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 Downtown LA Project Brings Jobs to Labor and Community
by Gary Phillips
Contributing Write
Construction on the Grand Avenue Project in downtown Los Angeles is finally set to begin in April, despite the current economic slow down and following months of delays.
The project was put back on track after a new investor, a Dubai-based fund, recently put up $100 million for construction. An early investor, California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), had to pull its funds because it was too heavily leveraged in the downtown real estate market. But the delay had a silver lining – it gave architects extra time to refine designs for the project's first phase, which includes a 48-story hotel and condo tower, a 19-story apartment and condo tower, and a park.
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A proposed class action lawsuit was filed Feb. 14 in U.S. District Court which alleges that a major oil refinery construction and maintenance firm, Brinderson Constructors Inc.’s (BCI), entered into a contract with a bogus labor organization to avoid continued liability in a separate, ongoing lawsuit over unpaid overtime and other wage violations. The suit claims that workers were forced to join the “union” against their will under threat of losing their jobs. BCI is a major national construction firm that performs construction and maintenance work in power plants, oil refineries and other industrial settings.
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$15 Billion Agreement Could be Finalized in 90 Days
Amidst an overflowing room of over 150 Building Trades and community
members, developers and contractors, the Board of Commissioners of the
Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles voted on Feb. 21 to
negotiate a Project Labor Agreement with the Los Angeles/Orange County
Building Trades Council worth $15 billion.
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Children's Hospital Los Angeles
In July of 1851, two railroad strikers were shot and killed and dozens of others were injured protesting over their working conditions by the State Militia in New York. On Jan. 13, 1874, as unemployed workers demonstrated in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park, mounted police charged the demonstrators, which included women and children, beating them without regard with clubs and injuring hundreds.
