrats had changed the governor’s gas tax swap that would have cut funding to transportation guaranteed under Prop. 42 and were able to restore some funding for education and protect funding for transportation. Leno said he felt that this year the governor could be a problem because he is termed out and doesn’t care.

Ammiano offered the observation that the governor does not engage with his party at all but that the Democrats were too timid on issues like the budget and raising taxes to protect services. “We need a strong majority,” he said. “We have to remind members of the legislature that their constituents are impacted by budget cuts and bankruptcies, even in conservative districts.”

Ruskin said he would continue working to alter the two-thirds vote requirement for passing a state budget and that, “We have to have majority rule, not the radical system we now have” that enables a minority of legislators to hold up a budget and force concessions and cuts. Ruskin said his bill, AB 790, calls for continuing to pay salaries to state workers if the budget comes in late so that state workers aren’t penalized.

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.”