Save Our Community was founded in the movement to resist Wal-Mart's development in Rosemead, California. Now, it has become a general site for news, information, gossip, talk, and blogging about Rosemead. We also have stories about South San Gabriel, San Gabriel, Montebello, and occasionally about Pico Rivera, El Monte, South El Monte, Alhambra, Temple City, and other nearby communities. Your host is Todd. If you want a blog just sign up, get approved, and start writing. Good posts will be moved onto the home page.
The "pro-union spin" version
The "pro-union spin" version is no longer available on-line.
Mysterious.
LOL. It's a conspiracy.
The argument is that PLAs tend to help the local economy. In LBC, that's very true, because it's such a heavily unionized city compared to San Gabriel.
He also cites a study that says PLAs don't increase costs. (I think it's a university study.)
That's most of what I recall. My take in it is this:
Trade associations just hate PLAs, because it gives an edge to union labor in getting contracts.
The local benefits of PLAs are pretty basic. The wages go to local hires, so a lot of money gets spent locally. Unions have their own internal regulations that give work to local members before out-of-town laborers get jobs.
Contractors without unions have different hiring standards. The worst ones hire undocumented guys off the street - and this isn't uncommon. Others hire qualified people from out-of-town, where they earn less. They'll bring people out from places with lower wages.
The new generation of PLAs in LA are slightly different, because they're more politically sustainable -- they stipulate that the unions, who have been pretty lousy at diversity in the past, start recruiting underrepresented minorities (mainly African Americans, but, also Asians). They aren't really getting Asians, but African American apprenticeships are up.
(In NYC, there were a lot of Chinese construction workers, and they formed their own union. Then, they fought to get into the construction unions. They literally had to threaten to get into a riot, to be included.)
It would be good if these unions would try to recruit local Asians. There are Vietnamese and Chinese people doing construction, and I doubt if they're organized. Judging from some flyers out there, they're in competition with local one-man handyman operations.
Then, a PLA in San Gabriel would mean potential jobs for local Asian construction workers, and at very good wages.
As it is, a PLA would likely to benefit mostly Latinos and Whites locally. Not a bad thing, but not equitable. It would be better than, say, hiring Asians and Latinos locally at low wages and with less safety protections.
When Rosemead did those road repairs with fed money back when they were trying to spiff up the city and get people to support Wal-Mart, they hired a contractor from Orange County. How much of that money went to hire people in Rosemead, and at the CA prevailing wage?