Union Files Lawsuit Exploiting ObamaCare in California for Organizing Purposes

How a Basketball Arena Would Expand the Unionized Workforce in Sacramento: Part 2

Part 1 of “How a Basketball Arena Would Expand the Unionized Workforce in Sacramento” described how unions obtained a monopoly on construction of the arena through a backroom deal for a Project Labor Agreement. Part 2 describes how unions are likely to win representation of the food and service workers at the new downtown Sacramento...

By Kevin Dayton

How a Basketball Arena Would Expand the Unionized Workforce in Sacramento: Part 1

Proponents of a proposed $447 million new “entertainment and sports center” in downtown Sacramento for the Kings professional basketball team claim the arena itself would generate over 4,000 full-time jobs, including employees hired temporarily for construction, employees for operations of the arena, and other outside service jobs related to arena events and activities. Proponents also...

By Kevin Dayton

Unions Fail to Retain San Diego Mayor's Office Despite Advantages

Republican City Councilman Kevin Faulconer handily defeated Democrat City Councilman David Alvarez with 54.4% of the vote in a February 11, 2014 special election runoff for Mayor of San Diego. The result went against usual expectations. Contrary to the common perception that campaign spending by “big business” often overwhelms humble community-based union-backed campaigns, more money...

By Kevin Dayton

Taxpayer Group Pushing to Gut California’s Prop. 13 is Union Front Group

One lingering success of the Right in California is the public’s continued association of taxpayers’ organizations with fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and limited government. Statewide groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and regional groups such as the San Diego County Taxpayers Association maintain credibility as leaders in resisting foolhardy tax increases and wasteful...

By Kevin Dayton

Sabotaged: North Bay Business Journal On-Line Poll on Project Labor Agreement

On January 22, 2014, the North Bay Business Journal (covering Sonoma, Marin, and Napa counties in California) began an on-line “Pulse Poll” asking readers to vote on whether they supported a proposed government mandate for construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions as a condition of working on Sonoma County projects over...

By Kevin Dayton

Unions Virtually Alone in Love with California High-Speed Rail

Even close observers of the California High-Speed Rail Authority have struggled to track developments for the state’s planned bullet train. The debacle began in November 2008, when 52.7% of California voters approved Proposition 1A and triggered serious planning for what could be the most expensive construction project in human history. With that kind of money...

By Kevin Dayton

2013: A Dismal Year for Freedom in California Public Works Construction

Elections matter. The November 2012 election was a disaster on the state and local level for advocates of economic and personal freedom in California. It was a culmination of setbacks going back to the November 1996 election and only mildly interrupted by the recall of Governor Gray Davis in October 2003. Construction trade unions entered...

By Kevin Dayton

Will California Union Officials Get to Discuss Project Labor Agreements in Closed Session?

A September 17, 2013 article in www.UnionWatch.org reported on “the end of public deliberation and votes for Project Labor Agreements in the legislative branch of state and local governments. Instead, backroom deals are made in the executive branch to give unions control of the work.” Now another union strategy has been discovered for evading public scrutiny:...

By Kevin Dayton

University of California Releases SEIU-Funded Report Justifying SeaTac Wage Measure

Someday a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California will have the courage to suggest that hosting the Miguel Contreras Labor Program at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses compromises the academic credibility of the institution and taints the overall image of its research programs. In the meantime, the California Labor...

By Kevin Dayton

Unions “Using Political Leverage to Punish Those Exercising Rights” in California Constitution

On October 13, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 7, which cuts off state funds designated for construction to any California city that exercises its right under the California Constitution to establish its own policies concerning government-mandated wage rates (so-called “prevailing wages”) on contracts. This was a major victory for the State Building...

By Kevin Dayton

Union Threatens to Block Apple, Inc. “Spaceship” with Environmental Lawsuit

Perhaps the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West deserves grudging praise and respect for refusing to bow to American idols. Few groups have the gumption to challenge or criticize Apple, Inc., one of America’s most admired corporations. Apple generally gets away with commercial activity that the Left would slam relentlessly if practiced by other...

By Kevin Dayton

Union Backroom Deal on Convention Center Pays Off in San Diego

Only a few advocates of fiscal responsibility and limited government have comprehensively and widely engaged in the business of state and local governments in California over many years. They recognize with dismay that union leaders and their cronies have become adept at evading the constraints of republican constitutional government. Unions have learned how to circumvent...

By Kevin Dayton

California Construction Unions Circumvent Public Scrutiny of Project Labor Agreements

A common and enduring complaint of the political Left is that constitutional structures established in the country’s republican form of government hinder progress and subvert the democratic will of the people. According to such thinking, those constitutional structures need to be reformed and modernized so that government can be more “democratic.” A few astute political observers...

By Kevin Dayton