Labor Pact Returning To Council

By Kurt Helin
Editor

After three years of massaging the language, a controversial Project Labor Agreement may finally come before the City Council for a vote in the coming months.

This week, the council got an update on the effort from Mayor Bob Foster and city staff. An agreement for the council to vote on likely will be ready in the next 60 days.

“There’s been lots of ins and outs to this,” Foster told the council. “It has been in the city attorney’s office and the city manager’s office for some time, but now we are moving this along.”

“We were basically hung up on a few things,” said Larry Triesch, manager of the city’s Business Relations Bureau. “But I think we can work through them.”

That’s not likely to make the issue any less controversial when it reaches the City Council.

Already in place in some other cities around the nation, a project labor agreement essentially requires that contractors working on a city or Redevelopment Agency development agree to union rules (even if it is a non-union firm). That means workers must be paid a ”prevailing wage” and in addition a certain amount of local workers (from Long Beach) must be hired. Typically, a contractor will have to agree to these stipulations just to submit a bid.

In Long Beach, this agreement would apply to public works projects — such as sewer line projects — as well as some building development, Triesch said. Exactly what projects would be on the list is part of the ongoing negotiations, he added.

Backers said that this was important for the city to ensure that workers on city projects are paid a fair wage with fair benefits. In addition, the union program would involve hiring a percentage of local workers, some through a youth apprenticeship program to help area youth get good-paying jobs.

“I think a (Project Labor Agreement) means that people will be given a chance to belong to an apprenticeship and learn a career,” said First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal.

Matt Kinley, president of the board of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, said this is the kind of idea that will add costs, hurt small construction businesses and slow new development in the city when it is needed most.

“When we can’t afford to fund police, fire and libraries, we should not be adding to development costs,” Kinley told the council.

Triesch said that because of existing requirements to pay a “prevailing” wage to workers, he did not think the agreement would impact labor costs for development.

“There is no real relationship between a Project Labor Agreement and the prevailing wage,” Triesch said. “The city has to pay the prevailing wage regardless.”

Council members said they were at least willing to look at the issue.

“I will oppose anything that would increase the cost of projects in the city,” Third District Councilman Gary Delong said. “But I will keep an open mind and look at it.”

In the next week, the finished agreement is expected to be reviewed by the Building Trades Council, the 100,000-member strong body representing unionized construction and building workers in Los Angeles and Orange counties. After a review there, it will be returned to the city.