Yeah I know ‘why we fight’ was the tagline on a series of world war era propaganda pieces, but it’s also an applicable tagline for this great Union Tribune editorial savaging big labor…
UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Labor union greed may kill convention center
July 5, 2007
Suppose a company was willing to:
Pour $850 million of its own money into a local project (an amount sufficient to build a football stadium).
Hire 6,500 construction workers and pay them union-level wages.
Hire 2,000 permanent service-industry employees and allow them to join labor unions, if they choose.
Build the largest hotel and a second convention center in a region that depends upon tourism as its third-largest industry.
Yet, suppose that one labor union wanted even more, to the point that the company said “Goodbye, San Diego” and “Let’s talk, Seattle.”
That pretty much describes the current scenario here. Gaylord Entertainment of Nashville is building a national convention business network and would like to establish a West Coast presence on the Chula Vista bayfront. The company is negotiating with Chula Vista and the San Diego Unified Port District to build a 2,000-room hotel, the county’s largest, and a convention center.
First, Gaylord wants to resolve labor issues. Labor talks have been going on for a year and the company set June 30 as a deadline.
Although Gaylord is willing to pay union-level wages to construction workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is pressing for a project labor agreement, allowing only union contractors. That would eliminate 80 percent of contractors from even bidding for the work. The lessened competition could increase the project costs by as much as $75 million, by some estimates.
To be sure, negotiating deadlines are often extended or cast aside. In these negotiations, just one side, labor, is commenting – or posturing – in public.
Holding a major project hostage to a union-only, sweetheart deal is a despicable tactic. Perhaps labor leaders’ horizons don’t extend beyond their own membership and harm to the region at large is not their concern. Yet, IBEW Business Manager Allan Shur risks losing years of high-paying employment for his own members as well as 2,000 permanent union jobs.
It is well past time to quit bluffing and compromise: The risks are way too great, the potential incremental gains are way too small.
The project labor agreement tactic is economic blackmail and should be discarded before it drives up the cost of projects important to the public such as a hospital, a stadium or a power plant.