The San Diego City Beat recently blew the whistle on the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a viciously anti-union business lobby representing contractors across the nation. The local paper took the lobby to task for spreading misinformation in its attempt to gather sufficient signatures to put an anti-Project Labor Agreement measure on the local ballot under the guise of "Fair and Open Competition."
Project Labor Agreements are pre-hire contracts between contractors and workers which ensure that a percentage of employees hired are local, that safety and wage standards are pursued, and that projects are completed on-time. San Diego City Beat took issue with signature gatherers asking respondents about potholes, something most people have a great distaste for, despite the fact that pothole repair does not fall under the jurisdiction of Project Labor Agreements which are reserved for large-scale construction:
Claim: “Have you signed the one to fix your potholes?”
Truth: The only time you’ll see a project-labor agreement is on large projects. So, no, this won’t fix your potholes.
Claim: “They want non-unions to bid with public unions on any type of road work or anything like that… any type of public service so that we can get it done at a cheaper deal.”
Truth: “As far as any of us can remember, we don’t have any project-labor agreements when it comes to street work,” says Bill Harris, spokesperson for the city’s transportation department. PLAs don’t limit who can bid on a project—both union and non-union companies can submit bids. And, as for the “cheaper deal,” there’s no definitive evidence showing that projects done under a PLA cost more.
SD City Beat also captured video of the misleading interactions:
The "Fair and Open Competition" effort, which also claims non-union contractors are banned from bidding on small projects, an outrageous fallacy, is just one of three ballot initiatives recently pursued in San Diego. Another, to change how the San Diego school board functions -- something supported by zillionaire Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs -- was defeated when it fell short of the necessary signatures. Construction workers are hoping the same fate awaits the ABC's anti-union signature push.
There is surprisingly little media attention on the ABC, even though they act as a sort of greedy, corporate Koch Industries type figure in the construction industry, pushing for low wage, unskilled and unsafe working conditions at every turn. An analysis of data at the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement website found that ABC, with only 0.4% of California’s contractors, account for 24 percent of wage and hour violations.
One such violation was decided upon in Oakland earlier this month. The San Diego Building Trades released the following statement concerning the violations:
The owner and president of NBC General Contractor Corporation of Oakland, an ABC member and supporter, has pleaded guilty to violations of the state’s insurance, labor and penal codes, placed on felony probation and ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution for deliberately misrepresenting the company’s payroll and job classifications in order to win public works contracts.
NBC owner Monica Mui Ung admitted to making intentional misrepresentations that enabled her company to win 27 public works projects between 2003 and 2007 that NBC would not otherwise have earned. The contractor further underpaid workers’ compensation premiums owed the state, and failed to pay prevailing wage, overtime, sick leave and other required benefits to workers.
In addition, a four-year suspended prison sentence and 10 years felony probation, Ung was ordered to make restitution of $850,000 to the State Compensation Insurance Fund, and $350,000 to 43 employees.
The ABC needs over 60,000 signatures to make their ballot initiative a reality.