Building Trades News

Charter City Proposal Will Now Include Language to Protect Prevailing Wages

By Roy San Filippo
Staff Writer

On May 27, Building Trades craft unions won an important victory in the fight to protect prevailing wages in the City of Buena Park. Meeting under a special "study session," the City Council voted 4-0 to include language that would protect prevailing wages in Buena Park's charter city proposal.

Because the Council was meeting under a study session, the proposal must be officially approved at their meeting on June 10. The charter city proposal will then be placed on the November ballot for a vote by Buena Park residents.

The language to protect prevailing wages in the charter was submitted by the LA/OC Building Trades Council. Without that language, Buena Park would have the ability to circumvent prevailing wages on public works projects without state of federal funding.

"This is an important victory to protect the wages and working conditions of construction workers, not only in Buena Park, but throughout the state," said LA/OC Building Trades Council Executive Secretary Richard Slawson. "Those who were looking to Buena Park as an example of how to use charter city status as a way to undercut prevailing wage laws are going to be very disappointed. The Building Trades will mobilize to protect prevailing wages wherever and whenever they threatened."

Tefere Gebre, Executive Director of the Orange County Labor Federation was on-hand to support the Building Trades. "This is not only about Buena Park; this is a virus certain interests want to spread all across the state. They are trying to undermine prevailing wages city by city. We are sending a clear message to city officials that we will not allow them to take away good paying jobs in Buena Park," he said.

Circumventing prevailing wages laws was seen by some Buena Park officials as one of the benefits of adopting charter city status. But the Buena Park City Council reversed course on the issue after months of pressure from craft unions and the Building Trades Council. Over 500 Building Trades members were mobilized at City Hall for the May 12 meeting of the Council's charter city exploratory committee and again for the Council's meeting on May 27. The BT Council also called on state and national elected officials to write and call Buena Park City Council members to urge them to protect prevailing wages.

Several elected officials including Assembly members Tony Mendoza and Jose Solorio sent representatives to express their solidarity with Building Trades craft unions and to speak on behalf of prevailing wages. State Senator Lou Correa personally attended both meetings on May 12 and 27 and forcefully argued for the need to protect prevailing wages in Buena Park.

The Building Trades received a tremendous showing of solidarity from the Orange County Labor movement. Several unions turned out to support the building trades including UFCW Local 324. Rick Eiden, Vice President of UFCW Local 324, and President of the Orange County Labor Federation addressed a rally outside of City Hall stating that the 2500 UFCW members living in Buena Park were firmly in support of prevailing wages. "We are 100 percent behind the Building Trades and we are here to make sure your wages are protected and to make sure the wages of the citizens of Buena Park are protected," said Eiden.
 The Council's decision averted a political battle to fight Buena Park's charter city status on the November ballot that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"This victory really illustrates the importance of political action and what we can accomplish when we mobilize our members and flex our political muscle" said Council Representative Jim Adams.