Organized Labor

Yee and Alioto-Pier are Choices for Mayor, with Gascon for District Attorney

Leland Yee and Michela Alioto-Pier

The leadership of San Francisco, along with school construction money and pension reform, is at stake this Election Day, Nov. 8. The first day for early voting is Oct. 11.

Delegates to the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council voted to co-endorse State Senator Leland Yee and former District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier for Mayor. Both Alioto-Pier and Sen. Yee have strong records in support of the building trades and unions in general. As an Assembly Member and State Senator, Yee earned a 100 percent favorable voting record for several years from the California Labor Federation for his support for legislation that benefits California workers.

San Francisco Mayor: Leland Yee or Michela Alioto-Pier

Upon receiving the SFBCTC endorsement earlier this year, he said, “I am proud to stand with San Francisco’s working families and I am honored to receive the endorsement of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. Together, we can help rejuvenate our city and our economy and provide good-paying jobs for our working men and women.”

In his candidate questionnaire for the SFBCTC, Yee said, “Governor Brown’s redevelopment proposal needs to take into account that in places like San Francisco, today, redevelopment is delivering on its promises. His proposal, if not outright rejected, needs significant revision and should preserve these tools for the cities and counties that are using them appropriately to create jobs, housing, and new economies.”

On “local hire” Yee said that he understood there are concerns among the trades about potential unintended consequences of the San Francisco Local Hiring Policy for Construction. “As mayor, it will be my job to uphold duly adopted local laws, and I am committed to working with the trades to implement these policies in a way that does not adversely impact individual groups,” he said. “I have a record of working closely with the trades to make the voices of working men and women heard at City Hall, and I will continue to demonstrate that commitment as mayor in implementing this ordinance.

“I think it’s most important to recognize that this legislation imposes a real responsibility upon the city to ensure its training programs produce enough skilled workers to meet local hiring thresholds. The city must make every effort to train or retrain and place workers before assessing penalties on contractors for not meeting local hiring requirements.”

Michela Alioto-Pier
Alioto-Pier is a fifth-generation San Franciscan whose grandfather, Joseph Alioto, served as mayor from1968 to 1976. Alioto-Pier was appointed to the Board of Supervisors by Gavin Newsom after he was elected mayor in 2003. She won re-election in 2006, with the backing of the Building Trades Council. She had planned to run for re-election in 2010 but in September the California Supreme Court ruled that she had already served two terms and could not run for re-election. Alioto-Pier had been endorsed by the SFBCTC in her Supervisorial bid. Mark Farrell was elected in November.

On the “local hire” ordinance, Alioto-Pier said, “While we all agree on putting San Franciscans back to work, I could not support the recently passed ‘local hire’ law and voted against it at the Board. This poorly crafted ordinance fails to understand the regional nature of our economy, does nothing to prepare local workers for good-paying skilled jobs, and was developed without the meaningful participation of all affected parties.” She expressed concern that “the measure, as introduced, would cost $18,000 for each job created, for a net cost to the City of $6.5 million.”

Alioto-Pier asserted, “The next Mayor must bring all stakeholders together to ensure the best public policy. There are many people born and raised in our City who now live throughout the Bay Area due to high housing costs and the poor quality of local schools. This measure created division by setting working people in San Francisco against their brothers and sisters in the broader Bay Area.”

On redevelopment, Alioto-Pier said, “Governor Brown’s proposal to abolish redevelopment is a ‘one size fits all’ idea that could harm San Francisco’s ability to deliver needed projects. Unlike the 57 other counties, our combined City and County status allows responsible redevelopment to occur without the turf battles common in other areas.”

On pension reform, Alioto-Pier responded, “I believe we can preserve pensions for city employees and ensure city services continue for residents. With a $6.5 billion budget, it becomes a question of priorities, not of resources. Since workers are not to blame for the entire problem, it is unfair to ask them to shoulder the entire burden.”

She said she would support a compromise measure worked out between the interim mayor and labor.

District Attorney

SFBCTC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault said, “Our Delegates appreciated George Gascon’s personal history, his rise from working class roots like theirs, and so believed he would bring to the office a deep understanding of them and their issues. They also heard his clear commitment to attacking the underground economy.”

George Gascon was born in Havana, Cuba. His family immigrated to Los Angeles when he was 13. He served in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he worked his way up to Assistant Chief, and worked to reform one of the nation’s largest police departments in the wake of the Rampart Division misconduct scandal. He revamped officer training, taught proper police procedure and improved programs to collect and analyze crime statistics to concentrate policing in trouble spots.

Gascon takes a progressive approach to reducing crime and protecting neighborhoods. “As District Attorney, using my extensive experience in the criminal justice system, I have begun the process of changing our practices in the DA’s office to ensure increased community safety, while modifying offender behavior to reduce recidivism and the high social and financial costs,” he said.

Sheriff

In endorsing Cunnie, SFBCTC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault said, “Chris Cunnie has a long history of working with Labor and great respect among the Trades.”

Cunnie’s biography notes that he improved jail programs to return prisoners back to communities responsibly, and as Chief of Investigations in the District Attorney’s Office, helped to lower crime with increased community engagement. He also served as the mayor’s Director of Emergency Communications, and worked to bring San Francisco’s many branches of law enforcement together to coordinate safety efforts.

As a leader at San Francisco’s acclaimed Walden House and the California Narcotic Addict Evaluation Authority, Cunnie helped provide services to the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated and divert addicts into treatment. As President of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, he championed important advances in community policing. And as a San Francisco police officer, Cunnie was twice decorated for bravery.

He is also endorsed by State Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Ballot Measures

Prop. A: Yes: SFUSD Bond
The $531 million facilities bond will fund modernization and rehabilitation at 52 school and administrative sites. The facilities would be brought up to current accessibility, health, safety and instructional standards, make seismic improvements, replace worn-out plumbing, electrical and other major building systems, replace aging heating, ventilation and air handling systems, renovate outdate classrooms and training facilities and construct facilities to replace aging modular classrooms. The bond measure will include the construction of a new school, green school programs at 47 new school sites and funding for green and sustainable energy efforts and may provide partial funding for a new school to be located at Mission Bay.

Prop. B: Neutral: Road Repaving and Street Repair Bond
The $248 million bond would finance the repaving and reconstruction of roads, the rehabilitation and seismic improvement of street structures, the replacement of sidewalks, the installation and renovation of curb ramps, the redesign of streetscapes to include pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements, and the construction, rehabilitation and renovation of traffic infrastructure.

While the bond would fund construction jobs, the SFBCTC took a neutral position on the measure because that work would be under the local hire ordinance. “We did not feel we could support work that would be performed under conditions unacceptable to us,” said SFBCTC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault.

Prop. C: Yes: Negotiated Pension Measure
The SFBCTC supports the consensus pension reform measure negotiated by labor, business leaders, community-based organizations, members of the Board of Supervisors and the interim mayor.

The proposed reforms will include a cap on pension benefits for new employees and an increase in employee contributions to the pension fund. Future and current city employees would be required to contribute up to 6 percent of their earnings toward retirement, based on increases to the city’s required retirement contributions. Employee contributions will go up when costs to the city go up and down when costs to city go down. Employees earning less than $50,000 would be exempt.

The retirement age for new employees would be raised from 62 to 65 for most employees and from 55 to 58 for public safety workers. Pensions for future employees would be calculated on the final three years of service instead of the final two years to prevent pension spiking.

The reform measure is expected to save the City around $60 million in its first year.

Prop. D: No: Adachi Pension Measure
Like the defeated Prop. B on the 2010 ballot, Prop. D was authored by Public Defender Jeff Adachi without any discussions with city unions. Prop. D sets a higher contribution amount than Prop. C for employees hired after Dec. 31, 2011.

Prop. E: No: Amending or Repealing Legislative Initiative Ordinances
This measure, sponsored by Supervisor Scott Wiener, would allow the Board of Supervisors to amend or repeal voter-approved ballot measures after three years with a two-thirds vote of the Board.

Prop. F: Neutral: Campaign Consultant Ordinance
This measure would further regulate political campaign consultants and increase the disclosure requirements they must file with the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

Prop. G: Yes: Half-Cent Sales Tax Increase
This measure would impose a one-half cent sales tax in the city to raise funds for public safety and programs for seniors and children.

Prop. H: No: School Assignment
Prop. H would change the SF school district’s system of placing students to a neighborhood-based assignment system. It is opposed by the teachers’ union, United Educators of San Francisco. Prop. H would represent a policy statement by the city that the SFUSD consider only geography when placing students in schools, ignoring socio-economic and diversity concerns.

ParkMerced Measures Withdrawn
Two measures that would have affected construction at ParkMerced were withdrawn or removed from the ballot. A referendum to stop the ParkMerced redevelopment failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot. A measure to stop some demolitions of residential buildings, which would have affected ParkMerced, was withdrawn by its supporters: Supervisors Avalos, Campos, Kim, Mar and Mirkarimi.