Building Trades News

The California Legislature, the Governor, business and organized labor are all waging a battle over right-sizing the State budget. What's right and what's wrong are the real questions. Democrats and Republicans see the budget issues as being that the "glass is half-full or the glass is half-empty."

These budget battles are nothing new. They have been going on for the last 150 years in the State because of the vastly different views of those who are negotiating. But what has changed is where the funding for the State budget is coming from. California's ascendance economically and socially has been astronomical over the last 80 years. Its major industrial centers sprang up almost overnight once water was made available to Southern California and especially the Los Angeles area. Following that was the mass migration of a new work force running from the Great Depression and in the 1940s filling wartime jobs that became a huge part of the Southern California economy and eventually to an aircraft industry that created hundreds of thousands of jobs, which supported an expanding middle-class. These jobs and the supporting industries weren't just jobs, they were jobs and industries where there were Unions and Union contracts that raised wages and provided retirement and family medical coverage for working families. These were jobs that transformed the balance of power in the State from its "business as usual" oligarchy to a populist-political-workers' society.

Where have the jobs gone that supported the grand society that workers and their Unions created? And who is working in California that can support the budget that we need to construct a modern infrastructure, provide teachers and safety personnel in our cities and counties and the other government services that lead to an organized society? We have to look what business has done in the name of profit and what workers have allowed to happen when we made decisions not in our own best interests, all of which got us to where we are today.

California boasted three dozen shipyards, manufacturing commercial and military vessels, which employed over 100,000 well-paid workers--automobile manufacturing and part builders located throughout the urban centers, steel plants, tire and rubber factories, aircraft companies in huge varieties that employed tens of thousands of Union workers, oil producers and refinery operations, chemical industries and their plants, breweries that produced millions of gallons of the foamy stuff each year, the motion picture and television businesses, construction, mining, aerospace companies and the food and hotel services all provided good Union jobs until recently. They also provided opportunities for Union Construction jobs for all of the Crafts, not only during construction of new facilities, but for annual maintenance and periodic retrofit projects as well. One of the best example of annual projects were at the auto plants in both Northern and Southern California, where thousands of Craft Union members "changed the line" for the new car models. That was California's real "Gold." Millions of workers working for thousands of companies that had strong collective bargaining agreements providing the best wages, benefits and conditions anywhere in the world, and paying taxes into the system.

Because of these Union jobs, California was able to build the best roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water systems, power grid, and a host of other public infrastructure. The entire world admired our school system. But, something changed. At times, both the State and Federal administrations have undermined workers' rights and undermined the ability of many of our best, biggest and strongest industries to stay in business in California.

What happened? The shipyards, like California Boat, Todd Shipyard and many smaller yards were forced out of LA Harbor by the need for more port space so that we could, (the way it turned out) import more foreign products. In the 60s and 70s, the auto plants closed for a number of reasons, not the least of which was extreme environmental requirements and deadlines that were unreasonable. Following their leaving was the closure of our auto parts manufacturers including the tire and rubber plants. Steel mills, and other metals processing businesses were the next to close. Then, more recently, chemical companies, clothing manufacturers, glass, paper and corrugated-box plants and a host of others are gone.

Even breweries like Brew 102, Maier Brewing, Regal Pale Ale, Schlitz, Lucky Lager, Goebel Beer, G.B. Premium and Stroh's' that all participated in California's economic growth, were in part, forced out by environmental restrictions.

Then the biggest roadblocks to our economic growth were imposed. Foreign competition began in earnest. With manufacturers not satisfied with their profits, they began moving their facilities not just out of California but to the cheapest labor countries that they could find. We watched while all of our clothing and shoe manufacturers moved their operations to other countries. Their corporate names didn't change, just who they were having assembly their products and for a 20th of what they had paid workers here in United States. And we keep electing the same Congressmen and women, Governors and State Legislator who do nothing to intervene.

What are we left with: a business base that leans to service industries rather than manufacturing or production and an entire economy that leans toward importing our necessities and luxuries rather than building an infrastructure supporting good paying jobs and will provide a more balanced distribution of the wealth created by workers and their families.

If Californians want a fair share of the $1.6 Trillion California economy - the fifth largest in the world – and they want the Legislature and the Governor to be able to provide services and balance the State budget, then they have to make some demands. They have to demand that the Federal government put fair trade laws into place so that we can begin exporting American made products once again, which will force the manufacturers to create jobs and pay taxes here. The Federal and the California government must address business concerns more clearly and with regard to time requirements when implementing environmental rules so that business can maintain good paying jobs. And the Federal government must re-address workers' rights so that the decisions that the Federal courts have made undermining labor laws over the last 75 years can be rectified to support workers' free choice in having a Union and negotiate for a fair share of our wealth.

California needs some major overhauls just to keep its infrastructure usable. If, on this coming Labor Day Holiday, we all dedicate ourselves to pushing for a return to equality, fairness and common sense in the decision making by our elected officials we can make a difference and help to get California going in the right direction once again and provide a solution to the State's ongoing budget stalemates.