Seeking to help at-risk workers

Business leaders, trade unions, community activists and the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency say they are on the verge of an agreement that could help provide access to middle-income construction jobs for disadvantaged Angelenos.

Under a policy approved this year by the redevelopment agency and the Los Angeles City Council and endorsed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, officials are ironing out the final details of a system under which low-income residents would be hired on some construction projects that use Community Redevelopment Agency funding.

The Construction Careers and Project Stabilization Policy has won the backing of elected officials, religious leaders, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and a nonprofit advocacy group called the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. It also has gained at least begrudging acceptance by some contractors that are struggling through a difficult economy and would rather not be burdened with additional costs or requirements.

“It’s a particularly innovative program, and it’s rare to get this many constituencies on the same page,” said Harley Shaiken, a UC Berkeley professor specializing in labor issues.

Such widespread support “indicates a real desire to make this work and it reflects the potential benefits: quality work for the employers, high-wage jobs and, for the community, a more stable environment in those neighborhoods,” Shaiken said.

“And for those who get the jobs, it’s a second chance.”

The policy would apply, with some exceptions, to contractors on Community Redevelopment Agency-subsidized projects that involve at least $500,000 in public improvement funds or $1 million in CRA investment.

It would potentially cover 15,000 construction jobs over the next five years, the agency said. Three out of every 10 of those jobs would go to local residents who live in areas targeted by CRA development, and 10% of those would go to residents considered to be “at risk.” Private contractors would be the employers, and the people they hire would be new entrants to union apprenticeship programs.

In some ways, it could hardly be a more difficult time to build acceptance for such a program among businesses, judging by a study released last week.

UC Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education found that housing construction job losses “have begun to filter into the commercial construction sector,” said Sylvia Allegretto, one of the report’s authors.

But that doesn’t mean the program isn’t needed now, said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the L.A. County Federation of Labor and chairwoman of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which advocates for issues favored by organized labor.

“We will need to have these young people and unemployed, unskilled workers trained in advance of the time when they will be needed. Construction trade jobs are careers that require between two and five years of training. You just can’t do this overnight,” Durazo said.

On that point, Durazo finds some agreement from someone who would ordinarily be seated on the opposite side of whatever bargaining table was between them.

“It’s understandable that contractors feel frustrated over the need to build this cost into our business,” said Dain Parry, a general superintendent for Morrow-Meadows Corp., an electrical contracting firm based in the City of Industry. “But like it or not, union workers are better trained than the alternative, and having trained professionals means I can complete my projects on time and with fewer accidents and injuries.”

Flor Barajas-Tena, a construction program director at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, said that this kind of program would have a value that goes beyond one job for one individual, even if the hiring eventually fell short of expectations.

“Ultimately, this policy is about community revitalization. It’s going to allow these local residents to invest in their own communities,” Barajas-Tena said.

Some see it as the wrong kind of program, coming at an especially tough time.

Eric Christen, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, said the hiring policy would be discriminatory against contractors with non-union workforces. In addition, builders already are struggling through a difficult economy and don’t need any new burdens, he said.

“It’s going to increase costs and it’s going to decrease the number of bidders on those contracts, and they will have to float bond after bond to finish these jobs because they won’t be coming in on budget,” Christen said.

The UC Berkeley study and another by the California Budget Project showed the need for better-paying jobs.

Working families had not fully recovered what they had lost during the last recession before the current economic downturn hit, the Berkeley report found.

The California Budget Project, a research group that advocates for low-income residents, said that income gains hadn’t been shared by low-wage workers, who saw hourly earnings fall by 5.2% from 2004 to 2007. In addition, more than 800,000 part-time employees said they wanted to work more, up 30% from July 2007.

“The recovery from the recession of 2001 was a case of too little, too late for California’s workers,” said Alissa Anderson, the nonprofit’s deputy director and author of the report.

Tying economic development to creation of union jobs is the kind of nontraditional effort that has helped boost union membership after more than a decade of decline.

For the first six months of the year, union membership among civilian wage earners and salaried workers nationally grew by half a percentage point to 12.6% when compared with the same period last year, the first increase in 12 years, according to UCLA’s “State of the Unions in 2008” report. Using a different methodology, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education came up with a different figure for overall union membership -- 14% -- and called it the first increase in 13 years.

Organized labor has gained ground by concentrating on healthcare workers and others who haven’t been part of unions’ traditional base.

“There have been some important changes in where union workers are found,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Berkeley labor research center.

South Los Angeles electrician Cora Davis is eager for the Construction Careers and Project Stabilization program to get going.

More than 10 years ago, Davis was a single mother in Milwaukee drifting between low-wage clerical jobs. Hearing that the Southern California labor climate was friendlier to women, Davis moved to Los Angeles and entered an apprenticeship program.

Now, Davis, 50, has her own business, Precious Electric, named after her 28-year-old daughter. Davis said she would be ready to provide training opportunities when the proposed program began, perhaps as early as this fall.

On Wednesday, she was hard at work installing an electrical panel for an elderly South Los Angeles resident who had been ripped off by a bogus contractor and had been unable to move back into his home. Davis said she was doing the work free of charge.

“One of my mom’s sayings was that you cannot get your blessings unless you give blessings to other people,” Davis said, “and I really do believe in giving back to my community.”

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ron.white@latimes.com