Another mail piece going out to East County residents regarding the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District Board considering an “I take it back” on the promise for fair and open competition.
See the prior mail from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.
This piece is from the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction. Below that is a message from Eric Christen of CFEC.
by Eric Christen
In November of 2012 the taxpayers and voters in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District approved Prop V, a $398 million construction bond meant to add to and improve on existing facilities at the college. Needing 55% to pass, Prop V was was narrowly approved with 58.2% of the vote.
One of the reasons why this bond passed in an area that is politically very conservative was because of the endorsement of the well-respected San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which gave Prop V its blessing. It did so because the Board of Trustees at the college explicitly promised to not place a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on the bond money but instead promised to have projects built using fair and open competition.
Fast forward three years and here we are with a bond that has been approved but is being overseen by a newly constituted Board of Trustees, as of November 2014, that has been taken over by union-friendly members who have all pledged to support PLAs. Having had NO discussion of PLAs, this board majority will, we have been told, place on its October 20 agenda a vote to approve “negotiations” with local trade unions of a PLA for all Prop V work. This is an outrage.
Forcing all workers to be hired through union hiring halls, pay into union benefit packages they’ll never benefit from, and excluding non-union apprentices from working at all, are all provisions found in PLAs. Any Trustee who votes to support such blatant waste and discrimination not only deserves condemnation, they deserve to be recalled.
Should the Trustees at the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District vote to approve a PLA both will happen.
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Admin note, 10/19/15 — The members of the College Board in 2012 are the same individuals at present; they agreed then to fair and open competition. http://www.gcccd.edu/governing-board/default.html