Union Campaign Contributions Pile Up Before School Board Vote on Union Deal
Union Campaign Contributions Pile Up Before School Board Vote on Union Deal
Whenever California voters approve a sizable bond measure to fund construction at a school or community college district, union lobbyists quickly scramble to win control of the work through a Project Labor Agreement. At the Salinas Union High School District, a flood of union campaign money preceded a September 29 board vote to abandon negotiations and...
By Kevin Dayton
How Government Unions Are Destroying America
How Government Unions Are Destroying America
Not one presidential candidate, apart from Gov. Walker’s last-ditch rhetoric prior to dropping out, has discussed the problems with unionized government as a major issue. That’s too bad, because these problems are bigger than even most critics acknowledge. When people discuss the need to reform, if not eliminate, public sector unions, the only reason typically...
By Edward Ring
Caltrans Union Spokesman Understates Engineers' Cost by $71M
Caltrans Union Spokesman Understates Engineers' Cost by $71M
In a hearing on Senator Moorlach’s SBX1-9 (Responsible Contacting for Caltrans) bill, Ted Toppin of the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) made a series of demonstrably false claims regarding the cost of Caltrans engineers. Toppin claimed that the cost of a fully-loaded engineer – including all wages, benefits and even the cost of their office and service truck –...
By Robert Fellner
Project Labor Agreement Requirement Downplayed in Pro-Bond Campaigns
Project Labor Agreement Requirement Downplayed in Pro-Bond Campaigns
Who decides what action items are on a school board agenda? A case in Monterey County, California reveals that unions think they can make some of those decisions. In November 2014, voters in the Salinas Union High School District authorized the district to borrow $128 million for school construction by selling bonds to investors. By March 2015,...
By Kevin Dayton
Higher Taxes for Roads, or for Union Overstaffing and Overpaying?
Higher Taxes for Roads, or for Union Overstaffing and Overpaying?
California has some of the highest gasoline taxes and transportation fees – including hidden cap and trade costs not accounted for in the taxes and fees – along with the lowest ranked roads in the nation. This year, the majority Democratic Party found new ways to spend the $6 billion to $9 billion in additional...
By John Moorlach
Unions Seek Control of Recent California School Bond Measures
Unions Seek Control of Recent California School Bond Measures
Has California school and community college facility construction become a perpetual government stimulus program for politically-favored construction trade unions? Fifteen years ago, it was obvious that many school and college districts in California needed new construction, modernization, or renovation of their facilities for the safety and comfort of students, teachers, administrators, and support staff. That’s...
By Kevin Dayton
California Unions Masquerade as Community-Based Environmental Groups
California Unions Masquerade as Community-Based Environmental Groups
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a labor issue. That’s why unions are prominent opponents of any amendments to CEQA that would restrict or prohibit using the law to achieve objectives not related to environmental protection. Unions routinely use CEQA as a tool to pressure public agencies and private developers (or their agents) to sign collective bargaining agreements, project labor...
By Kevin Dayton
Raising Gas Taxes While Unions Support Billions for Bullet Train
Raising Gas Taxes While Unions Support Billions for Bullet Train
Editor’s Note: It is difficult to find a better example of how California’s labor movement fails ordinary workers than their support for high speed rail. Because that project, using foreign sourced materials and yielding virtually no benefits – economic, environmental, or societal – that justify the cost, is at the expense of projects that are...
By Jon Coupal
Libertarians, Government Unions, and Infrastructure Development
Libertarians, Government Unions, and Infrastructure Development
“Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” – John Cleese, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979 Any discussion of California’s neglected infrastructure has to recognize the three factors most responsible, libertarians, environmentalists, and...
By Edward Ring
Desalination Plants vs. Bullet Trains and Pensions
Desalination Plants vs. Bullet Trains and Pensions
Current policy solutions enacted to address California’s water crisis provide an object lesson in how corruption masquerading as virtue is impoverishing the general population to enrich a handful of elites. Instead of building freeways, expanding ports, restoring bridges and aqueducts, and constructing dams, desalination plants, and power stations, California’s taxpayers are pouring tens of billions...
By Edward Ring
An Insider Candidly Interprets the Divisiveness of a Local Union Initiative
An Insider Candidly Interprets the Divisiveness of a Local Union Initiative
Over the past 15 years, local elected officials in California have frequently claimed publicly and privately that union Project Labor Agreement mandates for taxpayer-funded construction contracts are the most intense, time-consuming, and divisive issues they’ve ever considered. When Project Labor Agreements are placed on local government meeting agendas, modern records are often broken for the...
By Kevin Dayton
Unions Still Selectively Finding Environmental Calamity in California Solar Projects
Unions Still Selectively Finding Environmental Calamity in California Solar Projects
Out of nowhere comes a new, well-funded champion of Mother Earth. A group called “Monterey County Residents for Responsible Development” has submitted two sets of letters and exhibits to Monterey County alleging serious deficiencies in its environmental review for the county’s first large solar photovoltaic power plant, the 280 megawatt California Flats. Obviously the Monterey...
By Kevin Dayton
More Taxpayer Money Spent Justifying Union Political Agenda in California
More Taxpayer Money Spent Justifying Union Political Agenda in California
About 95% of the public policy studies and reports circulating among California state and local governments reject a free market approach to societal challenges. Instead, these studies and reports advocate more government spending, more government programs, and more government intrusion into commerce and personal behavior. Obviously “Progressive” intellectual thought in California gets a disproportionate share of funding....
By Kevin Dayton
Caught and Exposed: Secret Union Dealings of a College District
Caught and Exposed: Secret Union Dealings of a College District
The Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County (California) declared in a December 8, 2014 letter that it “unconditionally commits that it will cease, desist from, and not repeat the challenged past action…” That action involves secret dealings with unions. A construction trade association was willing to threaten litigation to make this happen. And to emphasize...
By Kevin Dayton