Gregg Hart has served on the Santa Barbara City Council for nearly 13 years, but he’s got one final piece of business to take care of before he walks away from City Hall.
Hart — who ran unopposed for the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors earlier this year and will be sworn in as the Second District supervisor next month — has two more council meetings to attend, this Tuesday and Dec. 11.
In one of his last stands, he is pushing the City Council to adopt a project labor agreement that would require contractors to hire only local unionized workers for the city’s major capital construction projects.
The city is considering such an agreement on projects valued at more than $25 million, which includes the upcoming construction of a new police station and electrical upgrades at the El Estero Wastewater Treatment Plant. The council has not finalized the exact dollar threshold amount for the PLA; the number could change at Tuesday’s meeting.
Project labor agreements are pre-hire collective bargaining agreements that establish standard terms and conditions applicable to a specific construction project or category of projects, according to a City Hall staff report.
The agreement would require companies that do business with the city to first look to hire local employees from the union hall. PLAs are negotiated prior to advertisement for bids and a requirement to be bound by the agreement becomes part of the bid submission, procurement documents and contract. The contractor and all subcontractors of any tier must sign on to the PLA before performing any covered work, according to a city staff report.
The PLAs also include provisions for wages and benefits, hiring procedures, uniform work conditions, expedited labor dispute resolution procedures, management rights and no-strike commitments.
Typically, the agreements limit the number of employees that nonunion contractors can bring to a project without utilizing the union hiring hall system.
Since 2014, the city has issued 123 low-bid design-bid-build projects, and in those cases the prime contractor was located an average of 63 miles away.
About a third of those contracts included unions as the prime contractors.
Hart told Noozhawk that his proposal is designed to give local workers preferential treatment.
“Having local workers hired through the local union processs ensures local workers get first preference,” he said. “Most of the construction jobs are going to out-of-the-area subcontractors.”
When the matter first went before the council in late September, it drew instant opposition from Council members Jason Dominguez, Randy Rowse and Kristen Sneddon. Business leaders blasted the proposal, as well, suggesting that Hart is trying to give his union supporters some payback on his way out the door.
“Those of you who are supporting the idea of a PLA are the same people who often give voice to ‘worker rights,’ ‘living wages,’ ‘wage theft,’ ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion,’” Eric Christen, executive director of the Poway-based Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, said in a letter to the council.
“But under a PLA, all of those apparent concerns are thrown to the wind and replaced by fidelity to big labor special interests. This is hypocritical and immoral.”
Christen said workers will be forced to join unions and contribute to a union benefits package just to be part of a big municipal job under the rules of a project labor agreement.
“These workers now are obligated to pay union dues for a union they did not voluntarily join,” he said. “When you add up the costs for medical, the loss of pension contributions, the payment of dues and ‘other fees,’ a PLA in Santa Barbara will cost a nonunion electrician up to $30.51 an hour.”
Hart says local workers have a greater sense of civic pride.
“If you are an out-of-town worker, you are not as connected to the community,” he said.
Tuesday’s council meeting begins at 2 p.m. at City Hall, 735 Anacapa St.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.