Senator Criticizes O.C. Labor Deal

A U.S. senator traveled from Capitol Hill to Orange County on Monday to kick up some dust in his campaign to forbid exclusive labor union pacts on federal construction projects.

Exhibit A for Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.): a sweeping five-year agreement that Orange County supervisors approved in January that requires union workers on nearly all county construction projects.

Hutchinson questioned the legality of Orange County’s new union with organized labor, which some skeptics have condemned as a marriage of convenience to bolster support for a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base.

Most labor agreements apply to individual public works projects, but Orange County’s pact covers all general contracts worth more than $225,000 and subcontracts for more than $15,000. The agreement expires in 2005.

“The board may well have crossed the legal use of such a project labor agreement,” Hutchinson said during the field hearing of the Senate Subcommittee of Employment, Safety and Training. “But that will ultimately be settled by the courts.”

Hutchinson was the only Senate committee member at the hearing, which he arranged after the labor agreement caught the attention of his staff.

“I grew up thinking that Orange County was this bastion of conservatism,” Hutchinson said. “So you wouldn’t think this would be the birthplace for one of the most far-reaching agreements in the country.”

No one representing Orange County was invited to testify during the two-hour, 20-minute hearing in the Irvine City Council chamber.

Nine people testified at the hearing; seven of those--including U.S. Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Diamond Bar) and state Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton)--criticized the labor agreements. They said the deals do little to improve quality or safety on job sites but do plenty to drive up costs.

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Rose Ramirez Girard, president of Phoenix Construction Services, told of an irrigation job on a Caltrans project in which her Riverside firm was hired as a subcontractor. She said she was allowed to use only three of her own employees and had to rely on a stream of union workers, some of whom were not qualified for the work.

“This ended up costing us time and money,” Girard said. “Phoenix did not have complete control of the project, but we had all of the liability.”

The hearing was often tense. The audience was split roughly between union members and opposing nonunion electricians, construction company executives and antilabor groups. Hutchinson admonished the crowd not to cheer or boo speakers who had opposing points of view.

An official from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California testified that a project labor agreement saved the agency $30 million in insurance costs. The lone union official who testified defended the agreements as a way to lower costs and ensure efficiency and quality because of no-strike provisions, uniform work rules and skilled labor.

“Project labor agreements are not ‘union-only,’ ” said Scott Wetch of the California State Building and Construction Trades Council. “All qualified workers are eligible for employment on these projects, whether or not they are union members.”

But Hutchinson contended that nonunion workers were forced to pay union dues or fees without receiving any long-term benefits.

“I think it’s a lose, lose, lose,” Hutchinson said. “And the only ones winning are the union bosses.”

His bill, SB-1194, has seen little action since it was referred to the Senate committee a year ago. Hutchinson said he doesn’t expect Congress to act on the measure this year because it would be “dead on arrival” at the White House.

Although the Orange County labor agreement received prominent attention at Monday’s hearing, Hutchinson’s bill would apply only to federal agencies.

“This was stacked, stacked against us,” said Paul Moreno, a member of Structural Ironworkers Local 433.

“It was a waste of taxpayers’ money for Sen. Hutchinson to come down here,” said Moreno, of Mission Viejo. “If the supervisors signed the agreement, then why not bring the supervisors over to answer for their votes instead of pretending to be on some fact-finding mission?”