Here are the highlights:

Project Labor Agreements Build Nothing but Unions

OPED By ERIC CHRISTEN

January 16, 2012

Los Angeles is ground zero in a war raging over exclusionary and monopolistic project labor agreements, commonly called PLAs. Since these “agreements” started popping up 15 years ago, Los Angeles has had more implemented than any other city in America. The almost canine affection elected officials in this region have for doing the bidding of those who put them into power (Big Labor special interests) is quite striking and unmatched anywhere we have been fighting PLAs.

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Project labor agreements are associated with fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement, internal corruption and lack of accountability to the people who pay taxes for the government to provide services. Citizens in Los Angeles have abdicated their responsibility to oversee their local governments. As a result, unions fill the resulting political vacuum and attract ambitious people who see unions as a vehicle to attain personal power and position.

Arguments based on reason and common sense have no power in this kind of environment, where only scandals earn public attention. The problem with Los Angeles is that fidelity to Big Labor is so pervasive that the resulting corruption is hard to keep up with. From the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted under the Los Angeles Unified School District and Los Angeles International Airport PLAs to the broken promises of the Port of Los Angeles and the city of Long Beach PLAs, where does one even begin?

Let’s just pick two.

The city of San Fernando was the first municipality in California to require a PLA for all public works projects. On Sept. 19, 2005, the San Fernando City Council voted 5-0 to require all construction contractors to sign a PLA Agreement with unions for prime contracts worth $150,000 or more, and specialty contracts worth $25,000 or more. These project cost thresholds are unusually low, indicating that representatives of the city made little effort to engage in credible negotiations with union leaders to develop the project labor agreement.

Voting for the PLA in 2005 were council members Julie Ruelas, Nury Martinez, Steven Veres, José Hernández, and Maribel De La Torre. So what happened to them?

San Fernando voters recalled Hernández and Ruelas on Jan. 13, 2009.

Martinez was elected in 2009 to the board of the LAUSD, with endorsements from the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Veres was elected in 2011 to the board of the Los Angeles Community College District, with endorsements from the construction trades council and the county labor federation.

Only De La Torre remains on the San Fernando City Council. At its Nov. 21 meeting, she was entangled in a spectacle that is bizarre, even by California standards, involving her relationship with the mayor.

Meanwhile, the city continues to require its contractors to sign a PLA to work on taxpayer-funded city construction. Business as usual.

Then we have the Los Angeles Community College District, subject of a multipart series in the Los Angeles Times highlighting the waste, fraud and poor quality of work that took place under the district’s multibillion-dollar PLA.

The latest scandal involves an inquiry that targets two contractors who worked extensively under that PLA. “The D.A.’s probe centers on Los Angeles Community College District allegations that the firms submitted fraudulent billings for Mission College work, part of a $5.7 billion construction program,” reported the Times.

Coincidence? Hardly. These instances are all quite predictable for any entity that purses something as immoral as a PLA. Sadly, it is the taxpayers, school children and the average citizen who continue to pay the price for the status quo in this region that places the interests of union bosses over that of everyone else.

In the end, the voters have no one left to blame but themselves for placing such morally illiterate people into office.

A number of projects in the L.A. area have been constructed with PLA mandates.  Their track record is well documented in the 2011 edition of Government-Mandated PLAs: A Public Record of Poor Performance.  Here are some examples with their page number for citation purposes:

Cost Overruns:

• The Eastside Reservoir project east of Los Angeles, built under a government-mandated PLA, was the nation’s largest earth moving project in the late 1990s. In October 1998, the project reported a $220 million (11 percent) cost overrun. The increase was attributed to payment of overtime wages under circumstances mandated by the PLA. (p. 9)

Project Delays:

• In 2006, four Los Angeles Unified School District campuses built under a PLA were forced to open their schools one month late because contractors could not find enough skilled labor to complete the project on time. (p. 23)

Discrimination Against Women and Minorities in the Construction Industry:

• In 2010, a private audit found violations by 55 contractors working on a $150 million high school under a PLA mandated by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The violations included inadequate supervision of workers and performing work under expired or suspended licenses. (p. 30)
• The biggest contractor on the union-only San Francisco International Airport PLA project was sued by a Los Angeles transit agency alleging that it used bogus minority subcontractors to get millions in unionized subway work.127 Similar allegations were investigated by the FBI in connection with the San Francisco Airport project. The Los Angeles lawsuit and San Francisco investigation both alleged that white-owned unionized firms set up companies that “either were not qualified or in whom the union companies owned an undisclosed interest.” The lawsuit also alleged that the union joint venture joined with its sham minority subcontractors to present false claims on subway work to obtain millions of dollars in additional payments. (p. 31) 

This is a sample, not a comprehensive list, of the various problems associated with PLA mandates on projects in the L.A. area.

In addition to the examples of problems above, government-mandated PLAs discriminate against the 84 percent of the L.A. area construction workforce that chooses not to join a union and are essentially locked out of construction funded by their own tax dollars.

Mandating PLAs on taxpayer funded work is clearly bad public policy.

The latest to do so is Anne Arundel County, MD, where local leaders adopted a ban on government-mandated PLAs on January 17.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Maryland joins California, Texas and Pennsylvania as states in which local government entities have approved bans on these Big Labor handouts.  An increasing number of local leaders are starting to understand how Big Labor promises of PLA success usually lead to only cost overruns and discrimination against the vast majority of the construction workforce that chooses not to join a labor organization.

This ban on PLA mandates was enacted just one county away from the upcoming Cheltenham Youth Facility project in Prince George’s County, where Maryland leaders are attempting to become the first state or local government entity to procure a construction project with the Obama administration’s U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) PLA preference policy adopted in April 2010.

Here at TheTruthAboutPLAs.com, we thank Anne Arundel’s leaders for standing up for taxpayers and the local construction workforce.

One such example occurred in California, where union efforts helped get Robert Calone appointed to the Governing Board for the Contra Costa Community College District.  Mr. Calone’s day job is Recording Secretary for the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 159.

While it’s possible that civic duty motivated Mr. Calone to apply for this office, it is also pretty clear that the construction unions have a revenue stream to develop.  And thanks in part to Mr. Calone, Big Labor will have a virtual monopoly on community college construction for the next five years.

But in all of the excitement over securing nearly all of the community college’s construction work in the next five years for Big Labor, it appears that Mr. Calone may have forgotten to take care of a small detail – properly completing his ethics disclosures.

Here is the press release from the Golden Gate Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors issued on January 10:

FPPC Complaint filed against Contra Costa Community College District Trustee for Failure to File Form 700 Timely and Report Income

The Fair Political Practices Commission has confirmed receipt of a complaint filed for possible violations relating to Robert Calone, who holds the office of Governing Board member for the Contra Costa Community College District.

California Government Code §87202(a) states that “Every person who is elected to an office specified in Section 87200 shall, within 30 days after assuming the office, file a statement disclosing his or her investments and his or her interests in real property held on the date of assuming office, and income received during the 12 months before assuming office.”

Robert Calone failed to file a statement within 30 days (he did it 200 days after assuming office, after the public requested his Form 700 from the college district). When he filed his statement, he failed to report income.

Finally, by filing his Form 700 late and then omitting a source of income on the late Form 700, Robert Calone concealed his financial interest in a controversial contract that was approved on December 14, 2011 by the Governing Board of the Contra Costa Community College District. Only the intervention of the public in exposing Robert Calone’s failure to submit a Form 700 and his failure to report his employment income prevented him from voting on a contract for which his loyalties and allegiance were divided and influenced by his paid employment as an instructor for an organization that was signatory to the contract.

“Mr. Calone, the Recording Secretary for the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 159, was appointed to the Board for the sole purpose of enacting a union-only Project Labor Agreement for District construction projects, thereby creating a monopoly on District work that will result in reduced competition and increased costs for public contracts funded by taxpayer dollars” stated Matt Heavey, a local citizen who filed the complaint.

A copy of the complaint can be viewed here.

Here at TheTruthAboutPLAs.com, we believe sunshine and transparency are the best medicine for public corruption.

Regardless of whether Mr. Calone violated the letter of the law, this one doesn’t pass the smell test.

The hearing was an opportunity for the committee to discuss how certain parties, particularly labor unions, exploit public participation in the CEQA process to achieve objectives unrelated to environmental protection. Assemblywoman Grove cited four specific recent examples of different unions (the Teamsters, the California Nurses Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Service Employees International Union) filing CEQA lawsuits to delay projects as leverage to extract labor concessions from businesses. She also noted that some businesses use CEQA to try to block potential competition.

Testifying on behalf of the sponsor, ABC of California Government Affairs Director Kevin Dayton discussed how certain construction trade unions abuse CEQA as a weapon to delay projects until the owner agrees to require contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions. The Western Electrical Contractors Association (WECA) and the Chambers of Commerce Alliance of Ventura & Santa Barbara were the other public supporters of the bill.

Assemblywoman Linda Halderman (R-Fresno) cited a specific example of a union using CEQA to try to force a contractor to sign a Project Labor Agreement to install solar panels at Fresno-Yosemite International Airport. Assemblyman Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) adeptly exposed the Attorney General’s double standard of opposing the additional responsibilities assigned in AB 598 while remaining silent about adopting additional responsibilities through other legislation.

Legitimate environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Planning and Conservation League opposed the bill. The Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union opposed the bill in writing but did not speak at the hearing. Democrats on the committee opposed the bill, but some of them (along with the Attorney General’s office) acknowledged that some parties abuse CEQA. Assemblyman Bill Monning (D-Santa Cruz) said nothing about how the Carpenters union used CEQA in a recent high-profile campaign to delay and ultimately derail the proposed La Bahia Hotel in Santa Cruz.

The committee defeated the bill on a 5-3 party-line vote: Democrats opposed, Republicans in support.

You can thank the following state legislators at these email addresses:

Assemblywoman Shannon Grove: Contact

Assemblywoman Linda Halderman: Contact

Assemblyman Steve Knight: Contact

Background on Assembly Bill 598: text, committee analysis

Some Recent News Media Coverage of CEQA Abuse: Bad Environment for Development? (Los Angeles Business Journal, July 18, 2011, via Central City Association of Los Angeles); Firms Turning to Environmental Law to Combat Rivals (Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2011).

Sacramento City Hall on Dec. 27, 2011

Article 2 of the California Constitution gives voters of cities and counties the right to exercise initiative powers. Article 2 begins with the statement that “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.”

Unions and their political friends hold this right of the people in contempt.

During the six-month campaign to put the Fair and Open Competition charter amendment on the ballot, signature gatherers were repeatedly harassed and physically assaulted by individuals with apparent ties to local construction unions. Eleven reports were filed with the Sacramento police in response to these incidents. An article in the December 22 Sacramento News & Review reports on union operatives gloating about getting a signature gatherer removed from a public area. In addition, advertisements sponsored by a construction union front group during the summer claimed to listeners of news and talk radio that their identify could be stolen if they signed petitions to place measures on the ballot. Governor Brown signed a bill (Senate Bill 202) that requires initiatives to be on the November ballot, apparently based on the idea that the union political machine will be more effective in the November 2012 election than in the June 2012 election. Finally, Governor Brown signed a last-minute gut-and-amend bill in September (Senate Bill 922) that nullified Fair and Open Competition policies for counties and general law cities (where the state legislature has full authority over contracting policies). This bill derailed the simultaneous signature-gathering campaign for a Fair and Open Competition charter amendment for the County of Sacramento.

Note that these incidents occurred in California, not in Venezuela.

As a charter city, Sacramento is able to establish its own contracting policies for city construction, so the governor and the legislature were unable to use their new anti-democratic law to suppress the will of the people there. If the enthusiasm of the public for signing these petitions is a reliable indicator, politicians in the City of Sacramento will soon lose their coercive power to force construction contractors to sign costly Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) with union leaders for proposed projects such as the $387 million arena for the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team. Taxpayers will get the best quality work at the best price.

MEDIA
The campaign’s submission of the petitions to the Sacramento City Clerk was reported in www.CalWatchdog.com on December 27: Effort to Nix Sacto’s Union-Only Contracts

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) also issued a PLA survey for a project at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico.

All ABC members and construction professionals are encouraged to respond to the requests for information and tell the NAVFAC and USACE that government-mandated PLAs harm competition, increase costs, and impede economy and efficiency in government contracting.

Details on the three surveys along with submission dates are below but please review response instructions by clicking the links:

• Responses for the NAVFAC survey for Potable Water Conveyance Systems and Waste Water and Recycled Water Conveyance Systems at Camp Pendleton, Calif., must include a cover letter and be completed on the PLA Inquiry Form and submitted by 2:00 p.m. (PST) on Friday, Dec. 16, either by mail to NAVFAC or by email to Gregory.sies@navy.mil.
• Responses for the NAVFAC survey for the Rotary Aircraft Deport Maintenance Facility near San Diego must include a cover letter and be completed on the PLA Inquiry Form and submitted by 2:00 p.m. (PST) on Monday, Dec. 19, either by mail to NAVFAC or by email to georgina.perry@navy.mil.
• Responses for the NAVFAC survey for HVAC and Ductwork Repairs, Building 1H, Naval Medical Center San Diego must include a cover letter and be completed on the PLA Inquiry Form and submitted by 2:00 p.m. (PST) Jan. 3, 2012, either by mail to NAVFAC or by email to larry.romig@navy.mil.
• Responses to the USACE Market Survey in the Clovis Micropolitan Statistical Area near Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico must be submitted by Friday, Dec. 23 to diana.m.martinez@usace.army.mil. There is no form to fill out for this survey.

NAVFAC, which manages construction of U.S. Navy shore facilities, recently issued surveys for four federal construction projects, exceeding $25 million in total costs, in Maryland and Virginia.

During the past several months, NAVFAC and other federal agencies like the USACE and Veterans Affairs have issued PLA surveys as a result of President Obama’s pro-PLA Executive Order 13502 and federal regulations implementing the discriminatory and costly order. The order and regulations encourage federal agencies to mandate anti-competitive and costly PLAs on a case-by-case basis on federal construction projects exceeding $25 million in total cost. ABC has taken the opportunity to respond to all PLA surveys as they are issued and encourages its members to do the same.

If you need help responding, please contact us and we can provide you with some helpful tools and information.

Responding with accurate and timely information is critical and effective at removing federal agency PLA mandates. For example, in 2010, the USACE removed government-mandated PLAs from the Army Reserve Center in Los Alamitos, Calif. and the Patrick Air Force Base in Brevard County, Fla. after a strong grassroots response and survey participation from the contracting community. The USACE removed a PLA mandate on the Armed Forces Reserve Center in Camden, N.J. following a legal challenge and robust grassroots response from the construction stakeholders.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to these surveys. Your responses will help maintain an open and competitive environment that will allow all qualified contractors to fairly compete for contracts to build the best possible construction projects at the best possible price.

Yesterday, the Free Enterprise Coalition released this press release (see below) about documents recently obtained from the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). They prove government-mandated PLAs reduce competition and increase costs. (Note: SDUSD calls these union agreements Project Stabilization Agreements (PSAs) instead of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). There are a number of alternative names used to describe union agreements that are essentially PLAs, such as Community Workforce Agreements, Site Stabilization Agreements, etc. but they will continue to be referred to as PLAs in this post.)

The press release says union-favoring PLA project bids were 9.7 percent less than the SDUSD’s budget. However, the projects bid without the imposition of the union-only PLA were 31.6 percent below budget…a 21.9 percent difference. If this trend continues, the imposition of the union-favoring PLA could cost taxpayers more than $200 million in unnecessary construction costs on planned projects.

The PLA reduced competition too. For union-only PLA projects, SDUSD was able to interest an average of five responsive general contractor bidders, compared to 10 responsive general contractor bidders on school projects where contractors were not forced to agree to a government-mandated PLA.  General contractors complained projects received only about 50 percent of the subcontractor bids that the non-PLA projects received.

It is no surprise the SDUSD-mandated PLA reduced competition and increased costs.

It will be interesting to see how local Big Labor bosses and school district officials beholden to special interests try to spin these numbers at today’s press conference, where officials were expected to engage in the deceptive manipulation of taxpayers in support of their anti-competitive pro-PLA agenda. (The press conference was planned prior to the public release of these damaging documents. A consultant was expected to present a report in support of the SDUSD PLA policy.)

Opposition to government-mandated PLAs on the $2.1 billion bond measure funding SDUSD projects, Proposition S,  has been covered numerous times here at the TruthAboutPLAs.com. In 2009, the SDUSD sneakily introduced the PLA-mandate policy, which passed May 26 by a 3-2 vote. A number of projects funded by Prop S did not have PLAs mandated on them because of an inter-union dispute. In July 2009, AGC filed a lawsuit against the SDUSD PLA mandate policy. A second lawsuit was filed by the National Right to Work organization in October.  The AGC lawsuit was dismissed in California Superior Court in December 2009. An appeal was rejected in California’s 4th District appeals court in May 2011. The California Supreme Court declined to review the case in September 2011 . In February 2010, bids for the first project subject to the new PSA-mandate policy came in 35 percent more than initial estimates.  In July 2011, SDUSD documents revealed the PSA policy has failed to meet its local hiring goals.

The San Diego region has been a hotbed of government-mandated PLA controversy with Californians taking action in opposition to government-mandated PLAs.

San Diego County voters approved a Fair and Open Competition charter amendment with 76 percent of the vote in November 2010.

In June 2010, 56 percent of voters in the City of Chula Vista approved a Fair and Open Competition ordinance, and 54 percent of voters in the City of Oceanside approved a charter containing a Fair and Open Competition provision.

In response to the passage of similar local fair and open competition measures passed throughout California in 2011, Big Labor pushed the California legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to pass SB 922, which was signed into law Oct. 2, 2011, under odd circumstances through a gut and amend bill. It is a fine example of how Big Labor’s control of California’s elected officials is harming taxpayers and attacks the will of the people. Learn more here.

We will be following this San Diego story closely. Here is the press release.

Internal Documents Show San Diego Unified School District’s Union-Only Construction Program Costing Taxpayers Millions of Dollars

San Diego, CA – In documents obtained from the San Diego Unified School District’s Facilities Department, the construction industry has found that the District’s union-only Project Stabilization Agreement (PSA) for construction projects financed by the $2.1 Billion Proposition S bond measure has been a dismal failure. The document, prepared at the request of the firm hired by the District to “conduct a study of the impact and effect of the Projects Stabilization Agreement (PSA),” covers the bidding results of all construction projects bid utilizing Proposition S funding since its inception in 2009.

The PSA was negotiated between the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council and the District in 2009. The first project imposing the terms of the PSA was bid in February 2010. Ten Proposition S projects were bid in 2009 before the PSA was implemented, and six other projects were bid in 2010 and 2011 that were not covered by the terms of the PSA. 17 projects were bid under the terms of the PSA in 2010 and 2011.

One of the documents, “Proposition S Construction Contracts Bidding Review,” shows that on average the District is paying a 21.9% premium for projects bid under the union-only terms of the PSA. This 21.9% premium amounts to approximately $16 million in additional construction costs that the District has incurred in the two years in which they have imposed the union-only condition on the projects. The document shows that while PSA project bids were 9.7% under the District’s budget, the projects bid without the imposition of the union-only PSA were 31.6% under budget…a 21.9% difference. If this trend continues, the imposition of the union-only PSA could cost taxpayers over $200 million in unnecessary construction costs.

Jim Ryan, Executive Vice President of the Associated General Contractors of America, San Diego Chapter, Inc., stated that “the reason for the 21.9% premium is obvious. On the union-only Prop S PSA projects, the District has only been able to interest an average of 5 responsive general contractor bidders, compared to 10 responsive general contractor bidders on Proposition S projects in which the PSA was not a condition of the contract. General contractors also tell us that the union-only PSA projects receive only about 50% of the subcontractor bids that the non PSA projects receive. When there are more bidders, the District receives better construction bids. It’s that simple.”

Scott Crosby, CEO of the Associated Builders and Contractors, San Diego Chapter, noted that “the District has also spent several hundred thousand dollars to administer the PSA. This includes additional staff to administer the numerous grievances and jurisdictional disputes on the union-only PSA projects, pay consultants to conduct seminars to explain the complex provision of the PSA to the industry, and market the bid opportunities to contractors in areas throughout the Southwest. These expenses were incurred because the local contractors have shown little interest in bidding the union-only PSA projects.”

Eric Christen, Executive Director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, expressed hope in the unlikely chance that the school board may use this as an opportunity to rid themselves of the PSA. “We now have two years worth of data in which every metric the district set forth has failed to be met. This disastrous study now gives the school board one more opportunity to put the interest of students and taxpayers ahead of Big Labor special interests who fund their campaigns.”

Another failure of the union-only PSA relates to local workers. The Building Trades promised that 70% of the craft workers would be residents of the San Diego Unified School District. As of December 1, 2011, only 40% of the craft workers working on the projects reside in the District.

The District will hold a “closed to the public” news conference Friday, December 9 to detail the results of a study by Rea & Parker Research, which was commissioned by the District’s Board of Trustees at the cost of $71,825.

The news conference will be held at Hoover High School’s Woodshop Building, which was the first Proposition S project bid under the union-only terms of the PSA. The project had to be bid twice. Only five bidders bid the first time, and the low bidder from Stanton, California was 35% over the District’s budget. All bids were rejected, and the District rebid the same project. This time there were only four bidders, and the low bid was about 26% over budget. A comparable project was bid about the same time by another school district that does not impose a union-only PSA on its projects. 17 bids were received, and the low bid was about 25% under budget.

Source Documents: Proposition S Construction Contracts Bidding Review & Project Specific Budget/Estimates/Bids

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CONTACT: Brad Barnum
858-731-8158

Is it right for a government to require contractors to make employee fringe benefit payments to union-managed trust funds and obtain their workers from a union hiring hall? What kind of thinking leads a representative of the People to require workers to pay initiation fees and dues to a union as a condition of working on a public project? What kind of community leader wants to build four taxpayer-funded schools for the cost of five, in order to curry favor with a special interest group?

Project Labor Agreements are associated with fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement, internal corruption, and lack of accountability to the people who pay taxes for the government to provide services. Citizens abdicate their responsibilities to oversee their local governments. As a result, unions fill the resulting political vacuum and attract ambitious people who see unions as a vehicle to attain personal power and position.

Arguments based on reason and common sense have no power in this kind of environment, where only scandals earn public attention.

Today’s Exhibit A is the City of San Fernando, near Los Angeles.

The City of San Fernando was the first municipality in California to require a PLA for all public works projects. On September 19, 2005, the San Fernando City Council voted 5-0 to require all construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions for prime contracts worth $150,000 or more and specialty contracts worth $25,000 or more. These project cost thresholds are unusually low, indicating that representatives of the city made little effort to engage in credible negotiations with union leaders to develop the PLA.

Voting for the PLA in 2005 were council members Julie Ruelas, Nury Martinez, Steven Veres, José Hernández, and Maribel De La Torre. So what happened to them?

San Fernando voters recalled José Hernández and Julie Ruelas on January 13, 2009.

Nury Martinez was elected in 2009 to the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, with endorsements from the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Steven Veres was elected in 2011 to the board of the Los Angeles Community College District, with endorsements from the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Only Maribel De La Torre remains on the San Fernando City Council. At the November 21, 2011 city council meeting, she was entangled in a spectacle that is bizarre, even by California standards.

Meanwhile, the city continues to require its contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement to work on taxpayer-funded city construction. Business as usual.

Postscript: Today’s Exhibit B on Project Labor Agreements and Moral Breakdown…

Inquiry Targets Two Contractors on L.A. Community Colleges Project – Los Angeles Times – December 1, 2011

“The D.A.’s probe centers on Los Angeles Community College District allegations that the firms submitted fraudulent billings for Mission College work, part of a $5.7-billion construction program.”

Not surprisingly, the article mentions how construction unions use CEQA to block permits for projects until the developers agree to force their contractors to sign project labor agreements (PLAs): “It also has become a weapon in battles between rival developers or builders and labor unions… One coalition of labor groups that advocates for environmental improvements in projects has drawn criticism because it also seeks agreements that developers employ union members.”

That “coalition of labor groups” is California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE), which is notorious for blocking permits at the California Energy Commission for power plants and other energy infrastructure projects until the developer agrees to require its construction contractors to sign a project labor agreement.

Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) has introduced a bill (Assembly Bill 598) that would limit standing to file and maintain an action or proceeding under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exclusively to the state’s elected Attorney General, thus giving accountability and authority to the executive branch to implement the law for its original intent of legitimate environmental protection.

Government-mandated PLAs have a negative impact on local construction workers and taxpayers.  These special interest handouts to Big Labor line the pockets of union bosses at the expense of average Americans.

Californians throughout the state have learned about PLA mandates and said “No Thanks” time and again.  Despite Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature’s attempt to slow down the fight against PLA mandates, merit shop contractors, their workers, taxpayer advocates and ordinary citizens are gearing up to bring the message of fair and open competition to the people of Sacramento!

Visit www.fairandopencompetitionsacramento.com to learn more about the effort to ban government-mandated PLAs on projects funded by the city of Sacramento.

This ballot initiative will be similar to those passed by overwhelming majorities in Chula Vista, Oceanside and San Diego.  By putting an end of PLA mandates, citizens can be sure they are getting the best construction at the best price.  Always.