On Tuesday, March 5, the residents of Los Angeles went to the polls to vote on Proposition A, the PERMANENT half cent increase that will raise our sales tax to a whopping 9½%, one of the highest rates in the nation. This ballot measure, rushed to the ballot in less than two weeks without any...
More than 30 California cities are likely to defy top union officials by asking their citizens in 2014 to vote on enacting a “home rule” charter for local control. Cities want to free their purely municipal affairs from costly union-backed state mandates, for reasons revealed in these recent articles: Unions Rise to Defense of “Prevailing Wage” Rates Jeopardizing...
Inquiring minds are watching an excellent video on The Kudlow Report between Larry Kudlow and David Harkin. Harkin is the author of a study on US infrastructure and a professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Partial Transcript Kudlow: President Obama wants to spend another $50 billion on repairs to our infrastructure. Do we...
“Here’s the plan: pretend that unions aren’t exploiting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as a tool to obtain labor agreements. Maybe no one will notice.” Supporters and opponents of CEQA reform are straining to avoid this uncomfortable subject as influential Democrats in the California State Senate prepare to introduce an alleged reform of CEQA...
Another year brings another rush of costly union construction monopolies to K-12 school districts and community college districts in California. Consider that voters in 2012 authorized 115 California educational districts to borrow a grand total of $15,266,651,190 ($15.3 billion) by selling bonds to investors, and you can see why schools are such an alluring target for special...
Despite their reputation as effective and extensive abusers of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to pursue economic objectives unrelated to environmental protection, California union leaders are strategically choosing to be vocal activists against CEQA reform. Union leaders are obviously quite confident that corporate executives and the news media will hesitate to make them accountable for...
On January 23, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its annual Economic News Release: Union Members Summary. It announced that the overall union membership rate – the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union – dropped from 11.8 percent in 2011 to 11.3 percent in 2012. The...
Last week an article written by UnionWatch contributor Kevin Dayton was republished in its entirety by the State Building and Construction Trades Council. While we are pleased that the SBCTC is sharing our material with their members, we object to their characterization of UnionWatch as an “anti-union website.” We also invite them to consider the...
California Governor Jerry Brown claimed in his State of the State address that California now has “a solid and enduring budget.” His Finance Department even predicts state budget surpluses. Despite the jubilation at the state capitol inspired by tax increases and one-party rule, California cities seem skeptical, as shown by their continued efforts to exercise their state constitutional rights to govern their own municipal affairs,...
It’s a heady time to be a top construction union official in California, as the California High-Speed Rail Authority presumably now holds proposals from as many as five design-build consortiums to build the first segment of the $68 billion project. If this project moves forward, it will become part of the pantheon of huge American infrastructure projects...
On January 11, 2013, a video camera recorded a stunning public tirade by Fresno’s top construction union official at a conference about supposed local contracting opportunities for the first segment of California’s High Speed Rail. Below is video footage of the beginning of a panel discussion about Project Labor Agreements, and below that is the...
California State Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills) is introducing a bill to address one of the numerous absurdities in California’s prevailing wage law: the $38-46 per hour wage paid to laborers who clean up construction sites after taxpayer-funded construction is finished. As revealed in a 2009 state wage enforcement action against a construction company working...