Unions Seek Corner Lot PLA

Governing Board President Tim Nader’s recent statement that there is little chance he would sign a union-favoring Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for the first phase of Proposition R construction has pro-labor activists crying foul. But pro-business advocates said they are also feeling unsatisfied with the process.

With Phase I construction on the $389 million Prop R project planned for early next year and no signed labor contracts in place, union representatives and workers tried recently to convince Nader and the rest of the board that there is still time to sign a PLA that would go into effect immediately. Union members said the agreement would benefit the college, community and construction workers of the district.

But none of that may matter. Governing board members insist that construction management contracts already in place would make agreeing to a new PLA difficult, at least for Phase I of the five-phase project.

Management contracts oversee money, while construction contracts oversee the hiring of subcontractors and workers. Former Vice President of Fiscal Services Nicholas Alioto signed management contracts with Seville Construction Services for project management. The former governing board approved. Echo Pacific Construction was hired by Alioto to handle construction contracts, but the current board terminated Echo Pacific’s contract this fall. Balfour Beatty has been approached by the college about assuming Echo Pacific’s terminated contract and assuming responsibility for construction and labor. No contract has been approved.



Ken Seaton-Msemaji, political director of Sheet Metal Workers Local 206, said that most, if not all, of the Phase I construction should be subject to a PLA and that there is still time to make that happen.

“The contracts that have gone out and been bid upon are the management contracts,” he said. “As far as we have been able to find out, no construction projects have been bid at all, none. Our position is that there is no reason why a PLA cannot be applied right now because the contractors haven’t even bid yet.”

Janet Mazzarella, vice president of the Southwestern College Education Association (SCEA), said she was shocked to hear that early construction, which includes the new sports field house at the football stadium and the highly-visible corner lot buildings, would not be covered by a PLA. She said she still hoped a deal could be done.

“When discussion about the PLA first began, this idea of Phase I being non-PLA never came up,” she said. “It has only been within the last month or so that we even began to hear something about this problem getting the PLA in place for all construction.”

Nader said the option of having a PLA that included Phase I was never even considered.

“I never suggested to anybody that the PLA would be done in time for the start of construction, or that it would be applicable for Phase I,” he said. “Never, never, never. In my mind, based on discussions I had with people involved with this issue, it was always understood that this was a Phase II or III proposal.”

Nader also said that his prior statements about Phase I actually referred to a narrower portion of that phase.

“I meant specifically the projects that we signed management contracts for, which are the bulk of Phase I, the corner lot development and the field house,” he said. “Those are not the entirety of it. To some degree, I misspoke in that regard.”

Seaton-Msemaji said that a PLA was nothing more than a collective bargaining agreement between a city, school district or water district and the building and trades commission, which represents all the different crafts in the trade.

“It’s an agreement between an entity who is the boss,” he said. “The boss is who controls the money, who says what’s going to happen, what won’t happen, and how they’re going to pay you. That’s Southwestern College. That’s the boss. The union is the other party in the agreement.”

Mazzarella described it in even simpler terms.

“A PLA says ‘This is a fair working wage. These are benefits that workers can reasonably expect to keep them as a middle class family.’”

Mazzarella also said she believed that a PLA would protect the family.

“My grandfather was a construction worker and he raised eight kids and was the only income earner,” she said. “As a construction worker, you could raise a family. That’s what we’re trying to protect now. That’s what a PLA would protect.”

One of the problems that people from both pro-labor and pro-business positions discuss is the recurring statement that “contracts have already been signed,” implying that it is too late to establish a PLA.
Mazzarella said that she had heard that, but did not know what contracts they were. She believed that one group might have that answer.

“If I went and asked the oversight committee, they could tell me if the contracts were signed,” she said.

David Adams, president of the Prop R Oversight Committee, said he knew little about the contracts and even less about any PLA.

“I haven’t seen any contract,” he said. “They don’t show us any of that stuff. Our committee is a bit of a farce because we get our information from the school and the people that work there. We’re only as good as the information we get and the information we get is from there. What I have heard is that they have signed contracts, but not under a PLA.”

Tom Lemmon, business manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, said it was his belief that very few contracts had actually been signed.

“As I understand it, the only thing that’s been put out to bid for Phase I is the actual construction management,” he said. “The buildings themselves have yet to get approval from the Division of State Architect. I think it’s safe to say that without a set of drawings, you can’t get bids. I think it is very likely that Phase I is still available to be put under a PLA.”

Nader said the board has not yet signed a contract to provide those services, but arrangements with both Seville and Balfour Beatty never included a PLA.

“Those [bids] were put out with the assumption that there would be no PLA,” he said. “If they want to voluntarily manage the project with a PLA, I’m certainly fine with that. But I don’t think there’s going to be an interest in renegotiating existing contracts.”

But Nader also said that he would be willing to consider the Phase I PLA if certain qualifications were met.

“If we can do a PLA without jeopardizing contracts that have already been approved and without slowing down progress on projects, that sounds great to me,” he said. “But somebody has to do more than just give me a lay opinion about how they don’t see why it can’t be done. I would need a legal analysis.”

Arguably the largest problem establishing a PLA is the rift that exists between the pro-labor and pro-business sides. Mazzarella said the subject was polarizing.

“Labor feels like a PLA is important and they have to have it,” she said. “The construction companies, whether it’s a good idea or not, do not want to be bound by it.”

Adams, who owns and runs Aerial Construction in Bonita, freely admits his pro-business position, but said he understands the others’ stance.

“There are two sides to this,” he said. “But to me there is no advantage in a PLA.”

Chris Cate, president of the San Diego County Taxpayers’ Association, said his group’s position was firm.

“The Taxpayers’ Association is opposed to any requirement by any governing board or council, whether it is a school district or a city or what, to mandate a PLA on a project.”

Nader said that pulling the two sides together would be impossible.

“In meetings I had with organized labor, the consensus was that a PLA would probably be an insurmountable barrier,” he said.

Nader said he would continue to try to find a middle ground where they could work together.

“I’m really surprised that at the point when we have an opportunity to make some serious and unprecedented progress, that we would be trying to revisit this issue without the benefit of some new legal analysis support it,” he said.

Mazzarella said that was unnecessary if the majority of the board supported a PLA.

“If you have the votes on board, move it forward,” she said.

Seaton-Msemaji said that Nader’s desire to bring the sides together had only made the situation worse.

“Tim thinks he can somehow mitigate the disagreement between the anti-union contractors and the union people,” he said. “You can’t. I and most reasonable people would be in favor of one. If there was any way we could find some middle ground, let’s work at it. It’s worth it. But you have to be able to recognize when that’s not possible. He’s not going to change them at all. That’s not supposition on my part. We’ve been dealing with these people for years. They are not going to change.”

Seaton-Msemaji said Nader was a smart guy, a good person, and a hard worker, but that he failed to understand one key issue.

“I think he’s tone deaf to the urgency of this,” he said. “Part of it is because he’s ruled out Phase I and Phase II isn’t going to start for a long time, so he thinks we have that much time to do it. He just doesn’t feel the urgency.”

He also said that board delays had only made the situation worse.

“He told us at the beginning of the year that he favored the PLA and that most of the board favored it too,” Seaton-Msemaji said. “But he wanted to hold off because they had to deal with accreditation and other major things. We thought that was reasonable. Then after accreditation, they had to deal with the state budget. Then they had to deal with finding a superintendent. There’s no reason why his subcommittee idea could not have been established and have been meeting any time over the past six months. If that had been done, there’d be no question about being involved with Phase I.”

Nader said that trying to separate contract from contract did not change the truth of the matter.

“The fact that contracts are management contracts, and not ones for actual construction, doesn’t change the fact that there are contracts out for those projects,” he said.

Nader said he thought that organized labor was focusing its attention on divisiveness instead of inclusion.

“I’m really surprised that we would engage in friendly fire rather than moving forward at this point where we are moving closer to something positive,” he said.

But it is not only the unions leveling criticism at the governing board. Pro-business advocates decry a lack of communication and uncertainty around the very existence of the board subcommittee tasked with researching the PLA.

“I’m not sure of the status of that committee,” Cate said, “if it ever met at all publicly to review these issues or any potential agreements or contracts.”

He said that he would like the Taxpayers’ Association to be included in any subcommittee.

“If we were asked, we’d certainly participate,” he said. “If we were asked. But we haven’t had that invitation.”

Adams said he has repeatedly inquired about being included in the subcommittee as well.

“I have asked them twice,” he said. “I’ve sent them emails about it. I’ve got no response, and that’s kind of where it’s at with that. I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

Nader said that there were some lapses in communication, but pointed out that responsibility fell in more than one place.

“The thing is that there has been a lot of indirect communication and not a lot of direct communication from some of these parties,” he said.

The Problems with a PLA

Adams said any argument that a PLA would not cost taxpayers dollars was simply a lie.

“Yes, a PLA can cost money,” he said. “I’ve heard both sides of this story – yes it can, and no it doesn’t. I think the ones who say it doesn’t are just trying to sell the thing. But it’s going to raise the cost. Any time you have a third party coming in and trying to control a project, they’re making money off it. To me, this is just another union trying to get in there so they can spread the wealth around.”

Cate said it was organization’s desire to prevent the taxpayers from spending any unnecessary dollars and were working to prevent it from happening.

“We want to ensure that the oversight committee has the opportunity to weigh in and give their opinion about the use of a PLA prior to it going to the board,” he said. “There is obviously a potential that the use of a PLA could increase costs. I’m not saying it will, but there’s always that potential, which the oversight committee has a responsibility to review.”

Cate said that the Taxpayers’ Association had a firm stance against a governing board mandating rules to the very contractors who would be doing the work.

“We are opposed to any requirements or mandates that contractors sign into a PLA on a construction project,” he said. “If a contractor who works with a city or agency wants to have their own PLA as a private party, we’re totally supportive of that. But the mandated use of a PLA? No. That’s what we have communicated to the board for four or five months now.”

Adams said unions are to blame for many of the problems.

“If you look at it, the union worker is making x amount of dollars and the business agents are making x amount of dollars,” he said. “A union is a business like any other business, and the more contracts they get, the more money they make, and more money they get to pay them dues. They’re pushing that PLA so they can make money. They’re making the money off the backs of the labor people. They’re not the angels that they think they are.”

Adams said a pool of talented construction workers in the area made it easy to hire quality labor.

“There are plenty of people here in [metro] San Diego that can do these jobs. Construction workers are considered blue collar workers and Chula Vista has a lot of blue collar workers living there. San Diego County has plenty of people. They don’t need to go to Los Angeles or Orange County or anything like that. There are some great craftsmen here and some smart mechanics to put it all together.”

In 1931 Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act which required contractors and builders to pay prevailing wages on all federal government construction contracts. This meant that all the workers on a particular project, regardless of their actual jobs, had to receive at least the prevailing wage in their particular area. Since then, 41 states have signed laws that require the same standards on state government contracts. California is one of them.

In California the legislation is called the Prevailing Wage Law and it covers all construction workers, union members or not. Adams believes that these laws make a PLA redundant and end up costing taxpayers unnecessarily.

“To give you an idea,” he said, “I pay a laborer $17 an hour. When we work on Prevailing Wage, Davis-Bacon jobs, it goes up to $27 an hour. If the laws weren’t in place, I’d say a PLA is probably a good thing, but Davis-Bacon and Prevailing Wage are in place to make sure the workers are getting paid properly and they’re getting good money, which they are. That they’re getting good benefits, which they are. There are training programs already in effect. We don’t need another company coming in and setting all this up again just so they can make more money off this thing.”

The Benefits of a PLA

Lemmon said he sees a real value in what a PLA brings to a project.

“Those things vary from a highly skilled workforce, training, coordination of work schedules and safety,” he said. “Unions, especially construction unions, cultivate a workforce. SWC students who want to enter into a construction program will have opportunities and may decide that construction is the path that they choose for a career. Should they do that, the long-term effect is a middle class existence.”

Mazzarella said the rhetoric about higher costs under a PLA is false.

“The construction people I talked to tell me it doesn’t raise the cost,” she said. “[Under a PLA] you can’t hire completely unskilled labor for minimum wage, but then do you want minimum wage people without a background in construction doing your electrical wiring or pouring your cement when the safety of your campus community is at stake?”

Seaton-Msemaji said that is what some contractors want.

“What these contractors do is to hire a few people locally then go and get whatever they can for the least they have to pay,” he said. “They literally bring people in from other states – Idaho, Montana, Arizona – and pile them up in motels. These workers live on top of each other for the duration of their work, and God knows what they’re paying them. There’s no oversight.”

He asked why different districts and cities kept using PLAs if they were harmful to the economy.

“Just this year, there have been a dozen new PLAs in California,” he said. “It’s because a PLA is a value to them. In this economy they’re not going to do anything that costs them money. They can’t.”

Mazzarella said she would like to see a PLA put in place now, but would like it to be clear.

“I think the public would feel better if the PLA was written so the community could see what was involved,” she said. “It would dispel some of the myths, like the one about a PLA excluding non-union members.”

Seaton-Msemaji agreed that it was just a myth.

“If you’re a human being and you are within the local hiring zones and the contractor hires you, you’re in,” he said. “You never have to go to a union meeting, sign a union card, or be a member of a union.”

He admits that a PLA would benefit the union members, too.

“Because of the economic downturn, most construction unions have long lists of out-of-work members,” Seaton-Msemaji said. “I’m not talking about somebody new that hopes to work in construction someday. I’m talking about members who don’t work anymore because of the economy. Getting those jobs, getting those people back to work is urgent.”

Seaton-Msemaji said that a job in construction could easily lead to a career.

“An apprentice today in sheet metal makes $15 or $16 an hour,” he said. “Usually you go to work in the classroom and on the job. So you make $16 an hour, your health insurance starts in a couple of months, your pension accrual starts immediately. An apprenticeship lasts five years. Every year you get a raise. By the time you finish your apprenticeship and you’re a journeyman, you’re making $30 an hour. In a couple more years, you’re making $70,000 a year. That’s a way for a person to have a career and not just a job.”

Mazzarella agreed.

“Not everyone wants to go to college,” she said. “Not everybody wants to be a doctor or lawyer. We need people in the working class that can earn a good wage, have benefits and health care, and raise families.”
Seaton-Msemaji said a PLA in place keeps taxpayers’ money in their communities.

“Without one, the bond money comes in and it goes out and doesn’t do the local economy a damn bit of good,” he said. “It doesn’t put people to work that live there. One effect on the community is the opportunity to have local hire. Southwestern College can say they want to give a preference to locals living within the school district, then in metro San Diego, then within the county, before you go outside the area. You cannot do that legally except under a PLA. If a contractor goes through all that and still can’t somebody, he can go to the moon or Mars or wherever he wants to go.”

On June 8, 2010, Chula Vista voters passed Proposition G, called the “Chula Vista Fair and Open Competition Initiative,” by a 56-44 margin. Prop G banned PLAs from the city. Seaton-Msemaji said that doesn’t matter.

“That ballot measure couldn’t prescribe what other jurisdictions could do,” he said. “All it could do is to affect projects overseen by the city of Chula Vista. It has nothing to do with the Southwestern College district, or the Sweetwater High School district, or any of the water districts.”

He said that was an example of how anti-union, pro-business advocates worked.

“That’s one of the reasons that the anti-union contractors are so successful at fighting PLAs sometimes, like with Prop G,” Seaton-Msemaji said. “I bet if you were able to survey those people that voted that day, 90 percent of them wouldn’t know what you were talking about. The voters of Chula Vista did not ban PLAs. They were tricked by some very clever and effective electioneering, and it worked. ‘Fair and Open Competition?’ There were union members who voted for that. ‘Fair and Open Competition? We’ve been waiting for that our whole lives. Of course!’”

Lemmon said that San Diego Unified School District’s $2.1 billion agreement was a good example of a PLA done right.

“One of the things that we’ve done really well was in SD Unified,” he said. “The school board wanted to put people to work from the district. In addition to that, they wanted to reach out to those communities in the district that had high unemployment and high levels of poverty. They had a goal of 35 percent hired from there. To this point this year, we’re at 47 percent union referrals on that project, which is pretty amazing. Projects are coming in faster than they expected them to, meaning that they’re getting completed quicker than engineers’ estimates. That’s a real good savings to the district.”

Seaton-Msemaji agreed.

“Some of these are getting done quicker,” he said. “Not just on time, but ahead of time. They bid 20 or 21 projects there and all but one of them has come in under their budget estimate. The first one didn’t because of an architect’s error. All the rest came in under budget. That’s a fact.”

He said the PLA was good for the district, but also good for the contractors.

“Those 20 or 21 contracts? Most of them were bid on and won by non-union contractors. You can’t discriminate like that against them,” Seaton-Msemaji said. “In SD Unified, written right into their PLA, it says if the contractor has benefits equal to or better than union benefits, the contractor can use theirs. Who decides which is better? The school district is the arbiter. The union does not get to decide.”

Mazzarella said that not only was having a PLA put in place immediately a benefit, but if they had one in place earlier, it would have already helped the college.

“That snack bar area…” she said. “What if your PLA said that if you ran over by a certain amount of time, you’d have to start giving back your profits on this project? That thing could have been done a year ago. It is bad project management to let them run over and drag their feet. That’s a good example of how a PLA could have benefited us.”

Mazzarella also said there was one simple reason why the PLA should be in place immediately – the voters.

“I think hiring local labor was a big selling point to get the taxpayer to vote for Prop R. And if that is in fact the case, they should stand behind it and hire local workers.”

She said that there was public support for the agreement and the governing board needed to get started on it right now.

“I can’t tell you how many letters have been sent to Tim from the city councils, from senators, from various unions and organizations. I’ve seen probably 10 of them that all said, ‘Get it done, get it done, get it done. This is important.’”

Seaton-Msemaji said that continuing to try to find a compromise with anti-union activists was a waste of time.

“Those guys are not going to change their attitudes about this for one reason: most of the things they say in public about why they’re against PLAs aren’t even accurate. How can you change somebody who knows they’re misrepresenting the facts? They have their reasons why they’re doing it and we can’t change them. It’s not possible with them.”


Story at the Sun.