Victory for Victorville
Over the past year ABC Southern California has been fighting on behalf of the Victorville City Council in opposition to a greenmail campaign California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE) has been waging an effort to force a PLA onto the city. CURE filed a lawsuit against the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management (MDAQMD)in an attempt to block them from issuing PM10 credits to the city to meet California Energy Commission (CEC) and EPA standards. They also registered themselves as interveners with the CEC. Our chapter sent a mailer into the city advising the citizens and asking them to lend support the council. After the council, the citizens, the MDAQMD and ABC bound together the lawsuit was defeated and the city was awarded all permits unconditionally by the CEC in July.
Long Beach Contractors Learning about PLA Threat - and Responding
The ABC Southern California Chapter has taken on the massive task of obtaining and using a large database of local contractors that perform certain federally-funded work for the City of Long Beach. These contractors received a letter from an ABC member and an electronic alert about the PLA now in negotiations for all work of the City of Long Beach. The chapter reports "a tremendous response in our favor" from "furious" contractors who have suddenly realized what has been going on for the past three years. Contractors outside of ABC are now organizing themselves to fight the proposal. ABC is also preparing some innovative street-level strategies to alert people in Long Beach about the union plot to monopolize city construction.
ABC Hammers City of Long Beach on Apprenticeship Policy for Federal Work
The ABC Southern California Chapter has continued a relentless campaign to change a restrictive union-only plan for restitution of the City of Long Beach's non-compliance with "Section 3" in the construction of projects funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The plan was implemented in 2005 by the City of Long Beach in response to a complaint from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. It includes a construction training program that provides up to $1500 for each participant referred into Union Building Trade apprenticeship programs for the purchase of tools, uniforms, and "other necessities."
In early 2007, the ABC Southern California Chapter sent a letter to the City of Long Beach and HUD asking for an amendment to the restitution plan to allow funding to be provided for each participant who is referred into any federally-approved apprenticeship program. Legal counsel for the ABC Southern California Chapter Merit Training Trust Fund repeated the demand to the city in a May 1, 2008 letter. The city then sent a letter to HUD asking to change the agreement.
The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is now objecting to the change demanded by ABC. It claims that "We see no reason to now reconsider the City's commitments, and certainly no meritorious basis requiring the proposed modification." This group has advocated publicly in support of a PLA for all city projects in Long Beach.
To obtain copies of these letters, contact Jackie Nutting at (714) 779-3199 or at jnutting@abcsocal.net.
PREVAILING WAGE
City of Irvine Requires Great Park Contractors to Pay Prevailing Wage
On July 22, the Irvine City Council voted 3 to 2 in front of dozens of union officials to require contractors on the Orange County Great Park to pay prevailing wage to their workers. Irvine is a charter city that typically exempts its locally-funded projects from prevailing wage, but construction union officials successfully lobbied a majority of the city council to impose prevailing wage on Great Park projects. A staff report estimated that a prevailing wage mandate would increase labor rates by 10 to 20 percent, thus increasing costs to Irvine taxpayers from $4 to $8 million.
Jackie Nutting, Government Affairs Director for the ABC Southern California Chapter, spoke out against the proposal at two city council meetings. The Irvine Chamber of Commerce also opposed the proposal.